Sealed with a Kiss by Leeanna Morgan (microsoft ebook reader txt) 📖

Rachel followed Tess up the back stairs to her old apartment. Her heart was racing and her imagination was working overtime. She crossed her fingers as Tess looked at where the magnetic box should have been.

“How would Bella have known where to look?”

“We talked about it when you came to The Bridesmaids Club with Bella. You told me not to leave it here.”

“Even if the box was there, Bella couldn’t have reached it,” Rachel said anxiously. “It’s too high.”

Tess pulled a metal key ring out of her pocket. She chose a silver key and put it in the lock. “It’s only too high if you’re standing on the landing. If the magnetic box was there when Bella tried the door handle, she could have climbed on the rail and reached it.”

Rachel looked over the edge of the landing at the parking lot below. It was a long way down. If Bella had climbed the rail, she could easily have slipped on the icy wood and fallen onto the ground. “She must have been desperate to get inside.”

“I suppose it depends on why she was up here in the first place.” Tess opened the door and walked inside. “I left the electricity on, but the heating is switched off.” She turned the lights on and started looking around the living room.

Rachel walked into the center of the apartment. “Bella? Are you here? It’s Rachel.” She waited before moving into Tess’ old bedroom. “Bella?” still no reply. She looked inside the empty closet, then opened the door to the bathroom. There was no sign that anyone had been here. Apart from the sound of Tess moving around in the next room, the apartment was clouded in a silence as eerie as the snow flurries outside.

She walked back into the living room and watched Tess open a cupboard along one of the walls. “I didn’t know you had extra storage in here.”

Tess knelt down and looked inside the small space. “I renovated the building a few years ago. Because of the slope of the ceiling, I ended up with a cavity running either side of the apartment. My builder suggested lining the space and turning it into storage areas. We hid the handles in the grooves of the wooden paneling.”

Rachel walked farther along the wall and ran her hand along the same paneling that Tess had touched. Another cupboard opened. It wasn’t a huge space, but it was big enough for an eight-year-old to hide in. They searched each cupboard, but they were completely empty.

Tess walked toward what used to be her spare bedroom. “I’ll look in this room, you take the other one.”

Rachel walked back into the bedroom she’d left only minutes before. With the fancy wood detailing, she hadn’t noticed the same grooves on the paneling in this room. “Bella?”

She opened the first door and sighed. The second cupboard was exactly the same. Empty.

“Rachel? You need to come here.”

Rachel ran into the spare bedroom and stopped in the doorway.

Tess was kneeling in front of an open cupboard. Bella was lying inside the cavity, sound asleep. “She’s cold,” Tess whispered. “Do you think we should move her?”

Rachel unzipped her jacket and slipped it off her shoulders. “We need to get her warm. We can’t do that inside the cupboard. She knows us and it won’t be such a shock when she wakes up.”

Rachel gently shook Bella’s shoulder. “Bella, it’s Rachel. It’s time to wake up.”

Bella’s big brown eyes fluttered open, then closed again.

“Wake up, Bella.” Rachel nudged her arm again. She looked at the worried frown on Tess’ face. “I’ll lift her out of the cupboard. Can you hold her while I call for the police and an ambulance?”

Tess took off her own jacket and sat on the floor. “Of course I can. We could use my jacket as a blanket, too.” She held her arms out. “I’m ready.”

Rachel leaned down and carefully maneuvered Bella until her head and shoulders were out of the cupboard. “Here we go,” she said softly. Within minutes, Bella was sitting in Tess’ arms with two jackets wrapped around her cold body.

Rachel pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and called 9-1-1. Bella’s brown eyes opened slowly. As soon as she saw Rachel, she smiled, then closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

With the police and an ambulance on the way, Rachel had one other person to call. Her hands shook so much that she could hardly hold the phone to her ear.

John answered his cell phone on the first ring.

“John? It’s Rachel. We’ve found Bella. She’s in Tess’ old apartment above the café.”

His gruff reply was instant. He was on his way.

Within minutes of her first call, Rachel heard sirens on the street below. She walked into the living room just as the first police officer came inside.

The small apartment quickly became full of police officers, paramedics, and John’s security guards. After making sure Bella wasn’t in any immediate danger, two paramedics gently lifted her onto a stretcher. They replaced Rachel and Tess’ jackets with a foil survival blanket and made sure she was comfortable.

Rachel heard a noise on the back stairs and walked into the living room. John burst through the door, looking frantically around the room for his daughter. She pointed toward Tess’ spare bedroom. “She’s in there.”

John looked as though he’d aged ten years since she’d last seen him. Deep creases lined either side of his mouth and his eyes were full of worry. He rushed into the bedroom and she heard the relief in his voice when he talked to Bella.

She walked past the police officers and guards, and stood in the doorway, watching John. The scene in front of her was heartbreaking. He held Bella’s hand as the paramedics finished strapping her into a stretcher. His eyes never left her face, never wavered as tears fell down Bella’s cheeks.

“I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have run away. Please don’t be mad at Rachel and Tank. They told me to be careful and I wasn’t.”

John leaned down and kissed the top of Bella’s head. “As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”

“Have you