Chasing Abby (Shattered Hearts Book 6) Read online

  Contents

  Dedication

  Note to Reader

  Prologue

  PART I: THE JENSENS

  Chapter 1 - Abby

  Chapter 2 - Lynette

  Chapter 3 - Brian

  Chapter 4 - Lynette

  Chapter 5 - Abby

  Chapter 6 - Brian

  Chapter 7 - Abby

  Chapter 8 - Lynette & Abby

  Chapter 9 - Abby

  Chapter 10 - Caleb

  Chapter 11 - Abby

  PART II: THE KNIGHTS

  Chapter 12 - Chris

  Chapter 13 - Claire

  Chapter 14 - Abby

  Chapter 15 - Chris

  Chapter 16 - Claire

  Chapter 17 - Abby

  Chapter 18 - Chris

  Chapter 19 - Claire

  Chapter 20 - Chris

  Chapter 21 - Abby

  Chapter 22 - Caleb

  Chapter 23 - Abby

  Chapter 24 - Caleb

  Chapter 25 - Abby

  Chapter 26 - Jimi

  Chapter 27 - Abby

  Chapter 28 - Chris

  PART III: ABBY

  Chapter 29 - Abby

  Chapter 30 - Caleb

  Chapter 31 - Abby & Claire

  Chapter 32 - Abby

  Chapter 33 - Abby

  Chapter 34 - Abby

  PART IV: EPILOGUE

  Epilogue #1

  Epilogue #2

  Thank you!

  Chapter One

  Chasing Abby Playlist

  Chasing Abby

  Acknowledgments

  Other books by Cassia Leo

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For all the shattered hearts.

  Note to Reader

  MUSIC is an important part of this series. Some chapters in this book begin with a musical note. The musical note indicates there is a song on the Chasing Abby playlist that pertains to or is mentioned in that chapter. The musical note links to a YouTube video of a song that pertains to or is mentioned in that chapter. Most of these links are mobile-friendly and work on internet-ready devices such as smart phones, tablets, and computers. These links will not work on all e-readers. If you are reading Chasing Abby on an incompatible e-reader, feel free to open the playlist on a compatible device and listen as you read.

  The playlist is available on YouTube at:

  http://bit.ly/chasingabbyplaylist

  The playlist is available on Spotify at:

  http://bit.ly/chasingabbyplaylists

  PROLOGUE

  Four months after

  MY HAND IS SHAKING as I jam the key into the ignition. The smell of leather is making me even more nervous. I’ve never driven a car this expensive. Actually, I’ve hardly driven any car of any value. I’m not sure I can safely drive Jimi’s Mercedes. If I crash today, I guess I can thank my fabulous parents and their need to protect my fragile heart.

  I turn the key and the engine hums. I shift into reverse and punch the gas pedal, then I nearly pass out when the car jumps backward into the driveway, almost crashing into the block wall separating the beach house from the neighbor’s house. My mom comes bounding out of the front door. I quickly switch gears and peel out of the driveway onto Sandpiper Street, then I head toward Lumina Avenue.

  I don’t know if anyone will follow me. I hope they don’t. I just need to get away.

  For eighteen years, I was the sickly, fragile daughter of Brian and Lynette Jensen. Now… I don’t know who I am. When I’m with my biological parents, I don’t feel like the frail girl I was eight weeks ago. I’m different. I’m the girl who got away. The girl who was strong enough to capture my parents’ hearts in a single twenty-minute meeting and hold them captive for eighteen years.

  That’s the girl I want to be. I don’t want to be fragile anymore.

  I turn left on Lumina and the Mercedes grips the slick asphalt beautifully. Racing forward, I turn right onto Highway 74 and draw in a deep breath. I don’t know where I’m going. All I know is that I can’t be there right now. I need to think without my mom’s pitiful gaze penetrating me. Or the look of disappointment and hope in Chris and Claire’s eyes.

