Ellie, come quick!” Ryder yelled from the reception area.
At the panic in Ryder’s voice Ellie’s heart beat double time in her chest, terrified that her grandfather or the judge had been hurt. She dropped the bedding she was about to load into the washing machine and ran. The door to the inn was flung open. Toby was beside himself, whining and barking on the porch. A taxi was parked in front of the inn. Ryder and the driver were helping a woman from the back seat.
“Bri!” Ellie ran down the porch steps. Her sister’s head was swathed in a white gauze bandage, the right side of her face was swollen and bruised, and she had a cast from the top of her right thigh to her foot.
Her sister lifted her gaze to Ellie. “I should have listened to you.” Bri’s voice was little more than a hoarse whisper.
Ellie went to slam her barriers shut. She didn’t want to see how her sister had ended up broken and bruised. As it was, she was struggling to keep it together for Bri’s sake. But she needed to know. She needed to know if Richard had done this to her sister. And the last thing she wanted to do was ask Bri to relive what had happened to her.
Ellie opened herself to her sister’s thoughts. Bri was traumatized and in pain. So much pain. Ellie’s fingers clenched into fists, her nails biting into her palms as she pushed past Bri’s pain to reach the images that were coated in her sister’s fear.
Bri and Richard were fighting. Her sister had been coming to the inn after all. When Richard learned that Bri planned to talk their mother into ending the agreement with the developer, he wouldn’t let her leave, terrified that she’d jeopardize the deal. He grabbed her phone and threw it on the floor, then crushed it under his heel. Bri stared at him as if seeing him for the first time. She told him he needed help and that she was leaving him. His face contorted with fear and rage, he grabbed Bri by the shoulders, shaking her so hard that her head snapped back. She pushed him, and he slipped on her shattered phone, falling onto the glass table in the living room.
As the glass shattered around him, Bri ran for the door and wrenched it open. She sprinted for the bank of elevators at the end of the hall. She jabbed the Down button several times—hurry, hurry—but the elevator was stuck on the penthouse. She glanced over her shoulder. Richard was coming. She looked to her right. The stairs. She ran to the door and flung it open. Richard caught it before it could swing shut. He put out a hand to stop Bri, and she jerked away. The abrupt movement caused her to lose her balance on the concrete step.
Ellie shut down the images of Richard crying while holding her sister’s broken body at the bottom of the flight of stairs. He might not have pushed her, but he was responsible for what had happened. “Ryder, honey, go hold on to Toby.”
He nodded and handed Ellie the crutch she hadn’t noticed in his hand. The driver held the other one. “Is it easier for you to use the crutches or to lean on me?” she asked her sister.
“I…” Bri lifted a shoulder helplessly.
“It’s okay. You don’t have to do anything or think about anything. We’ve got you now,” she said, remembering how hard it had been for her grandfather right after his stroke. Of course, why hadn’t she thought of that? “Sit for a minute. I’m going to get Grandpa’s wheelchair, and I have a ramp for the stairs.”
“You go and do what you have to,” the driver said, helping Bri sit back down.
“What the devil has gotten into that dog?” her grandfather asked as he rounded the inn. He stopped in his tracks when he saw Bri, pressing a hand to his chest. “Mother of God, what happened to you, child?”
Bri started to cry, and Joe rushed to her side. “There, there, now. It’ll be all right.” He lifted his gaze to Ellie as he gently rubbed her sister’s shoulder, searching her face for answers.
She shook her head. She couldn’t tell him, not now. As soon as her sister was settled, she would.
By the time they got her sister tucked into Joe’s bed on the first floor, an hour had passed. The driver wouldn’t leave until he’d seen for himself that Bri would be well taken care of. He’d picked her up at the hospital in Charlotte. If his suspicions were correct, her sister had checked herself out against the doctors’ wishes.
“I got the impression she was afraid to stay there.” He handed his card to Ellie as he slid behind the wheel. “I’d appreciate you letting me know how she’s doing.”
“Of course. Thank you for getting her to us safely.”
He seemed to weigh his words before saying, “It’s her husband who did this to her, you know.”
“She told you that?” Ellie asked, surprised her private sister would tell a complete stranger.
“Not in so many words. But I was worried about her traveling this distance in her condition. I saw her wedding ring and suggested I call her husband for her, as she didn’t have a cell phone. Her reaction gave her away.”
The first thing Ellie did when she returned to her grandfather’s room was check Bri’s purse. There was no medication. “What are you looking for?” Joe asked from the chair by the window. He’d watched over her sleeping sister while Ellie saw off the cab driver. Ellie motioned for him to follow her into the hall. Pulling the door shut behind them, she told him the driver suspected Bri had checked herself out and the lack of medication confirmed it.
“You’re calling Jace?” her grandfather asked when she pulled out her phone.
She nodded. Her brother would know what she should do.
“I’ll put on a pot of tea and reheat the soup. Your sister will need something to eat when she wakes up.”
“Ryder and the judge should eat something too. Have you seen them?”
“They took the dog for a walk. The three of them were shaken seeing the condition Bri is in. I probably didn’t help when I raised my suspicions it was her no-good husband who’d done this to her. It was him, wasn’t it, Ellie?”
She nodded. “I think so, Grandpa.” He was upset as it was. She’d wait until they knew Bri was going to be all right to tell him the rest.
“And you’ll be finding that out for sure, won’t you?”
“I will,” Ellie said as she opened the door to check on Bri. Her sister was still asleep so Ellie went to her office and called her brother. As soon as his steady, deep voice came over the line, Ellie broke down.
“Hey, Ellie. What’s wrong?”
“Bri. It’s Bri, Jace,” she said through a sob. Once she’d pulled herself together, she told him about their sister’s condition and who she suspected was to blame. She couldn’t bring herself to tell her brother that she was psychic.
Jace swore, something he rarely did. “She needs to be under a doctor’s care. What the hell was she thinking checking herself out? She’s smarter than that.”
“The driver thinks she was too scared to stay. I haven’t been able to reach her for days, Jace. I called Richard, texted him too, and he didn’t respond.” Now she knew why.
“Hang on a sec.” Seconds later, she heard him talking to someone. It sounded like he was relaying Bri’s medical condition. A few minutes later, he came back on the line. “Cal’s taking over Bri’s care. He’ll be there within the hour.”