JD shook his head. “There wasn’t a license plate on the car. And apparently it was the one time people were too stunned to pull out their phones. Other than the one shot that was on the news, there aren’t any pictures of the car. And none of the driver.”
Riley cried silently the rest of the way to the hospital. When JD pulled into a spot and dropped the car into park, she couldn’t cry anymore.
They rode the elevator to the sixth floor, silent the whole time. Riley absently wondered if her parents knew she was missing, or if Hempstead and Gail the super sleuth had yet realized they’d been outsmarted by a seventeen-year-old girl.
They should have been protecting Shelby, Riley thought grimly. Although if it wasn’t for her, her best friend wouldn’t have needed protecting. Riley tried to swallow down the thought.
The doors opened on the sixth floor, and Shelby’s whole family was crowded there. Worry and lack of sleep had carved deep grooves in Mrs. Webber’s face. She bobbed one of the twins on her hip, gripping him with one hand, using the other to blot out the tears that seemed to leak from her eyes.
“Oh, Riley,” Mrs. Webber said, handing off the toddler to another one of Shelby’s siblings. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She gathered Riley into a tight hug, pulling Riley against her chest until she was crushed against Mrs. Webber’s T-shirt, smelling the comforting Webber house smells of crayons, tomato sauce, and cleaning products. The woman’s body shuddered against Riley’s, and Riley linked her hands over Mrs. Webber’s back.
“I’m so sorry,” Riley whispered.
Mrs. Webber broke the hug and stepped back, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. “Oh, I’m so sorry.” Her eyes went to JD, standing quietly behind Riley. “I don’t believe I know your friend.”
Riley introduced them without making eye contact. “Is Shelby going to be OK? Can I see her?”
“Tru’s in there now and Lily and George.”
Riley thought of George Webber, a big looming brute of a man who wore a salt-and-pepper beard and called his daughter “my Shelby.” A sob lodged in Riley’s throat.
“I can wait.”
“She’s not family,” Shelby’s oldest sister said.
Mrs. Webber reached out and squeezed Riley’s hand. “Yes, she is, Sara.”
Sara’s dark eyes seemed to focus on Riley and then narrow accusingly. Blood pulsed in Riley’s temples, and she took a few stumbling steps backward, sure that Sara knew that the blue sedan—and this hospital—was meant for Riley and not Shelby.
“We’ll just have a seat,” JD said, threading his arm through Riley’s and pulling her into one of the hospital’s hard waiting room chairs.
“She’s going to be OK,” JD repeated, this time murmuring it into Riley’s hair. His closeness—or maybe their distance from Shelby’s family—seemed to break Riley’s trance, and she suddenly dropped her face in her hands.
“I can’t believe this. It’s supposed to be me.”
“No, Riley, it’s not. It shouldn’t have been anyone.”
Riley heaved a sob. “But it’s my fault.”
“No, it’s the guy in the blue sedan’s fault.” He rambled on. “So what were you doing before I picked you up?”
Riley knew it was JD’s attempt at getting her mind off Shelby; it was something that her mother did when Riley had a panic attack: try to veer her off the subject of her panic.
Riley swallowed. “Um, I was—I was not packing my clothes.”
“Well, that’s good, considering you just moved into that house.”
Riley nodded. “I know, but the FBI—”
JD’s eyebrows went up and Riley stopped. What did people who were being forced to disappear say to their friends? I was getting my things together because I’m going to be Greta VonSomething from Poughkeepsie, New York?
Riley just shook her head. “It’s nothing. Do you think we can see Shelby now?” She was out of her seat and moving toward the door when she came face to face with Tru.
Tru was Shelby’s older sister and everything Shelby was not: tall, lanky, and oozing confidence. Her eyes flicked over Riley then went directly to JD.
“You came!” The waft of cold air that shot by Riley as Tru did sent goose bumps all over Riley’s body. Tru threw her arms around JD’s neck and hugged him close. Riley watched as JD’s hands flailed for a half second before wrapping around Tru. She buried her head in his neck and JD drove his fingers through her long blond hair. Something stabbed at Riley. A tiny lick of anger started low in her belly.
Was she jealous?
Mrs. Webber poked her head in. “Ry, you can come see Shelby now.”
Riley licked her lips and tried to breathe deeply as her hand turned on the knob to Shelby’s hospital room. She opened the door, hit immediately with the smell of antiseptic and hospital-clean, her eyes adjusting to the dim light in the room.
“Shelby?” she whispered.