Riley looked up at her parents and frowned. “I almost feel kind of sorry for him. He had all these pictures of us together, and he was living in our old house.”
“There’s something wrong with him, turnip. But he’s going to get the help that he needs.”
Riley looked away, her eyes flitting over the bouquets on the desk. There were at least a half dozen, some done up in Hawthorne High colors, others with cartoony cards begging her to get well soon. They were from friends she would never see again.
“So, when do we leave?”
Mr. Spencer took Riley’s free hand and patted it softly. “Tomorrow, probably. Maybe as early as tonight if all goes well.”
Riley blinked back tears. “OK.”
“Turnip! I thought you would be happy to get out of here and go home.”
“Home where?”
He squeezed her hand. “We’re not going anywhere, Ry. Not for a long, long time.”
She sucked in a breath. “What are you talking about?”
Riley’s mother stepped forward, hugging her elbows. “When you went missing, we had to put an all-points bulletin out. It—you—were just too important. We weren’t going to listen to what the marshals said. We needed to get you back.” She smiled softly.
“It worked like a charm! Alistair stuck his neck out.”
“What your father is saying is that Alistair turned up, and the FBI were able to arrest him.”
Riley’s stomach started to flutter. “Like, forever, or just for a few months?”
Her father nodded. “The charges are going to stick, turnip. We don’t have to hide anymore. We can’t! Your face has been plastered on every television screen and telephone pole in a sixty-mile radius.”
Riley narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t use a dumb picture, did you?”
Mr. Spencer grinned down at her. “The dumbest!”
She was about to respond when the hospital room door burst open. “Hey!” Shelby, dressed in a flimsy hospital gown and wheeling an IV, stood in the doorway, gaping at Riley in her hospital bed.
Riley’s father jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Did we tell you Shelby is feeling better?”
“Come on, Glen,” Riley’s mother said, threading her arm through his. “Let’s give the girls some time to talk.”
Riley felt slightly uncomfortable seeing her parents in the doorway. “You’re leaving us alone?”
Her father shrugged. “You’re attached to an IV. How far can you go?”
Shelby hopped up on the end of Riley’s bed then wriggled over for a hug.
“I was so worried about you! I mean, after I woke up I was. But my God, with medical technology what it is, you’d think they could have woken me up or patched me in or something.”
Riley just laughed at her friend.
“Nothing exciting ever happens here. And when it does, I’m in a freaking coma.”
“Shelbs, there is nothing medical technology can do for you when you’re in a coma—you sleep like the dead anyway. I practically have to use a blow horn to wake you up after trig.”
Shelby produced a SweeTart from somewhere and popped it into her mouth. “That’s only because trig is a natural sedative.”
“And you know what? I would have gladly traded places with you and slept through this whole lousy ordeal.”
Shelby held her thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. “It wasn’t even the teensiest bit exciting?”
“If you call being stalked by a guy claiming to be your brother exciting.”
Shelby puckered her lips, pouting. “I guess not. But what about JD? Wasn’t he, like, your partner in crime? I mean, only after I was otherwise indisposed.”
Riley swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought about JD since she’d been admitted and wasn’t sure she wanted to now.
“I don’t know about, JD, Shelbs. I thought he was my friend, I thought he was on my side. But…”
But what had Tim said?
“Well, you can ask him which side he’s on then fit him for his Team Riley jersey right now.”
“What?”
Shelby pointed to the long glass window in the door, where JD was pacing outside, a huge bouquet in his hand.
“I thought you hated JD.”
“You see a lot of things differently when you’ve had a near-death experience, Ry. JD might be a good guy. I might be in love with a male nurse.”
Riley rolled her eyes when Shelby hopped off the bed and sauntered out of the room, her IV squeaking along behind her.
Riley heard JD and Shelby exchange pleasantries then his head popped through her door.
“Do you mind if I come in?”
Riley shifted in her bed. “No, it’s OK. Come on in.”
JD stood at the foot of Riley’s bed, the two silent for a beat. Finally, JD held the flowers up. “I got you these,” he said, as if he just remembered them.
Riley couldn’t help but smile. “They’re beautiful.”
“I don’t have a vase or anything.” He paused, considering. “Riley, I wasn’t—”
“Spying on me? I know, and I’m sorry. Everything was just so—”
“Yeah, I know and—”