Why do they keep telling me I’ll be fine? Lights are flashing by on the ceiling as the bed rolls forward. I try to speak but all that comes out is a gurgled groan. There’s something in my mouth. Harper! I need to tell them about Harper! She’s in danger!
“Don’t speak, Zachary. You’ve been intubated. We’re going to fix you right up in no time.”
I’m wheeled into a room and I see multiple bodies around my bed. They count together and suddenly I’m lifted onto a hard surface. More voices, more movement. I try to catch their attention. I need to tell them about Harper! There’s no time. They’re telling me something and then I feel like the blood in my arm has turned to ice. The cold feeling travels up my arm and then I’m asleep.
“I think he’s waking up,” a low voice says. I open my eyes and squint. I try to move my head but everything hurts. My throat is on fire. My vision clears and I see a familiar face next to the bed.
“Mitch?”
“Hey, buddy. You gave us quite the scare. How are you feeling?”
“Horrible. Where am I?”
“You’re at the hospital. You were stabbed. What happened?”
I groan. One by one, the memories start coming back to me. Harper’s apartment. The blood spreading around me. The feeling of the knife sinking into my chest. Greg Chesney’s face just inches away from mine.
“I was stabbed,” I explain. Harper! My pulse jumps up.
Mitch chuckles. “Yeah, we gathered that. I mean what happened that led to you getting stabbed? Why were you over there, anyway? That’s nowhere near your apartment.”
There’s a noise to my right and I turn my head slowly. Two police officers come into the room in full uniform.
“Mr. Lockwood,” the burly man in front says. He’s clearly in charge. “My name is Officer Benson. This is Officer Green.” He nods to his partner. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”
I nod. Even that slight movement makes the pain shoot down my spine.
“Do you know the person who stabbed you?”
“Greg,” I try to speak but my throat is too hoarse. “Greg Chesney. You need to get him. He’s dangerous!”
The officer jots down the name. “And who is Greg Chesney? How do you know him?”
“He works for me. Used to work for me.”
“What were you doing when he stabbed you?”
“Trying to go see my girlfriend.” The word comes naturally. I hear Mitch make a noise but I ignore him. She’s my girlfriend, and she’s in trouble. “He’s obsessed with her. He was stalking her last year and nobody ever did anything to it. He threatened me and then stabbed me. You need to find him. She’s in trouble. He said she was in her apartment in bed but I couldn’t get in. That’s when he stabbed me. You need to go! There’s no time!”
“Okay, sir, calm down,” Officer Benson says in a stern voice. “Can you describe Greg Chesney for us?”
I give them the best description I can and tell them what happened. They nod and write things down.
“Okay, thank you. If you remember anything else just call this number.” He leaves a card on the table next to me. They turn to leave and I make a noise.
“Officer?”
He turns to look at me, waiting for me to speak.
“She’s pregnant.” I say. “Harper is pregnant. Please find her.” The two officers exchange a glance and then look at me.
“We’ll find her,” he says with certainty before turning around and leaving.
I lie back in bed and close my eyes. Mitch clears his throat.
“So… were you ever going to tell me that you and Harper were... together. And that you knocked her up?”
“Just shut up, Mitch, please,” I say without opening my eyes. “It’s been a rough couple of days.”
He says nothing and I open my eyes to look at him. His eyes are wide and he’s staring at me in disbelief. I try to grin but my face won’t let me.
“You’re looking at me like I’m from outer space,” I croak.
“You might be,” he replies with a laugh. “What the fuck, man! I don’t even know you.”
“I don’t know, Mitch. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. There’s something about her.” I try to sit up and wince as the pain shoots through my chest. “I’ve never met a woman like her before. They have to find her. I have to find her!”
“You’re going nowhere,” Mitch says sternly. “If I have to sit here and babysit you, I will. Let the police do their job.”
“Mitch, you don’t understand. She thinks I hate her. She thinks I don’t want the baby. I have to find her and make it right.”
“They’ll find her, and you can tell her that yourself when they do. Zach, look at yourself,” Mitch says. “You look like hell, and you’ve got tubes sticking out all over the place. You can barely move without wincing. Let the police do their job. You just got fucking stabbed in the heart!”
I lie back on the bed and close my eyes. He’s right, I can hardly move. As much as I hate it, I won’t be able to get out of this bed. My heart has been through a lot these past couple of days. I try to relax but all I can think of is Harper. They need to find her. She needs to be safe.
Mitch puts a hand on my arm as if he can sense my panic. “It’ll be okay,” he says in a low voice. “It’ll be okay.”
41
Harper
“I just have one more thing to take care of, and then we can be together forever, puppet.” Greg is putting on his jacket and heading for the fire escape. “You just sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
“What are you going to take care of?” I ask.
“Rosie.”
Before I can respond, he’s out the window and slams it shut. The noise of the window coming down on the frame vibrates through my chest and I yell in panic. Greg looks at me through the closed window and grins before spinning around and disappearing down the fire escape.
His face stays etched in my vision, the toothy smile of a madman staring at me through the window. My breath is shallow.
Rosie.
