One That Came Back Read Free Page A

visit, a friend of her parents’ she barely knew. What’s his name again? Albert… something. Albert Koos.
    Why did she feel so groggy? Oh yeah, the doctor gave her a pill. She didn’t like how it made her feel like she couldn’t do anything. But at least she finally finished sobbing and wailing uncontrollably. By the time she stopped, her ribs were sore from hacking coughs that hit when another wave of grief crashed over her.
    “Should we take her to the hospital?” asked her mother.
    “No,” said the doctor in his annoying doctor voice. “Not unless she tries to hurt herself. Or talks about wanting to. The girl needs rest and a couple days with minimal stress. That’s a horrific ordeal she just went through. I’ll write a prescription for sedatives.”
    “I’ll get those.” Her father’s voice bounced loudly in the living room, strong and authoritative as always.
    “One every eight hours, unless she’s sleeping. Let her sleep and give it to her when she wakes.”
    She didn’t want the pills. She wanted her brain to be clear, not in the dense fog it felt like it was hanging in now. Where was Luke? She needed him and his strong arms around her.
    Then she remembered. Strange men in suits put him in an SUV and drove away. She felt like crying again, but the tears wouldn’t come. She gave a long shuddering sigh. “Mom,” she whispered. “I want to go to bed.” She stood, her legs shaky under her. She swayed slightly.
    “Sure, honey. Sam, help her.”
    Her father put his arm around her shoulders. “Come on. Up you go. I gotchya.”
    Emily stumbled as she moved across the room and up the stairs to her old room on the second floor. Her father steadied her and helped her to the room. She sat on her bed and looked around. Her parents hadn’t changed much. The walls wore the same rose wallpaper she grew up with, and her white four poster bed had the rose quilt her mother made before she entered high school.
    “Thanks, Dad,” she said faintly. How could she feel so utterly exhausted?
    “You need to lie down and sleep now. No arguments.”
    “But—”
    He sighed loudly, cutting her off. “Fine. Is there anything you need?”
    She needed Luke, but saying that wouldn’t go over well. “My purse. I left it downstairs.”
    “Sure. I’ll be right back with it. And a glass of water. You need to drink something.”
    Her hazy mind registered a weak protest. Sure, when Sam Dougherty got his way, with his daughter under his roof just as he wanted, he was as sweet as a puppy. But cross him and a different beast unleashed. He could have matched those Rojos anger shout for shout today.
    Any other time Emily’s anger would have blazed at his need to control her movements and her actions. Now it was barely an ember in her anguished heart.
    Emily’s head spun, and she curled up on top of the quilt. Again, she wanted to cry, especially as she pictured Luke hovering over Gibs’ eerily limp body. How does it happen that one second a man lived and breathed, and the next all life was sucked from him? Her tears would not come, even as she made a face to cry them silently. They had been bled out of her body by shock and exhaustion, now leaving a hollow ache in her gut and head.
    “Here, sweetie.” A small weight settled at the end of the bed. A glass plinked on the wood of her old nightstand.
    “Thanks, dad,” she said in a small voice.
    “Do you need anything else? I’ll grab the paper and read it up here in your room. I told your mother to make some soup for you. She’s in the kitchen now. Lucky for you, we know Dr. Koos. He doesn’t do house calls anymore.”
    Yeah, leave me the fuck alone! If she had a scream left in her, she would have yelled it. Instead, she spoke like she always did, like a good girl. “No, thank you, daddy. I just want to sleep now.”
    His footsteps faded as he walked out of the room. Emily heard the familiar creak of the one step on the stairs that always protested when someone’s