CHAPTER ONE
1518 Words
CHAPTER ONE
Katie Winter paced up and down in the hospital waiting room, walking from one of the pale blue painted walls to the other, feeling stressed and worried and, above all, impatient. She glanced again at the door on the far wall. When would a doctor open it, to update her on what she needed to know?
It was five a.m. Just a few hours ago, her twin, Josie, had been airlifted here, to Rochester General Hospital, New York. After spending sixteen years in captivity, held prisoner by a psychopath who had taken her, Katie had finally hunted her down in the wilderness of Canada, a few miles from the border. After a deadly fight, Katie had rescued her twin from the underground hiding place where she’d been imprisoned.
As she walked up and down the waiting room, pushing back her brown hair, Katie felt guilt overtake her again. She was trying so hard not to feel responsible for what had happened. But it was impossible.
She was the cause of the hellish sixteen years her twin had endured. It was Katie's fault. All her doing.
It had been her idea to go on the kayaking adventure when the river was in flood. Josie's kayak had capsized. Unconscious and injured, she had been snatched from the riverbank where she had washed up, by the strange, bearded man, Gabriel Rath.
He'd taken her away with him, and after that, Katie had no idea what her twin had to endure. All she knew was that sixteen years later, after piecing together what had happened, she had confronted Rath in his hideaway.
She'd killed him. The memory of that fight was something her mind was still not ready to deal with. Arriving there hoping to speak to Rath, she’d had no choice but to defend herself as he attacked her savagely with a knife, yelling that he’d been waiting for her and for that moment. Katie had been forced to draw her g*n. She’d hoped to wound him with her shot, to make him drop the knife. But he’d jumped sideways, straight into the path of the bullet as she’d pulled the trigger, and it had killed him almost instantly.
And then, as afternoon turned to evening, she had found Josie, hidden away under the floorboards in a filthy, cold, underground room.
Katie could hardly bear to remember those first moments, first of hope and then of shock. Her twin had not spoken, but stared at her silently.
Josie was emaciated. Covered in sores. Her hair, her body, were filthy beyond description. Even her face was not like Katie remembered at all. Only those green eyes, wide and terrified, had looked familiar.
And she hadn't spoken. Hadn't said a word as Katie had frantically pulled her out of her hideaway. She’d been weak, dehydrated, almost comatose.
Then, in response to Katie’s phone call, the police and paramedics had helicoptered in. There must have been twenty people on the scene as night fell, bustling around, trying to manage the situation. Katie had been interrogated by the local RCMP officers and had to explain and justify her actions.
The fight scene had been tracked through the cabin. Markers had been put in place indicating what had happened where. The entire scene had been photographed.
Katie herself had been a murder suspect for a few long hours, until the evidence trail had been analyzed and she had been cleared. She knew the trauma of that time would live with her for years.
She barely remembered how she'd gotten out of that cold, remote scene, but what she did recall was begging that she should be taken where Josie was going.
The thought of being separated from her twin again was more than she could handle.
Scott, her boss at the cross-border task force, had intervened. He had organized for a helicopter to take Katie straight to the hospital in Rochester where Josie had been rushed earlier. Since Josie was a U.S. citizen the transfer had been cross-border.
Arriving at the hospital, Katie had been told that there would be no news for a few more hours while they assessed Josie, who was currently sedated following her ordeal. So Katie had booked into a guesthouse across the road from the hospital, but she'd done no more than take a shower to wash off the blood and grime from her fight, before returning to the hospital to find out if Josie was okay.
The wait felt endless. But finally, she saw, the door at the other end of the room was opening. At last, she would know if her sister was going to survive her ordeal.
Katie rushed over to the door as the doctor walked in. He was a man in his forties, with receding blonde hair, keen blue eyes, and a lean, intense face.
"Ms. Winter?" he greeted her.
"Yes, that's me. Doctor Nicklaus?" she read the name on his tag. "Is there any news?"
"Your sister’s vitals are stabilizing and she’s out of danger,” the doctor said.
Katie felt a rush of relief.
But then the doctor continued, his voice serious. “I must warn you we're not out of the woods yet. She suffered from a panic attack when we tried to treat her wounds, and clean her up. Understandable, after what she's been through. But it's going to be safer, and better for her healing, to keep her sedated for a while more. We're looking at keeping her under, and on a drip, for another few hours at least. Perhaps longer."
Katie nodded.
"Yes, I can understand that she would be very traumatized after what she's been through," she said, trying to swallow down her disappointment. She'd longed to spend time with Josie, to offer her encouragement on her healing, to tell her that she loved her.
"It may take a while for her to fully recover. We'll update you again as soon as we can," the doctor said, with a sympathetic nod, before turning and walking back into the ward.
Now that Katie was more certain Josie was going to survive, she had another important task. She didn't know how she felt about this. It wasn't going to be easy. But she needed to tell her parents that Josie was still alive, that she was in the hospital, and that she was going to get better.
Her parents had been estranged from her ever since Josie's disappearance. She'd recently tried to mend the relationship, but after Katie admitted that she was still searching for Josie, her father had cut off ties once again.
Now, it was time to call her parents. At five-fifteen a.m. they would hopefully be awake and ready to speak to her, and hopefully to travel through to the hospital.
Taking out her cellphone, Katie dialed the number.
The call cut off immediately. She frowned down in concern. What was wrong?
With a frustrated sigh, Katie then remembered that her father had blocked all her numbers. That was how angry, how hurt, he had been.
That was how much pain this incident had caused, pain that had stretched over sixteen years, causing destruction and heartbreak and an annihilation of the relationship between Katie and her parents.
That was what Katie blamed herself for.
She hated that she'd brought this pain into their lives. She hated that she had caused this incident, and hadn't been there to save her sister.
Although she knew that accidents happened, and that it was surely unfair to heap so much blame onto a sixteen-year-old who was already hurting, but that was how this disaster had played out.
It had forced her to go out into the world, to be independent, to make her own way, without support, love, or encouragement.
And it had definitely guided her into the field of law enforcement. She'd wanted to make things right in society, to try to atone for the disaster she had caused that could never be fixed.
She had no idea how her parents would react to this news. But she had to tell them, no matter how difficult it might be. They needed to rush here, to be by Josie's side, to wait for her to come out from under the sedation and to reunite with her again.
Josie needed her family right now. And if Katie didn't make this call, who else would?
She'd seen a payphone near the hospital entrance. It had been years since Katie had used one. She was surprised there were still any around. It seemed ludicrous that she would have to use this to call her parents, but it was the easiest option.
Leaving the waiting room, Katie hurried downstairs, rushing through the disinfectant-scented corridors, her shoes squeaking over the clean and shiny tiles.
She headed out, through the muted, early morning activity in the main lobby, and walked over to the payphone.
It looked forlorn, scuffed, and seldom used.
She checked the phone number.
Then, standing in the cool spring evening, she made the call that she knew would change her parents' lives forever.
- Writer
