Eddie wakes up from a restless sleep only about thirty minutes after Jamie leaves. It feels like much longer than that to her, but when she blinks her eyes open a few times to clear the haze, a memory flashed in her mind.
As quickly as it comes, it is gone, but it startles her, and she closes her eyes to try to get it back. Seconds later, she bolts upright in her hospital bed.
"Oh my God," she exclaims in a whisper.
The smell. She remembers the smell.
"It's not possible, is it," she says aloud and looks around for Jamie.
She is alone, he hasn't been gone that long and she fights hard for more memories of last night. She remembers a man talking to her, but she can't remember the voice…or the words. She needs to remember the voice, she thinks to herself.
She closes her eyes again and her mind is flooded with the visions of Jake Singer, in Jamie's house three weeks ago, and then again outside the diner. And the smell. The smell in her apartment, the same one she remembers from last night, and she begins to tremble.
"He is in prison, he can't hurt you," she tries to assure herself, but she is not convincing.
She looks around for her phone, hoping someone left it out for her. She sees the clutch purse she carried last night across the room, but as she pushes the blankets away to get out of the bed, she realizes she still has an IV. She studies the bag on the hanger above her bed, but she isn't sure she can reach it.
She takes a few deep breaths to regain her composure and presses the red call button at her side.
"Good morning dear," the nurse says as she enters Eddie's room.
Eddie cuts her off before she can say anything else.
"I need my phone please, it's in my purse," she says as she points to the black clutch on the table in the corner and then looks down at her arm indicating that she can't get it herself.
The nurse is an elderly woman in her sixties and smiles at the urgency in Eddie's tone.
"Sure hon," she says as she hands her patient the bag.
"Can I get you anything else," she asks sweetly, but Eddie waves her off hastily.
"No thank you," Eddie says. She doesn't mean to sound so obtrusive, but she really needs the lady to leave.
The nurse leaves her room, shaking her head slightly as she laughs and mumbles under her breath, something about "these young people and their cell phones" before she shuts the door behind her.
Eddie pulls her phone out, grateful she still has over half a charge and takes a deep breath. Her hands are trembling again, but she opens the search engine on her device and begins to type.
Growing irritated with the slow drag of the internet speed inside of the hospital, she repeats to herself, "He is still in prison, he is not in New York," over and over until the California Inmate Search finally appears on her screen.
She is tapping the fingers of her left hand in an anxious repetition as she holds the phone in her right, working up the courage to type 'Jake Singer' into the inmate search field. Within a few seconds, she enters his full name and waits impatiently again.
The circular icon is moving so slowly she is ready to clear everything and pretend nothing has happened when 'no records match your search' appears on her screen, and she thinks she is going to hyperventilate.
Jake Singer is in New York City and he has been stalking her. She knows this is true now. She has seen him, she has smelled him, and she knows it was all real. He was talking to her last night, he was there. He was the one Jamie saw putting her in the cab.
"Oh my God," she gasps aloud again.
He knows what Jamie looks like. She is terrified and she has to get out of here, she thinks. She can't believe this is happening and she has to get out of New York. That is the only way to protect Jamie and Gracie.
Jake promised her it wasn't over before, and now he is here. If he came all the way across the country for her, she knew he wouldn't let Jamie get in his way.
So many thoughts and emotions are flooding her mind, and she rips the IV from her arm, grimacing at the pain she endures when she does. She grabs her few belongings and realizes that standing causes dizziness, accompanied by a blinding burst of pain in her head, but pushes through it.
She peers out the window of her hospital room and waits for her chance to slip out unnoticed. She has to get out of here, out of New York, before Jamie realizes she is gone, and she knows she has to hurry.
Jamie burst through the doors of the thirty-second precinct and headed straight for Sergeant Gates. He was hopeful they had the security footage already and could identify the man who drugged his girlfriend. His girlfriend, who was supposed to become his fiancé later today, and if she was feeling well enough, he would still make it happen, but first, he had work to do.
As he reached Gates' desk and learned that they still hadn't received the security footage from the hotel, he felt defeated. Aside from questioning everyone in attendance last night, and grasping for straws, there wasn't much else he could do at this time, and he didn't want to leave Eddie alone for that long.
He figured she would probably be asleep for a couple more hours at least, and wouldn't be discharged until later in the afternoon, so he sat down at his own desk and made a few phone calls. He would try to get his hands on those tapes himself, he was tired of waiting.
He was given the same response though, that the hotel's security team was working on getting everything together and they would have it over as quickly as possible. Jamie slammed the phone down on his desk, ignoring the glances from the other officers. He leaned back in his chair, and dragged his hands slowly down his face. He was so tired but he had to get to the bottom of this.