  I touch the power button on the touchscreen and Jimi’s favorite playlist begins to play. I listen to the beachy, acoustic melodies and think of the past few weeks. Flashes of my parents’ hopeful faces flicker in my mind. Caleb’s face materializes, and memories of that day on the beach come rushing back to me. My body relaxes and my hands stop trembling as a smile curls my lips. Caleb is my constant.

  Even when I’m being pulled this way and that way, it’s Caleb’s face, his sturdy hands, his breath so soft on my skin, his love so fragile in my hands… Caleb is the rope that keeps me tethered to reality. As long as I have Caleb, I’ll get through this.

  A buzzing noise pulls me out of my thoughts and I glance at the cup holder between the seats. My phone is flashing. I pick it up and glance at the screen. It’s Caleb.

  I heave a deep sigh and answer. “Hello?”

  When I turn my attention back to the road, something is wrong. The lane has moved. Or… Oh, no. It’s not the lane. It’s my car that’s veered into oncoming traffic. The last thing I hear is Caleb screaming my name before I drop the phone.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Two months after

  THE HAIRS ON MY ARMS stand on end the moment I step inside Fidelity Bank in Raleigh. As if I can feel every time my parents walked through here over the past eighteen years. See the ghost of their footprints trailed across the speckled tile.

  Caleb squeezes my hand as we head for the line of patrons queued up in front of the teller windows. I want to smile at him to show him that everything is okay, but I’m too nervous. My heart is pounding like a snare drum inside my chest. My fingers begin to tingle and I know I should stop and take a few deep breaths, but I can’t stop moving toward that line. I wriggle my fingers a little and Caleb tightens his grip, stopping in the middle of the floor as he recognizes the signs.

  I look up into his green eyes and his eyebrows shoot up as he draws in a deep breath. I copy him, sucking in a large breath through my nostrils then letting it out slowly through my mouth. He does it a few more times and I follow along until the tingling in my fingers is gone. Then I blink my eyes to stanch the tears. It’s not fair to Caleb that he has a broken girlfriend. He deserves a girl with a healthy heart who can keep up with his lust for life.

  “Better?” he asks, his voice soothing and hopeful.

  I nod and he kisses my forehead. “Thank you.”

  What is it like having a defective heart? Sort of like having a defective TV that only displays a few channels. You’re forced to listen to your friends talking about all the cool shows they’ve been watching. Shows you’ll never be able to watch. And you try to pretend you’re perfectly happy with your defective TV, but everyone knows you’re just trying to be a good sport.

  Sports. That’s one thing you can’t watch on a defective TV. I learned that when I was thirteen. That also happens to be the age I learned about the safe-deposit box that brought me to Fidelity Bank today.

  “I can help the next person in line.”

  I look up and the woman behind the bulletproof glass is giving me that impatient, eyebrows-raised look. I step forward with Caleb and slip my driver’s license into the curved slot on the counter.

  “I’m here to… to look at my safe-deposit box.” Look at? She must think I’m crazy.

  She takes my driver’s license and swipes it through a machine. She types in a few commands, then she looks back and forth between the picture on my ID and my face.

  “Do you have your key?”

 
“Yes,” I reply quickly as I begin digging in the front pocket of my jeans for the small silver key my father gave me two months ago.

  I slide it into the slot and she smiles. “You can hold onto it.” She slides my ID back to me and I take both the card and the key back. “Just give me a moment. I have to go get my supervisor to help you.”

  She disappears behind a curved wall and comes back with a man in a suit who’s sifting through a gaggle of keys on a chain as he walks. They arrive at the teller window and the man smiles at me.

  He nods to his right. “This way, ma’am.”

  Ma’am? I’ve never been called that before. I guess this is what it feels like to be an adult.

  We reach an unmarked door that buzzes softly before it’s pulled inward. The man with the keys smiles as he waves us inside. He closes the door behind us, then he leads us to an enormous circular vault door. He slips a key into a lock, then he places his thumb on a print reader. A soft beep sounds and he enters a code on a touchpad. A heavy click sounds inside the door and he turns the wheel to open the door and pull it out.