He’s going to take care of her? What does that even mean? He seems to think that she’s the one who stopped us being together, not the fact that he’s a stalker that I had no interest in being with. I need to get out of here. I need to protect Rosie! I need to protect myself!!
I struggle against my bonds once again. It’s no use. He has them tied up in multiple knots, spreading me out so I can’t get any leverage. I can’t even move, let alone try to free myself. I relax and then yank at my arms, as if to surprise the ropes into letting me go.
Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t work. Tears of frustration start welling up in my eyes. I don’t have much time. I need to warn Rosie! I don’t even know what he’s planning on doing, but judging by the bloodstain on his jacket and the unhinged look in his eye, I can guess it’s nothing good. He’s dangerous, and I’m stuck here with no way of even moving more than a couple of inches.
I’m starting to lose hope. I can’t move these ropes at all. I’m stuck in my own home, unable to call for help and unable to set myself free. The tears are streaming down my face now. Rosie. My best friend, the voice of reason, the one who can make me laugh.
I can’t take it. The pain grows like a ball of flame in my stomach until I have to let it out somehow.
“Help!” I scream into the void. “Help me! Someone! Please!” I scream and scream until my voice goes hoarse, and then I scream some more. I watch as the minutes tick by on my alarm clock, taunting me as my imagination runs wild with what Greg might be doing.
It takes half an hour to get to Rosie’s house from here, assuming Greg is driving. That means he’ll be getting there in just a few minutes. She’s probably making dinner. She always eats at home. My heart starts thumping as the clock marches on and on.
“Help!”
My voice is getting weaker and I sob. It’s no use.
Just then, I hear a thump at the front door, and some muffled voices. My heart leaps.
&nbs
p; “Help! In here!” I scream as loud as I can. My vocal cords are raw, and each sound they make sends pain through my throat. I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. “Help!”
The door burst open and I hear heavy footsteps.
“Police!”
“In here!” I yell. A flood of officers comes through my bedroom door and in an instant my arms and legs are free. A thousand and one questions are flying at me.
“He’s gone, he’s gone to Rosie’s,” I pant. “I know where he is! He’s gone to Rosie’s. I’m fine!” I shout as someone tries to tell me I need to go to the hospital. “I need to go to Rosie’s!”
“You can show us the way,” a large officer with a mop of curly brown hair says to me. “Green, get her in the car. We’re going.”
On the way out the door I grab my phone and rush down the stairways. Before I know what’s happening, I’m loaded into a police car and the sirens are blaring. We’re flying down the roads as cars pull over left and right to let us through. I’ve never been in a police car and the feeling would be exhilarating if I wasn’t terrified for Rosie.
There’s no answer as I call Rosie over and over and over again.
“Come on, answer,” I whisper to myself. “Answer!” I call her one more time and then mash the keyboard as I send her a text.
Harper: Get out of your apartment. Go somewhere safe. Call me now!
Rosie’s silence is deafening and the dread is quickly overwhelming me. I rub at my wrists where the ropes left red raw marks. I know my eyes are wide and my body is completely tense as I watch us speed through red lights, green lights, around corners, through stop signs. We fly down the roads toward Rosie, but it still seems too slow.
I can’t stop glancing at the clock. Time is still laughing at me, barreling on way too quickly. Surely Greg has made it to Rosie’s house now. We’re too late. He’s already there. My mind starts to run away with thoughts of what we’ll find: more dark reddish brown blood stains, Rosie, Greg, maybe he’ll be gone and we’ll just find Rosie.
My phone rings and I almost jump out of my seat. I look at the screen and sigh. It’s not Rosie.
Zach’s name flashes on the screen and my thumb hesitates over the buttons. Finally I let it press down over the one on the left: Ignore. I don’t have time for this right now, and I definitely don’t have the energy. My hand hovers over my stomach and I close my eyes. It’s okay, little buddy. We’re going to be okay. I love you.
I’m not sure if it’s normal for women to talk to their fetuses like this but it gives me an ounce of comfort to know I’m not alone.
I focus on the sound of the sirens to drown out my spiraling thoughts. As the cars split on the road in front of us, I shift my thinking. We’re going to make it. We’re nearly there. He couldn’t have gotten here that fast. He’ll want to draw out his punishment of Rosie, surely. We’ll have time. We can make it.
We have to make it.
42
Zach
“She hung up,” I say with a sigh, tossing my phone to the side. Mitch purses his lips.
“I’m sure it’s fine, the police were on their way over there. Did it go straight to voicemail?”
“Nah, it rang a couple of times and then she hung up.” I glance at Mitch and see him nod. He tries to keep his face straight but I know he’s thinking exactly the same thing as me: That’s not a good sign.
Either she can’t talk, or Greg has her phone. If he saw my name flash on the screen it might have made him angry.
“What if he has her phone,” I say slowly. “It might set him off to see me calling. If he has her, and he’s mad…” I stare at the dark screen of my phone. My chest suddenly feels hollow at the thought that I’m endangering Harper just by calling her.
“Don’t think like that. The police have been gone an hour. They’re with her, they have to be. Maybe one of them hung up the phone. Maybe she can’t talk because they’re interviewing her. There could be a thousand things going on. Don’t panic.”
