Page 88 of Keeping Kara

Chaos felt as if he was going to fly out of his skin. He needed answers, and so far he and his friends had none. The Good Samaritan who’d called Edge had said she’d seen Jen on the side of the road and was afraid to stop, but her conscience wouldn’t let her drive on by. She’d called the police and, at Jen’s request, then called Edge.

She said that Jen looked bad. Dirty, bloody, and she wasn’t moving right. She didn’t tell the woman much and had a faraway look in her eye.

Chaos, and everyone else, could only wonder what hell she’d been through. But more than that, Chaos wanted to know if Kara had been found with her. If Nolan had been the one to kidnap them both.

He ran inside the hospital with the rest of his team while Casper parked his Escalade, the only vehicle that would fit all six of them at the same time. Everyone was worried about Jen, but also wanting intel so they could start trying to find Kara. Every minute she was in the clutches of Nolan Colins, their only possibly suspect, the lower their chances of finding her alive.

The intake employees wouldn’t tell them anything, instead directing them to a private waiting room. Chaos almost lost it, but Buck managed to calm him down enough not to say or do anything that would get him kicked out. He paced the small waiting room in agitation while Edge did the same. Casper joined them not too long after, and it was almost agony for the six men to sit around and do nothing while Kara was out there somewhere, possibly suffering.

Buck called Tex while they were waiting, but without any kind of information there wasn’t much the man could do.

Finally, a nurse appeared in the doorway and asked if there was anyone related to Jen.

Without hesitation, Edge spoke up and said he was her fiancé. It was a bold-faced lie but obviously no one called him on it.

The nurse looked skeptical, but she nodded. “She’s stable and resting in one of the rooms. We’re waiting on X-rays to come back but the doctor’s hopeful she won’t need to stay overnight. She’s pretty banged up, but if there’s no internal bleeding or any other major issues, she’ll be able to go home.”

Fuckin’ A. Internal bleeding? Chaos assumed she’d been beaten, but hearing the nurse so casually dismiss internal fucking bleeding meant she’d been hurt worse than they’d assumed.

“Can I see her?” Edge asked eagerly.

“She doesn’t want visitors,” the nurse hedged.

“Please! I need to see her,” he begged.

Chaos wanted to demand that he be able to go back with Edge, but he wasn’t going to push his luck. Yes, Edge was worried about Jen’s health, but he was also very aware of the importance of getting information from her about what happened, and where Kara might be.

“All right—but if she wants you gone, you’ll have to leave.”

Edge nodded, though everyone in the room knew there was no way he was going to leave her side. It actually bothered Chaos a little that it took Jen getting hurt for his friend to finally get his head out of his ass, because it was more than obvious the man had experienced a change of heart. Nothing like a near-death episode to make all the other issues in a person’s life immaterial.

Before he left, Edge turned and nodded at Chaos. “I’ll let you know as soon as I learn something.” Then he was gone.

Chaos couldn’t stop thinking of what Kara might be going through right that moment. What Nolan was saying to her. What he had planned. Nothing good, that was for sure. It physically hurt that all Chaos could do was stand there and wait for information.

When his phone rang minutes later, Chaos jumped, then fumbled to answer it.

“Edge?”

His friend and copilot didn’t answer, but Chaos could hear him talking. He’d obviously put the phone on speaker while he spoke to Jen.

Chaos clicked the speaker button on his own phone, and the four men left in the room crowded around him to hear what Jen had to say about what happened.

Except…she wasn’t speaking. All they heard was Edge’s voice.

“Please, Jen, talk to me.”

There were several moments of silence before Edge came back on the line, sounding louder than before. He was talking directly into the phone now.

“She’s completely shut down. The doctor gave her a sedative but not enough to completely knock her out. She won’t even look at me.”

Edge sounded broken.

“He did tell me that she spoke to the nurses when she first got here. She told them that Asher made her call Kara and go pick her up. Told her that she needed help finding her dog. And once she got in the car, Asher, who she now knows was Nolan Colins, restrained Kara with a rope around her neck, forced Jen to drive to the area where she was picked up, beat her, threw her in the swamp thinking she was dead, and left with Kara. Jen crawled to the road and waved down the lady who stopped to help her. Kara and Nolan are in her PT Cruiser. After Jen spoke to the nurses, she stopped talking. Hasn’t said anything since. She’s scaring me, Chaos.”

“I’m on the car,” Buck said softly, stepping away with his phone to his ear.

Casper put a hand on Chaos’s shoulder in support.