  The vault door opens onto a corridor, which runs perpendicular. Straight ahead of us is a room where another heavy, rectangular vault door stands open, revealing a narrow room lined from floor to ceiling with brass safe-deposit boxes. I look right and see more vault doors leading to other places. The man with the keys leads us forward to the room with the safe-deposit boxes. There aren’t any tables, just a single plastic chair with metal legs pushed up against the back wall of the narrow room. I may need that.

  “Do you know which box is yours?” the man asks.

  I look up into his dark eyes and my mind blanks, so Caleb speaks for me. “Fifteen-five-zero-eight.”

  I nod in agreement and the man smiles as I hold up my key, still unable to speak.

  He leads us to the middle of the room and taps a box on the left. “This is it.” He begins walking back toward the door. “Go ahead and take your time. When you’re ready, just press this button right here and someone will come back to let you out.”

  I nod again. “Thank you.”

  He nods as he closes the rectangular vault door, closing us into the room. My fingers are beginning to tingle again, but I don’t wriggle them. I don’t want to worry Caleb.

  I hand him the key. “You open it.”

  “Do you want me to look inside and tell you what I see?”

  “Yes, please.”

  He looks at me for a moment, then he heads for the back of the room. He carries the chair back to me and pats the seat. I sit down and try to resist the urge to wring my hands.

  “Deep breaths, Abby,” he reminds me.

  “Just open it. I need this over with.”

  He quickly slides the key into the lock and turns. He pulls box 15508 out of the slot and I lean forward to put my head between my knees. I don’t want to see until I know what’s in there.

  “It’s a memory card and… Holy shit.”

  “What?” My head snaps up, but I can’t see inside the box from this angle. “What is it?”

  His eyes are wide, but I can’t tell if he’s excited or terrified.

  “Caleb! Answer me. What is it?”

  “It’s… There are some pictures in here.”

  “Pictures? So… what? Why is that shocking?”

  His Adam’s apple bobs in his throat as he gulps. “It’s not the pictures that are shocking… It’s who’s in the pictures.”

  “What? Let me see.” I stand up to get a look at the contents of the brass box, but Caleb quickly slides it back into the slot. “What are you doing?”

  “You asked me to tell you what I saw before you see it.”

  I slap his arm in frustration. “Then tell me, damn it!”

  “Abby, calm down.”

  He looks into my eyes with that stern look that only Caleb and my dad can pull off.

  I take a deep breath and nod. “Okay, I’m calm. What’s in the box?”

  “It looks like… your biological father is… Chris Knight.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “What? Is that supposed to be a joke? Because that is not funny at all. Just tell me what’s inside the box.”

  He’s not smiling as his eyes lock on mine. “This is not a joke.”

  The silence is so absolute, I can hear my feeble heart stuttering under the weight of this news.

  “Sit down, baby,” he whispers and I gladly sit as he pulls the box out of the slot again. “Are you ready?”

  I nod and he carefully sets the box in my lap. The first thing I see is the picture sitting on top of the stack. It’s clearly a professional family photo. Chris Knight, his wife, and their three kids are standing in front of a large elm tree. They look so happy and… perfect. I’ll bet all the TVs in their house work perfectly.

  Caleb kneels in front of me and reaches forward to wipe a tear from my cheek. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head, shaking loose another tear. “No.”

  I lift the photos out of the box and move the top picture to the bottom of the stack. The next one stops me cold. It’s a picture of Chris Knight looking quite a bit younger. He’s dressed in a suit and holding… me.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Five years before

  BRIAN HOLDS OUT A BOTTLE of water to me and I push it away. It’s offensive. How can he even think of my needs when Abby is out there burning up on the soccer field?

  I march toward Coach Fred, but the moment he sees me he shakes his head in dismay and turns his attention back to the field, as if I don’t exist. “She needs to come out! Take her out!”

  I don’t care if all the parents are rolling their eyes. They find me annoying. That much has been obvious from the moment I set foot on the soccer field for Abby’s first game six months ago.