I nod, but I can’t look at him. He could give me a thousand logical explanations but I can’t stop thinking of Greg’s face when it was inches from mine. His eyes were two black circles with white showing all around. There was no life in them, no emotion except rage. Rage directed at me. If that rage were aimed at Harper…
“He told me to stay away. If he sees my name on her phone, he knows I’m not listening.”
“Zach, stop. This isn’t you. You’re not like this. Don’t panic. Are you in pain? Do you need more meds? Is it time for more morphine?”
I grin and finally meet Mitch’s eye. “Always trying to get me fucked up, hey?”
“What else are friends for? Give me some of that IV if you’re not enjoying it.”
I chuckle and the movement sends pain radiating through my chest. I wince, bringing a hand up to my bandage.
“At least you’ll end up with a gnarly scar,” Mitch says, motioning to my chest. “The ladies love scars.”
“I’m not interested in what the ladies love,” I reply. I close my eyes and can almost feel Harper’s fingers trail over and back across my chest. I love the way she brushes her fingertips ever so gently on my skin. It makes me feel like there’s nowhere else in the world I’d rather be than right beside her.
Right now, there isn’t. I try to shift my weight and groan. Even lifting my torso up away from the bed is exhausting.
“Will you stop fucking moving? Zach, you’ve been stabbed! You just had major surgery.” Mitch puts his hand on my shoulder. I look over at him and see the concern in his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Zach. Come on.”
I nod and lay back, resigning myself to the fact that I’m going to have to let the police do their job.
Mitch sees me settle down and sits back in his chair. I sigh and close my eyes, trying to imagine Harper’s eyes when she’s laughing. They sparkle like two emeralds.
“So how did this all happen, you and Harper?”
I open my eyes and see Mitch staring at me curiously. His voice is casual but his eyes betray his intense curiosity. I shrug, and then wince as the pain shoots through my arm.
“It just kind of… happened. I don’t know. I’d never really spoken to her and then we started spending time together at work on the Latif file, and Mitch,” I pause and glance at him. “She’s fucking amazing. She’s so smart and driven and people love her! She has the most amazing eyes and she’s funny, you know? Like really funny. The things she says are just constantly surprising me.”
Mitch grins. “You’ve got it bad. It’s over. You’re done.”
I blow the air out of my nostrils. “I know.”
“And the kid… was that planned?”
“No.” I grimace. “I reacted badly. I didn’t mean to.”
“You said that.” Mitch leans forward. “Listen, it’ll work out. She’ll understand. Right now you just need to focus on resting. At the end of the day you got stabbed on your way to her place. That’s got to count for something, right? Like, sure, you acted like a dick when you found out but then you almost died! She can’t hate you forever!”
I can’t help but laugh even though I know it’ll send flames of pain through my side. Mitch grins.
“Yeah, it’s got to count for something.”
“Let’s get you some more painkillers,” Mitch says as he grabs the call button next to the bed. “You deserve it.”
“You’re an idiot,” I laugh as a nurse pops her head in the door. I lie back in bed and close my eyes. I’m glad Mitch is here, if only to distract me from the gnawing fear that I was too late, that I’ve put Harper in more danger, that I’ve ruined everything. I should have been with her.
At the end of the day he’s right, I can’t even move out of this bed, let alone go after a deranged stalker. I need to trust the police. If Harper and I make it out of this then I can explain myself. I can be a dad and I can be with Harper. I glance at my phone and feel another kind of pain in my chest when the blank screen stares back at me. I resist the urge
to dial her number again.
43
Harper
The second the car stops it’s a flurry of frantic activity.
“Stay here,” Officer Benson commands.
“But!”
“Stay. Here.” He tells me. He motions for me to put my foot back inside the car and then closes the door. He jogs up the few steps to the apartment block and I watch in frustration from my seat in the police cruiser.
I crack the door open to see if I can hear anything, and then step out of the car. There are a few police officers at the door and they motion at me to stop. I hold up my arms and motion to the car, leaning against it. I’m not moving, I’m just going to go crazy if I have to sit in the car! They seem to understand and turn back to the door. I can hear the static of their radios buzzing with unintelligible voices. I wish I could hear.
I scan the building. Rosie lives in an old brick building, kind of like mine. The alleyways that surround it are narrow and dark, and I know she has a fire escape just like mine. I frown. Greg never used my front door, always choosing the fire escape. Suddenly I’m standing up like a bolt and jogging toward the officers.
“He’ll use the fire escape.”
“Ma’am, please go back to the car. Back up. Ma’am”
“He’ll use the fire escape! We need to cover the back!”
They’re not listening. One of them is grabbing my arm and guiding me toward Benson’s cruiser. I yank my arm away and take off running toward the alley. Their shouts are drowned out by the pounding of my heart in my ears.
I can only hear my breath, my heartbeat, and the sound of my footsteps on the pavement. I think someone is following me and shouting but I can’t be sure. I dive down the alley and sprint to the end. The fire escapes are all on the far side.
In a few steps I’ve reached the corner of the building. I skid around the corner, almost losing my balance as my eyes scan up the building.
Unexpected (Complete Accidental Pregnancy Box Set) Page 14