Chapter 3 - A Baby Who Wouldn't Wait
The contraction lasted forty seconds. I counted by staring at the wall clock over Officer Ramirez's shoulder.
“Braxton Hicks,” I said, more to convince myself than anyone else. “I've had them before.”
June crouched beside me. “You've never gone pale like that before.”
The officer called an ambulance. I argued until another contraction stole the words out of my mouth.
At the hospital, a nurse named Tasha strapped monitors around my belly and found our daughter's heartbeat, quick and steady. I cried when I heard it. For the first time that night, something sounded honest.
“Your cervix hasn't changed,” the doctor said after an examination. “This may be stress-related uterine irritability, but with your symptoms we want to observe you. No driving around all night.”
“There's someone following me,” I told her.
Tasha quietly moved us to a room away from the main entrance and asked security not to release my information. I hadn't known strangers could be so gentle until my own husband made home feel unsafe.
At 2:06 a.m., Adrian appeared in the hallway. I heard his voice before I saw him.
“She's my wife. That's my child. You can't keep me out.”
June stood in the doorway. “Try me.”
When he finally saw me, the anger on his face buckled into relief. His hair was damp with snow. He stepped toward the bed, but I held up one hand.
“Who told you I was here?”
“I called every hospital in the county.”
“The police said someone was pretending to be you.”
He blinked. Just once. “I don't know anything about that.”
I laid the photograph of Nathan Vale on my blanket.
Adrian stared at it. The color drained from his face.
“Where did you get that?”
“That's your question?”
“Emma, listen carefully. If anyone knows you have this, you're in danger.”
“Someone already threatened the baby.”
His hand gripped the metal bed rail. “What number?”
I showed him the message. He looked at the screen, then immediately called someone.
“Don't,” I said. “No more calls behind my back.”
He ended it without speaking. For a moment he was the man who used to sit beside me at my mother's chemotherapy appointments, holding a paper cup of cold coffee because he was too frightened to leave me alone.
Then his phone rang. Celeste again.
He declined the call. A second later a photograph arrived: our front door, wide open, Christmas lights still burning.
May you like
Below it were five words.
SHE TOOK THE WRONG ENVELOPE.
