Rogue Wave (The Water Keepers, Book 2) (21 page)

“Well, just let me know when you’re ready,” he said, the smile only reaching halfway up his mouth.

I ran my hand nervously over the outside of my pocket, where the secret note was concealed. “Actually, I was wondering if maybe you could help me with some homework this weekend?” I asked.

“I’m always happy to help.”

“Great.” I said awkwardly. I took the folded paper from my pocket and held it out towards him. “I wrote down some math problems in my class earlier. I was thinking you could look over them tonight.”

Rayne’s eyebrows pinched together as he spoke in a mildly confused tone. “Um, okay. I guess I could take a look at them.”

“Thanks,” I said. I shoved the paper in his palm. “So, just remember, I’ll be at work until eight or nine, and then I’ll be at Heather’s the rest of the night until tomorrow morning.” I laughed lightly as a way of holding in my nerves. “You know, just in case there’s any reason you need to get a hold of me.”

Before he could answer I turned and sprinted away, worried I would crack under the pressure. All the way to work, I prayed my note wouldn’t be the start of a disaster. I had to trust that Rayne was trained well enough to figure out what to do to keep me, my mom, and himself out of danger in the meantime.

During my entire shift at the yogurt shop I was on edge, my fears mounting inside my head. Was Ash or Voss already on to me and my attempt to contact Rayne? Would they take action right away if they were? Had Rayne even looked at the note or did he cast it aside as unimportant?

I sent a text message to Rayne a few hours before I got off work saying,
don’t forget to look at my homework tonight
, in case he needed a reminder. But he didn’t answer back.

I didn’t know if Rayne was just being cautious about using our phones again, or if he was thrown in a ditch somewhere, my mother right there beside him. The terrible thought made me want to call my mom right away. I set the cup of frozen yogurt I was holding on the counter and glanced apologetically at the customer waiting for his dessert. “Um, sorry. I’ll be right back.”

When I was alone in the back of the store, I dialed my mom’s number impatiently.

It went to voicemail, hopefully because she was too busy at work to pick up. “Hey, Mom,” I said in the message to her, trying to sound casual. “You’re probably busy with a patient or something, but I couldn’t remember if I told you about Heather’s sleepover I’m planning to go to, so I just thought I’d give you a call and let you know I won’t be home tonight. And…I know you’re kind of mad at me right now, and I want you to know that I’m
so
sorry about what I said earlier. So, yeah. Call me back. Love you. Bye.”

Thirty miserable minutes inched by. Why was no one calling me back? I was on the verge of ditching work right in the middle of my shift to drive to Rayne’s house and then to the hospital to make sure everyone was okay, when the phone finally rang. My panicky heart finally filled with a small dose of relief. It was Rayne.

“Nicole, I have to take this,” I said. I dropped the bag of gummy bears I was pouring into a container on the counter and hurried to a table at the front of the shop.

“Hello,” I said, feeling apprehensive.
Please, just be okay
, I thought to myself.

I was surprised by the calm voice on the other end. “Hey, sunshine. “How’s work going?”

He sounded so normal, almost cheerful. Maybe he hadn’t even looked at the note I tried to secretly send him through my homework.

“It’s okay,” I answered, not sure what else I could say.

“Hey, so I was able to look at that homework you dropped off earlier.”

My throat went dry. “Oh…uh…you were?”

“Yes, I was just glancing over it a few minutes ago actually. Some of those problems look pretty tough.”

Okay, just be calm
, I told myself. He saw the note. That was good. He was trying to tell me something.

“Um, yeah,” I said, trying not to give away my trembling lips.

“Don’t worry. I’ll have them figured out in no time,” he said.

I wished we could speak freely. I wanted to know what he was really planning to do, but it just wasn’t possible. All I could say was, “Okay.”

Rayne’s tone was soft, yet serious. “You believe me, right?”

I paused. I wanted to believe that Rayne knew exactly what he was doing, but I was scared. Not feeling completely convinced, I said, “Well, I guess, if anyone can figure it out, it would be you.”

