Chapter 3 - An Empty ScreenNicole insisted she'd closed a shopping app. Nobody believed her, but she held the phone behind her back and dared the deputy to take it.
Paramedics arrived through the still-dark hallway. One checked my blood pressure while the other brought a stretcher. My body shook so hard I could barely answer my own birthday.
"Any direct blow to your stomach?" the medic asked.
"Not this morning." The words escaped before I could stop them.
Mercer glanced up. "What about before this morning?"
Trent answered from the island. "She's exaggerating."
"I'm asking her."
I looked at the doorway. Going to the hospital meant leaving the house where every important paper was locked in Trent's office. Staying meant another night with him. The choice shouldn't have been difficult. Fear made it feel impossible.
"Last Thursday," I said. "He shoved me into the kitchen counter."
Helen clicked her tongue. "A marital disagreement."
"No," I said. It was the smallest word I'd spoken in years, and it finally belonged to me. "It wasn't."
The medics lifted me carefully. Richard watched them carry me past the table, his untouched breakfast waiting beneath the dark chandelier. He was looking at the phone in my hand.
"You sent something," he murmured as we passed.
I stared at him. "What?"
"That button. I know what it does."
He said it with neither concern nor surprise. A man calculating a cost.
Outside, the autumn air bit through my nightgown. I could see the entire street and the transformer truck parked near the curb. Mrs. Alvarez watched from her porch with a blanket in her arms.
"Alex is coming," she called softly.
My throat tightened. "You spoke to him?"
"The minute I heard the shouting through the wall."
The ambulance doors closed, and I finally let myself cry. A medic placed a fetal monitor against my stomach. The machine searched, hissed, searched again.
Then a heartbeat filled the ambulance. Fast and stubborn. My baby was alive.
"There she is," the medic said.
I laughed once, through tears. The sound startled me.
At the hospital, an officer met us at the emergency entrance. He handed Mercer a paper evidence bag.
"Found this by the rear gate," he said. Inside was a second phone, its shattered screen lit with one unsent message.
May you like
It read: IF EMILY TALKS, USE THE DOCUMENTS IN THE SAFE.
The paramedic asked whether there was someone I trusted who could receive updates. I'd been answering that question with Trent's name for two years. This time I gave Alex's. The medic didn't smile or congratulate me. She simply wrote it down. It was enough. When she slid a warm blanket over my knees, I realized I'd forgotten that strangers could touch a frightened person without demanding anything in return.
Related Stories
