Avery eyed the mess of glass all over the hallway, catching Emily's attention as she headed for the kitchen to grab her car keys and purse. She dismissed the mess. Her heart ached at the loss of such a precious gift from her mother, but she could have sworn she heard her mother egg her on.
Walking down the steps into the driveway, the unfamiliar white Acura sports car was being placed on a flatbed. Avery stopped taking in the details of the car before he turned to Detective Denton who was scribbling some notes down in a small notebook next to his unmarked police cruiser.
“Why is Quinn Daniels' car in the driveway?” He questioned Denton.
“That is how Hart made it past us at the hospital, apparently some nurse let him take her car, not knowing his plans. He slipped right past us, that son of a bitch.” Avery stood in shock for a minute before turning back to the car and shaking his head. What the hell does Quinn have to do with Jared?
“That is Quinn's car?” Emily's voice snapped him back to Earth. A puzzled look spread across her face at the simple connection. Her mind was running wild behind her tired eyes.
“Yeah, it is.” Avery answered her simply before they continued toward Emily's car. Gran sat in the front seat next to Avery. Emily huddled into the backseat unable to get behind the wheel of her own car. Her mind churned on at turbo-speed, when something hit her like a ton of bricks. Amelia. Oh god what would her sister do? She pulled her iPhone out of her bag and called her, repeatedly calling until Amelia finally picked up.
“What Ems? I'm busy.” Her tone was harsh, distressed, and she could sense a hint of sadness. Was Ben there with her? Did he know what Jared had confessed?
“Amelia, listen to me. This is extremely important. Do not let Ben know or let on that anything is wrong. Get in your car, and meet me at the Ponce Inlet police station now. I will tell you everything when you get here. Please, hurry.” Like that Emily disconnected the phone, praying she would listen to her baby sister for once instead of her dick wad, two-timing husband.
Gran, Avery, Emily, and Amelia sat on the other side of the privacy glass in the police station. On the other side, Jared sat alone in a plastic chair at an empty table, handcuffs still holding his hands together, only in front of his body now.
Emily and Amelia held each other's hands tightly, without speaking a word. They didn't need to talk to communicate everything transpiring between them. For years Ben had poisoned their relationship, a bond once that had been so close-knit. Detective Denton and another detective walked into the interrogation room. They all collectively held their breath waiting to see what would conspire between Jared and the police.
Detective Denton placed a small recorder on the table and began.
“Today is July 14th 2013. This is Detective Denton of the Daytona Beach Police, and Detective Glen of Ponce Inlet Police. This is the interview with Dr. Jared Hart. Dr. Hart you have been read your rights, correct?”
Jared stared around the room before answering. “Yes. I plan on making a full statement.”
Emily squeezed Amelia's hands listening to his words, while Avery rubbed his strong hand along her back. Her breathing kicked up and her stomach churned.
“Please, start when you are ready.” Detective Denton sat back in his chair, looking at Jared while folding his arms across his chest and tapping his foot on the hard, tile flooring.
“My name is Dr. Jared Hart. This is my confession, starting all the way at the beginning. Two years ago I was involved in a hit-and-run car accident. I killed Mr. and Mrs. Taylor of Ponce Inlet on the Dunlawton bridge and I fled the scene.” He paused, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes. The scars on his arms became visible to everyone watching.
“Ben O'Connor helped me conceal my involvement in the accident. He fixed everything somehow, under the pretense that I would fix everything by marrying Emily and giving him half of the inheritance.” He took a deep breath pausing the story for a minute.
Emily turned to Amelia, tears slowly starting to pool in her sister's big blue eyes. Her body started to shake as a sob broke through. She whaled like a baby as Emily continued to hold on to her hand.
“I couldn't do it. A few days later I walked away because I couldn't face Emily knowing I killed her parents, let alone marry her. That was almost two full years ago, give or take some time. I don't remember those dates accurately. A few weeks ago Emily was in a car accident and she was brought into the Emergency Room. When Ben learned of her condition, and that I had treated her...” he trailed off looking toward the glass wall. “He insisted I try to re-connect with her, but due to her amnesia she had no idea who I was. It hurt, but I continued to pursue her at Ben's urging. He threatened me with the secret of the car accident, saying he would expose me.”
Tears flowed down Emily's cheek and Avery wiped them away with the pad of his thumb. Avery and Emily both felt bad for Amelia, she had been so incredibly blind to everything going on right under her nose. Ben had lied to her for years, did he even love her?
“When I saw Emily get involved with that fireman I became enraged and scared— desperate. I didn't know what I could do since there was someone new in the picture. She had been blissfully happy as a single woman since we went our separate ways. I kind of lost it. I was sure Ben would expose me and my life would be over. I went to her apartment when they were out of town, I had been to her apartment every day that week and her car hadn't moved. I broke in the door and entered her apartment.”