“I will figure it out,” he said without hesitation. “Your slumber party’s still happening tonight, right?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I wondered if he was trying to offer me a way out without seeming too obvious, in case someone was monitoring our call. Maybe he didn’t think it was safe for me to go to the party anymore.

“I’m kind of tired,” I added. “I’m thinking about skipping the whole thing and going home. Do you want to come over later?”

“No, you should go. It will be fun,” he said. “Heather planned it especially for you. She would be heartbroken if you didn’t show up.”

I wasn’t sure I liked Rayne’s answer. I couldn’t think of anything I wanted more than to spend another evening curled up next to him on my couch, pretending nothing else mattered.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “But…”

“No buts,” he insisted. “You’re going.”

18. RAYNE TAKES ACTION

It was probably only an hour or two before his phone conversation with Sadie that Rayne had clicked on the local news in the back bedroom of his house, which had been converted into a home gym. When Sadie dropped by before work thirty minutes earlier, he had hoped they could talk about their fight the other night, but she was obviously still too mad at him to give him a chance to explain. All she had left him with was a folded up piece of paper full of math problems.

He had no idea when he set out to expel his frustrations through his daily workout routine that his entire night was about to take a turn for the worse.

In past years, Rayne preferred to exercise outdoors, biking, hiking, surfing, rowing. But he hardly went out anymore, not since Sadie’s abduction last fall. Now he went no further than his own house. He needed the security of knowing she was close by and easy to reach at a moment’s notice; especially since her once dormant Watermark had been activated accidentally five months ago, probably by his own mistake, causing her body to be completely dependent on the Healing Water.

Rayne switched on the treadmill and jogged at an even pace to warm up, paying no attention to the TV in front of him. A new thought clouded his mind with each step he placed forward on the spinning mat. He didn’t blame Sadie for being angry with him. He had pretty much turned her life into chaos. It was no wonder she had acted so strangely this afternoon when she came by for her Healing Water. She had to be feeling overwhelmed and confused, now that he told her the bonding effect wasn’t as strong as he first thought, that it wasn’t capable of creating emotions out of thin air. And it didn’t help that he had kept this information from her for months.

Rayne increased his speed to a brisk pace, releasing tension with each thump of his heart. He wanted so badly for Sadie to forgive him. He felt like he would do whatever it took. But, then again, he knew exactly what she wanted, and when she asked for it…he didn’t give it to her. She just wanted to know her father, or at least understand why he left her. Rayne was loyal to Hamlin, and he couldn’t bring himself to betray him. Yet, he loved Sadie more than his own life, and it felt like he was betraying her every day. No matter what Rayne did, he couldn’t win. He would have to hurt one person he loved in order to save the other.

After a solid run, Rayne dropped to the floor to do a set of push-ups. It felt good to let the burn in his limbs take over his worries, flushing them out through the sweat on his chest. He let his mind go. One, two, up, down, he counted in his head as if each thrust of his arms was a measurement of his worth, a test of his strength to succeed.

Rayne stopped abruptly, still holding his push-up position above the floor, the words of a news anchor on the TV suddenly catching his attention.

“We have some uplifting news to report this afternoon,” the anchor said in his official newscaster voice. “Several Southern California families are celebrating what they say can only be described as a medical miracle. And it all began with one man, Dr. Mark A. Jensen. Channel 2’s Linda Sutton, now live in Newport Beach with this amazing story. Linda…”

Rayne jumped to his feet when he heard Dr. Jensen’s familiar name, watching intently.

“Thanks, Bill,” the reporter continued on the screen. “This story really is amazing. We’re currently outside the home of Ron and Sherry Belnap who were devastated not long ago by the news that their one-year-old daughter, Katelyn, was diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia.”

The camera cut to a clip of a woman on the verge of tears. “The doctors told us Katelyn would need a bone marrow transplant. They said there was only a fifty percent chance she would survive. That’s when we met Dr. Jensen. He really was like a miracle. The cancer was completely gone in less than two months of his treatments. He saved our daughter’s life.”