As Jamie sat there, fighting off the sleep that was threatening to take over, everything slowly became clear to him. He was connecting the dots now. That night three weeks ago, when Eddie freaked out at his house, her emotional breakdown when he followed her to her apartment afterward, the weekend they celebrated their one-year anniversary.
Something bothered her at the diner that morning and she tried to brush it off. She didn't have a valid explanation for any of it, and now this.
He wishes he would have pushed her more. He knows now there is something she has been hiding from him and needs to talk to her about it. He leaves the precinct in a hurry, and he is heading back to the hospital.
Jake is no longer pacing his hotel room. His adrenaline has finally tapered down, and he is resting at his seat by the window, watching. Waiting for Eddie to return to her apartment.
All night long, he thought about what he was going to do now. He figured he would have to get Jamie out of the picture for good. If he hasn't already, he will figure it out soon. Especially if Eddie told him everything. Jake certainly wasn't expecting to see her running into her building alone and when he does, he knows this is his very small window of opportunity.
Eddie sprints into her building as fast as her body will allow. She hardly makes it to her apartment before exhaustion begins to take over, but she powers on. She has no choice. She rushes around in a frenzy throwing her essentials and some clothes into a bag and then reaches for a framed photo of her and Jamie.
She pauses to admire it for a moment, she knows she shouldn't have, but she can't help it. She already misses him, and now that she has let herself slow down for the first time since leaving the hospital, she begins to fall apart.
She can't believe this is happening. She can't believe Jake is out of prison and has found her in New York, of all places, a city so crowded. How did he even do it, she wonders? Standing in her bedroom, where the picture was displayed, she falls to her knees as she hugs the frame to her chest and cries.
She is sobbing, and her body is shaking uncontrollably as she tries to stand. She doesn't have much time left, Jamie will be back at the hospital soon, if he isn't already, and find out she left. As she makes it to her feet, she stuffs the frame inside her bag, tears still flowing freely from her eyes.
She pauses again and wonders if she should just tell Jamie everything and let him help her. She knows he would, but she is terrified of what Jake Singer is capable of and she can't bring her nightmare into Jamie's life. Into Gracie's life. The innocent child she has grown to love so purely.
She knows she is making the right choice, her heart is breaking, but this is her fight, not theirs, and they don't deserve any of this.
She has everything she needs, and she is ready to leave. She knows Jake will find her wherever she goes, and she doesn't think she has the energy to fight him anymore, she just hopes she can get far away from Jamie and Gracie before he does.
Before walking out of her apartment, she reaches for a notepad and a pen and begins to write. Her tears are staining the blue paper, and she doesn't even attempt to hold them back. She knows she is leaving the best thing that ever happened to her, but she is doing it for him.
She leaves the letter on her counter. She knows Jamie will find it soon and hopes it is enough to keep him from looking for her. She should know better though, but her mind isn't in the right place at the moment. She picks her bag up, placing it across her shoulder and reaches for her phone next to the letter she left for Jamie. She whispers, "I love you, Jamie," one last time before she leaves.
As soon as she opens the front door of her apartment, her worst nightmare is standing there, waiting for her, with an evil grin plastered across his face.
"Where do you think you're going," he growls to her as he grabs her and slings her around. She doesn't have a chance to scream, or run, or do anything before his arms are around her. Her bag slides off her shoulder, hitting the floor simultaneously along with her phone. He is covering her face with something. She tries to fight with the little energy she has, but everything goes dark.
Jamie is walking back into the hospital, trying to figure out how he is going to approach Eddie. He knows he needs to be sensitive with her, but he has to get the truth out of her this time. It is the only way he can help her.
He walks into her hospital room to find it empty and wonders if they may have taken her for a test of some sort before letting her go home later, but when he sees the mess on the bed, the one she left when she yanked the IV from her arm, he knows something isn't right.
"What the hell," he yells as he runs to the nurses' station.
"Eddie Janko…where the hell is she," he shouts at the nurse behind the desk as he points to her room down the hall.
The nurse is confused as she stands from her chair.
"Sir, please calm down," she tells him as she makes her way around the desk.
Jamie is irate. How could a hospital full of doctors and nurses not realize a patient is gone? His outburst draws the crowd of almost every nurse on the floor, and within minutes, they are reviewing the cameras behind the desk, and Jamie watches Eddie inconspicuously leave her room alone.
His heart breaks at the terror he can see on her face as she rushes down the hall with her belongings held tight to her chest. This is not the woman he has known and loved for the last year. She would never do this. What the hell is happening, he wonders.
He knows he can't panic, but his body is trying. He fights the feelings off because he has to find her. The timestamp from the footage shows her leaving an hour ago and he knows she can't have gotten far. He rushes out of the hospital, calling her cell phone on his way to her apartment. She doesn't answer. He knows whatever she is hiding is bigger than he realized and he hopes he isn't too late.