Hearing the details of the break-in made Emily sit straight up in her chair, the hair on the back of her neck standing on end as a chill ran over her body. She lurched forward, bile rising into her throat. She ran for the garbage can in the corner of the room and emptied whatever she had left in her stomach. Avery held her hair back as she continued to dry heave until her body calmed down once again.
Taking a bottle of water, she rinsed her mouth, spitting the remainder into the garbage can before walking back to her seat. Typically she only got sick in the morning, but all the activity of the day, and the lack of real food in her stomach caused the morning sickness to creep up on her once again.
“I'm okay. I promise. I am used to it now,” she said to Avery while she sat back down in her chair. Amelia and Gran both eyed the couple before Jared began speaking again.
“When I entered the apartment, I looked around for anything that might have helped me or Ben. There was nothing, no pictures of us together from our relationship, nothing I could have used to remind her of our time together. Ben had suggested maybe looking for bank statements if she would ever let me back inside the apartment. I tore up the whole apartment looking for anything. I was desperate. That is when I saw the knives in the kitchen. I wasn't in my right frame of mine and I reverted to cutting like I had in high school. I had been a cutter for years.”
The scars on his arms were a testament of that. She recalled a distant memory of him sharing that fact with her once.
“I cut my arms several times, I let the blood pour all over me and her bed. I left the knife on her pillow before I rolled my sleeves down and left. I didn't know what I wanted to accomplish that night. Maybe I just wanted to scare her into thinking the other guy was a weirdo or something, desperately hoping she would run back to me.”
He started to pant behind the glass, sweat beaded on his forehead and lip while he ran his fingers through the loose strands of his hair that continued to dangle down into his line of sight.
“This afternoon I saw her in the hospital. She ran right into me. I could see the pure fear on her face. She was scared of me and it broke my heart. I was a broken man. I still am. I saw her holding a strip of ultrasound pictures and I panicked. I really couldn't ever get her back. She was going to be a mother and she would live happily ever after with her knight in shining armor. I am the villain of the story. I killed her parents, she could never have her happily ever after with me. I went to her with every intention of telling her what happened— telling her about Ben.”
Am
elia continued to crumble. When Jared spoke of Ben once more Emily could see her sister coming apart at the seams. Everything she had carefully built around Ben was being ripped out from under her and there was nothing any of them could do about it.
“I promise I would have never hurt her. I love her. I just know she could never love me back and now I accept that. Unfortunately, this is what it had to come to. I want her, and her entire family to know how sorry I am for taking her parents. They were good people, it all was just a really unfortunate accident. I regret it every day of my life.”
Emily turned to Avery's chest and let out a scream as she listened to his confession. All these years she thought some shit-bag drunk had taken them from her, and all along it was the man she loved at the time. It all made perfect sense now— why he'd walked away. She understood why he couldn't come to their services or look her in the eye. It was all his fault. She could forgive him for walking out on her all those years ago, but she would never be able to forgive him for taking her parents' lives and getting away with it for all that time.
“This is too much...I can't believe this, Jared. Mom! Dad! They fucking loved you like a son!” She sobbed uncontrollably, tears soaking the thin material of Avery's shirt as her sister stood to engulf her baby sister in her arms. The two of them hurt badly, but this was something they would overcome together, for the first time in an incredibly long time. Since Ben had come into the picture years earlier.
THE AFTERMATH
The weeks went by in a whirlwind of events, starting with Ben being arrested for his involvement in the cover-up. While Jared was clearly distressed, a psychiatric evaluation had deemed him perfectly competent and his taped confession was logged into evidence. Emily still found herself reeling from the admission, everything had been so unbelievable.
Ben insisted he had nothing to do with Jared or his actions, but a paper-trail connected him to everything Jared admitted. The fact of it all was, the charade started years earlier when Ben's family lost a ton of money in the stock market. He sought out Amelia on purpose, automatically assuming rich parents would leave their daughter a sizable amount of money, one of those healthy trust fund girls. Amelia was well off between the slice of grandpa's pie she received and working hard in her own business.
He had started embezzling money from Amelia only six months after they married. She never even noticed any of it missing because she never paid much attention to the accounts her grandparents had set up for her. Emily has never seen her sister so completely wrecked as long as she had been alive. She slowly started moving her things out of the home she shared with Ben and rented a condo a few miles down the road from her baby sister. Finally, she filed divorce papers. With the amount of evidence piling up against Ben, everyone was sure he would just sign them to be done.
“Honey, we are going to be late,” Avery's voice snapped Emily out of her daydream of the past month. He walked out onto the back deck of their home where Emily stood, watching the waves crash onto the sand. The sound was peaceful, it always helped her sort out whatever mess her busy mind had become.
He wrapped his arms around her waist, placing a kiss on her cheek as she turned in his arms. “We gotta head out if we want to make your appointment on time.” She leaned in and kissed him on his plump lips, sucking his bottom lip into her mouth. His hands ran down her body before settling on her tiny baby bump.
“As much as I want to continue this, I want to finally see my little one, up-close-and-personal.” He kissed her once again before taking her hand and heading off to their first prenatal ultrasound they would attend as a couple. No more shocks about parenthood, no more surprises.