  Abby had been begging me to let her play a sport, but the only two sports she was interested in were soccer and basketball. Well, I’ve heard enough horror stories about basketball players with bad hearts collapsing on the court and never waking up. I denied her request for two years until I couldn’t take the begging anymore. I told her I’d let her play soccer if she played a defensive position. I didn’t factor the Carolina humidity into my decision.

  It may be the end of November, but Abby’s asthma always acts up more during cool weather. And if she’s having trouble breathing, she’s going to pass out soon. Her heart just isn’t equipped to deal with that kind of stress.

  She’s standing two hundred feet away from me and, even from this distance, I can see her cheeks are a vibrant red and her mouth is hanging open with exhaustion. But she’s one of the team’s best defenders, so Coach Fred thinks I’m overreacting. She couldn’t play so well if there was anything wrong with her, right?

  Wrong. Abby may look like a normal, slightly smaller-than-average thirteen-year-old girl, but she is far from normal, as much as she hates being reminded of that. Right now, her heart is being crushed under the task of trying to keep her body cool and pump oxygen into her lungs. She’s going to pass out if I don’t get her off that field.

  Coach Fred turns to me, his already wrinkled lips pursed in severe disapproval, a look that probably worked on recruits when he was in the military, but it doesn’t intimidate me one bit. “There is one minute and forty seconds left in the game.”

  “I don’t care. Call a timeout.”

  “Mrs. Jensen, I am going to have to ask you to please let me do my job. These kids have been working too long for this.”

  “Lynette, come on.” Brian clasps his large hand around the crook of my elbow. “It’s almost over.”

  “Are you kidding me?” I wrench my arm free and shoot him a scathing glare.

  The referee’s whistle blows and we all turn toward the field. Abby is holding up her arm, the way they’re taught to do if they’re injured. I manage to take three steps onto the field before she collapses on the grass.

  I race toward her, but Brian and the referee beat me there. Brian immediately pours cool water on
her face and chest as I dial 911. We’ve never had to deal with this particular scenario before, but we’ve had to call an ambulance enough times to have the routine down. Brian roars at the crowd forming around us to disperse.

  “She needs air! Move back!”

  I fall to my knees next to her, spouting off the location and the facts to the 911 operator. “Eastgate Park, the east side entrance on Wingate Drive. Thirteen-year-old female with severe heatstroke.”

  “No, not heatstroke!” Brian bellows. “Cardiac arrest! She’s in cardiac arrest!”

  CHAPTER THREE

  AS I STAND NEXT TO Abby’s hospital bed, all I can think is, if I knew thirteen years ago what I know now, I’d have done everything differently with her birth parents. I was thirty-three years old when Chris and Claire Knight came to us asking to change the closed adoption into an open adoption. I wasn’t young, but I was foolish. Foolish to think Abby would never need them. Foolish to think we would never need them.

  Lynette stands next to me, gently stroking the back of Abby’s hand with her thumb, the way she has every day for the past seventeen days since Abby collapsed during that soccer game. It wasn’t the first time my little girl had passed out from overexertion. Abigail was born with an AV (atrioventricular) canal defect: a gaping hole in her heart.

  After the surgery she underwent at the age of five months, her recovery seemed to be going well. Then, we noticed four-year-old Abby struggling to breathe while chasing Harley, our Jack Russell terrier, around the yard. Sure enough, we took her to the doctor and they discovered one of the valves in her heart had begun to weaken and her body wasn’t getting enough oxygen. Abby had one more surgery to reshape the leaflet, during which she was technically dead for three minutes and twenty-four seconds. We vowed to do everything we could to prevent her from ever needing surgery again.

  Unfortunately, this means Abby has been forced to take various medications for years. We knew this came with a risk of injury to her liver and kidneys. We didn’t know—we couldn’t know—when she switched medications four weeks ago that she’s genetically predisposed to liver toxicity due to the way her body synthesized the new drug. This time, it wasn’t the stress on her heart that made her collapse. Cardiac arrest was secondary to the most pressing issue: liver failure.