After three more failed attempts at getting her to answer his calls, he can't get to her apartment fast enough. Finally, he is bursting through her front door, screaming her name. He runs past her bag left abandoned in the entryway, not realizing it at first, as he surveys her apartment. She isn't there, and he then notices a letter on her countertop with his name on it.
Jamie,
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I wish I would have told you everything, but now it's too late. I have to leave New York. It's the only way to keep you and Gracie safe.
I hope you know how much I love you. You are the best thing that has ever happened to me, and Gracie is too. Please tell her that I love her, and I'm sorry that I had to leave.
I miss you already, but there is no other way. I'm so tired of fighting this, but it will never end.
I will love you forever, Jamie.
Please don't look for me.
Eddie
He can see her tear stains on the letter, and now his are there too. The room is spinning around him, and he can't believe what is happening. He won't give up that easy. She is in danger, he knows that now. He should have pushed harder all those times before and he hates himself for letting her go through whatever this is alone.
He will find her and everything will be ok. He can't lose her. He regains his composure and that is when he sees it. Her grey duffle bag on the floor by the front door. In his hasty arrival, he missed it earlier. How did that happen, he wonders?
He shoves the note in his pocket and walks to the door. When he leans down to pick up her bag, he sees her cell phone beside it and that same eerie feeling he had last night is back. She was going to leave, but she didn't get the chance. Whoever she was running from got to her first.
He knows he should call the cops and wait for them, but what good would that do? Eddie's life is in danger, and with every second that passes, his chances of finding her before it is too late diminish, and he bolts out of her apartment.
He has to get back to the precinct and get that security footage. It may be his only chance at finding her, or at least finding out who has her. That would be a start. He is almost there when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He reaches for it and his screen is lighting up with Sergeant Gates' number.
"Hello," he answers, and his voice is shaky and Gates thinks he sounds out of breath.
"Jamie, we got the security footage, how soon can you get down here," Gates asks.
"Five minutes," he replies and shoves his phone back in his pocket before taking off in a full sprint.
Jake is in full panic as he waits for Eddie to regain consciousness. It shouldn't take this long, he thinks. But she is still recovering from the Rohypnol from the night before, and her body is too weak. The chloroform he used earlier is taking longer to wear off than he thought it would.
They don't have much time left but he needs her to wake up before they can move. It dawns on him that he didn't use any aliases when he checked into the hotel a few weeks ago, and it won't take her stupid cop boyfriend long to find them. They need to get out of New York fast. He is pacing around the room again, in between packing the few things he has acquired since he has been there, while he waits for her to wake up.
Jamie is at the precinct watching the security footage. He starts with the outside of the hotel, hoping to catch an image of the man putting her in the cab, but nothing is clear. He watches it happen, but the view of the man's face is limited from each angle they have, and he can't see much.
He finds the footage from the lobby and the angle is perfect. He can see clearly, the face of the man who is walking Eddie through the lobby.
"Wait a minute," Jamie says as the realization hits him and he sits up straighter in his chair.
"Zoom in," he instructs Gates as he leans in closer to the computer screen.
"What," Gates asks.
He can tell Jamie has figured something out.
"I've seen that guy before," Jamie says, and Gates gets a clearer image.
"Yeah, I've seen him…twice."
Jamie realizes that is the face of the man he saw at the bar, and now he remembers him from the park just a couple of days ago.
"This man was stalking Eddie this whole time, and I had no idea."
Jamie's voice starts soft and calm but grows anxious the second he realizes he has to be the one who has her right now.
"We have to find out who this guy is, Anthony. He has her right now and she is in danger."
Jamie and Gates ran Jake's face through every database in New York but found nothing. Jamie was frustrated and knew he was running out time. He has done everything but call her mother or grandmother in California, he thinks, and he is not sure he should call them yet.
Then a thought hits him, it hits him hard, and he can't believe he didn't think of it sooner. California. That is the answer. Eddie must know this guy from California.
He doesn't have access to the databases there but makes a few phone calls to get them started. He can't wait for them though and begins his own online research. He knows it is a stretch, but it is worth a try and idle hands won't help him find Eddie right now.
Jamie starts with a simple internet search of cases she may have tried in California. Maybe this guy was someone she sent to prison out there, and he wants revenge. That could explain why she was running and why she said in her letter that she was tired of fighting. Maybe she has been running from this for a while.
He is not finding anything that can help. His head hurts, and he is angry. He is about to give up when his last search returns a case Eddie was involved in, but not as the prosecutor, as the victim. His heart sinks when he reads the details available on the internet.
Jake Singer was the defendant in a domestic violence case, and Eddie was his victim. His heart is breaking for her and he wonders why she wouldn't have told him any of this.
He types 'Jake Singer' into a new search field and instantly a photo of the man they are looking for appears on the screen in front of him. This guy has Eddie and he hopes they are still in New York.