With touching video footage of the daughter in the background, the reporter’s voice continued. “Katelyn’s parents confirmed in our interview that their daughter did not undergo the risky transplant. Instead, she was treated by Dr. Jensen with a new medication his patients say he referred to as HW2O. Most interesting about this story is that members of the Belnap family aren’t the only ones claiming to be cured by this new drug. And the ailments being treated range anywhere from diabetes to Alzheimer’s. Henry Tucker of Irvine, California shares his experience.”

The camera centered on an elderly man sitting in a generically furnished room. “I was so gone, I couldn’t even remember my own name,” he said with a chuckle. “I would go to bed thinking it was summer and wake up expecting Christmas. My Alzheimer’s got so bad that my daughter had to put me in this nursing home. Now, I remember everything, thanks to that handsome young doctor. I like to call him Dr. Miracle, because that’s what it would take to fix this old man’s brain. And that’s exactly what the doctor did. I feel like I’m fifty again. I don’t even need to stay in this facility anymore. I’m doing so well, they said I could go home.”

The voice of the reporter returned, saying, “Katherine Spencer of Fountain Valley, California suffered from Type II diabetes for the last several years, with what she describes as no hope for recovery. She now claims, thanks to being treated by HW2O, she’s never been healthier.”

A new image appeared on the screen of a healthy-looking, middle-aged woman. “I was diagnosed five years ago,” she said cheerfully. “I was more than a hundred pounds overweight, too. When Dr. Jensen approached me about his new treatment, I thought he was crazy. I’d tried everything under the sun to improve my health and nothing ever worked, but at that point, I was so frustrated I was willing to try pretty much anything. Within a few weeks of the treatments, I had already noticed a big difference. I had more energy, and I was losing weight pretty fast. A couple weeks later, I had gone off my diabetic medication all together. I didn’t need it anymore. Now look at me. I’m in great shape. The doctor said my diabetes is completely cured.”

The reporter was back on the screen. “It’s hard to believe, but each of these patients claims to being treated with the same doctor and the same HW2O medication. Strangely enough, our researchers looked into the new drug and were unable to find any information at this time. Dr. Jensen was unavailable for comment, but one thing’s for sure, these patients would all agree…If you’re struggling with an illness that seems hopeless, Dr. Mark A. Jensen just might be the answer to your cure. Reporting live from Newport Beach, I’m Linda Sutton, Channel 2 News. Back to you Bill.”

Rayne’s jaw practically dropped to the floor. He had never seen such blatant or publicized misuse of the Healing Water in his entire life. How was Dr. Jensen—Sadie’s mother’s boyfriend of all people—getting his hands on the Healing Water in the first place?

Rayne quit his workout immediately, took a thirty-second shower, and threw on some clothes at a vigorous pace. This wasn’t something he could just ignore. He would have to gather whatever information he could as to what was really going on here and send a message back through the proper channels as soon as possible.

After driving swiftly down the road to the hospital, Rayne went directly to the floor where Dr. Jensen and Sadie’s mother, Leena, worked. He walked slowly to the end of the hall and paused at the edge of the main room near the center of the department. He surveyed the area, leaning his shoulder casually against the wall. Things would go more smoothly if he avoided interaction with Leena. He had nothing against her. In fact, he was quite fond of her. But this wasn’t a good time for chitchat.

Dr. Jensen was bent over a clipboard, talking to another nurse across the counter on the right side of the room. Rayne waited until he spotted Leena exiting a patient’s room across the way. Then he followed her movements with inconspicuous glances until she finally disappeared through another patient’s door at the end of the left hallway. Rayne moved promptly in the other direction, following Dr. Jensen down the corridor leading to his office.

“Dr. Jensen,” Rayne called out, grabbing the doctor’s attention.

The doctor turned abruptly, took a single glance at Rayne, and threw his hands up defensively. “Oh no. Not now,” he said, agitated. “I don’t have time to deal with this right now.” The doctor reached quickly for his office door.

“Dr. Jensen, it’s me, Rayne. Sadie’s friend. We’ve met before.”

The doctor paused and eyed Rayne suspiciously until recognition softened his features. “Oh, right. Rayne…”

The doctor rambled nervously. “Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. You wouldn’t believe the week I’ve been having. All these reporters have been hounding me for days. They’re showing up at my home, following me to the grocery store, the gym, you name it.”