Saint Sloan (Saint Sloan #1)(26)
She could just rest her eyes.
Just for a few minutes.
And then she’d feel better.
She’d feel much…
“Sloan!” She shot up and looked around. Where was she?
Home. Okay. Home. What time was it?
The sun was going down. Almost night. How long had she been asleep?
“Sloan, are you in there?” Another voice. A woman. Her mother.
“Sloan! Unlock the door!” Ray. He sounded… worried. Frantic even.
She sat up enough to look at the clock. After seven! What?
“Coming.” She sounded so far away, like her voice was as blurry as her eyes. When had someone hit her with a sledge hammer?
And then it hit her.
The roses.
As quickly as she could, she stumbled to the door. “Did you see it? Did you see it?”
The three people staring at her stared harder. Her mom, Ray — and Aaron — yes, Aaron. She hadn’t expected him. He wasn’t supposed to be there.
“See what?” her mom asked worriedly.
“You look horrible,” Aaron added helpfully.
Ray elbowed him in the stomach. “I stopped by two hours ago, and I couldn’t get you to open the door. I called your house phone and your cellphone. Nothing. I freaked out and called your mom. I knew you were here because I saw your car. Are you okay?”
That was a good question. Was she? It wasn’t like she’d felt yet. She’d rolled out of the bed for goodness’ sake. “What time is it?”
That would be the first question she wanted answered.
Her mom looked at her strangely. “Honey, we already told you that. It’s after seven. The boys were worried about you so I rushed home.”
After seven. Wow. Wait, she saw that. On the clock, right? She wiped her eyes to get the fuzziness out of them, but it didn’t quite work. Falling back on the bed would be good.
“Sloan?” her mom said again, and she tried to shake the cobwebs out of her head.
“Yeah. I must have slept pretty hard.” She yawned and tried to focus.
“Need some coffee?” Aaron asked, pushing past Ray. He looked at her with an intensity she hadn’t seen in him before. Take that back. Well, yeah, she had seen it before. In his house yesterday when he thought she was taking some sort of illegal pill in his bathroom. He could just get over it because she hadn’t taken anything but aspirin. Jerk.
“No, I don’t need coffee. I need…” Wait. Wait! Food. The kitchen…
The roses.
“Did you see them?”
“See what?” Her mom must have thought she was totally weird. Sloan thought it was totally weird they didn’t see the big huge ICU on the island.
“The letters.”
Nothing. It didn’t even register with any of them.
“In the kitchen.”
Was she talking to the wall?
“What letters? There wasn’t any mail,” her mom said helpfully.
This couldn’t be happening. Sloan ran her fingers through her hair, frustrated with the entire day. “The flowers, Mom. The flowers! They spelled letters.”
Her mom shook her head and looked very worried. “Honey, there wasn’t anything in the kitchen.”
That wasn’t right. It couldn’t be. There was something there. She’d seen it.
In fact, that’s why she’d run into her room in the first place. To get away from whoever it was who’d put them in her house. “They were there.”
She pushed past them and barreled down the steps. She’d show them they were crazy. It wasn’t like she wanted her mom to know, but, oh well. She needed to know now.
Sloan rounded the corner of the stairs with the other three behind her. They couldn’t have been so blind that they hadn’t seen…
Nothing.
She looked again.
Nothing.
It was gone. Just. Gone.
“It was here.” She stumbled toward the island, catching herself on the side. “It was here. I saw it.”
“What?” her mother asked, frustrated. “What was here, Sloan? You’re freaking me out.”
“I’m sorry, Mom!” she yelled. Why did they all have to have this dumbfounded look on their faces? It was getting on the very last of her fragile nerves. “I’m not trying to freak you out, but it was here.” She spread her hands over the table. “They were here. All of them.”
It was Aaron’s time to add his two cents. “Are you taking those pills again?”
She stopped in her tracks and wanted to slap him.
“Pills? What pills? You’re taking drugs?” Her mom was freaking out. And she didn’t even know about the stalker part yet.
Aaron accusing her of taking drugs hurt Sloan more than she ever thought possible. She trusted him. Part of her even… liked him. And here he, in front of her mother, accused her of drugs! How dare he.
“Answer him, Sloan,” her mother interjected. Sloan could tell by the tone of her mother’s voice that she believed him. Tears stung her eyes when she looked at the three people, the three people she cared about most in this world, looking at her like she was doing something wrong.
“I. Am. Not. Nor. Have. I. Ever. Done. Drugs.” She enunciated each word and looked at each of them individually. “The only thing I took today was aspirin. That’s it. I don’t know why I’m so tired, but it probably had to do with not getting enough sleep, or, I don’t know, being scared out of my mind with this psychopath after me. How about we focus on that?”