Avery helped Emily up into his truck before rounding the back and joining her. She started to toy with the radio, but he quickly stopped her.
“I got somethin' I wanna play for you baby.” He plugged his iPod into the auxiliary cable and scanned for the song. A smile spread across his face as he pressed play.
“I heard this, and it made me think of you.” He was so thoughtful, always picking the most romantic songs for these moments in their lives together. Darius Rucker crooned into the speakers, singing about History in the Making. Tears pooled in her eyes. Damn these hormones.
“It is perfect, Avery. Like always.” She leaned in to give him a peck on the cheek as the truck pulled out of the driveway heading for the doctor's office.
“Just lean back on the table, this will be a little uncomfortable for a moment.” The ultrasound technician warned Emily as she started inserting the alien probe inside her lady-bits. The first time this happened, at the hospital she was completely unprepared for the internal ultrasound. This time around she was a pro, and Avery looked like he was about to hit the floor. When the technician asked her to remove her clothes from the waist down, Avery's eyes had bulged out of his head.
“Here we go!” the technician said, clicking away on the computer before moving the wand around looking for a different angle. Avery sat at her head, holding her hand and watching the computer screen.
“When was the first ultrasound you had, and who did it?” The tech asked.
“Um, it was about a month ago, at the hospital. I think she was an intern though. They were crazy busy that day and kind of just snuck me in.” Emily replied honestly. She started worrying that her baby had three heads and an extra arm that the other tech hadn't discovered during the first ultrasound.
“Interesting... give me a minute.” She removed the ultrasound probe before lowering the paper down over Emily's legs and walking out of the room. The couple looked to each other for comfort and reassurance. They were both scared shitless. Was something wrong with their baby?
Just a moment later, Dr. Bennett walked back in with the ultrasound technician by his side. Both wore smiles on their face as the doctor made his way over to the machine and pressed a few buttons.
“Ems, I am going to just take a look real quick, okay?” Dr. Bennett asked, picking up the probe and started the process all over again. He clicked away, moving the probe around.
“It seems like the original ultrasound missed something.” He spoke with a bright smile. The news he was delivering sounded bleak at most. How could he be happy about the hospital missing something?
“Congratulations, you are having twins. It looks like they missed the second baby during the first scan. It happens sometimes. They are so small, and close together during those first weeks.” Avery peered over at Emily trying to read the look on her face. Was that terror he saw?
“TWINS? How could they miss an entire damn baby!” Emily yelled at Dr. Bennett like he was the guy at Burger King who just screwed up her Whopper. Avery watched in silence, his eyes going back and forth between Emily and the doctor like he was watching an active tennis match.
“Yes, twins Emily. Do you want to see them?” As if a switch flipped in her brain, her frantic fear which turned her into a giant bitch was turned off and the nurturing mother switch came on.
“Yes!” She looked over at Avery. His face was full of fear. Not one baby, two babies. Holy. Shit. He took her hand and kissed her knuckles, supporting his love who was clearly just as scared as him. What the hell would they do with two babies? One, yeah they could handle that. But two? Oh fuck.
“This is baby A.” Dr. Bennett focused in on a little mini person on the screen. The couple could make out little arms, and legs. A big head and their baby was dancing all over the place. Avery leaned in and kissed her forehead.
“That is our baby,” he whispered to her in disbelief. “Wow.” he continued with a look of awe washed over his face. Emily couldn't help but catalog his expression, it was so new to her.
A few clicks and beeps later from the ultrasound machine, and Dr. Bennett zoomed in on the other baby. They looked almost identical but this one was hanging out upside down on the screen. Wiggling as enthusiastically as the other baby.
“This is baby B.” Dr. Bennett used his finger to point at the screen. “Something interesting
about your pregnancy though, Ems. These are identical twins. They share an amniotic sac, so we are going to have to monitor them a little more closely. We want to make sure they get enough nourishment from the placenta.” Emily looked at Avery who just stared in amazement and smiled.
“One shot, two babies. Identical twins typically start as one pregnancy, and the fertilized egg divides in two. That is your biology lesson for the day. Oh, and they will also be the same gender, so there will either be a lot of pink, or a lot of blue in your house.” Avery chuckled and sent up a silent prayer for boys. Lord don't stick me in a house with four women. I don't think I'll make it!
“When can we find out what they are?” Avery eagerly asked before Emily had the chance to spit out the same question. Truth be told, Emily was probably the most impatient person ever, and not knowing their gender was going to hound her.
“Probably another month or so. We'll make your next ultrasound appointment for another five weeks, just to be sure we can get a clear shot.” Dr. Bennett said before making a couple more clicks on the computer. “Want to hear their heartbeats?” he asked looking up at the couple.
In unison they replied,“Yes.”
Click, click, click, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh. The machine sounded as they listened closely to baby b, before Dr. Bennett switched over to listen to their other miracle. “This is baby A,” the heartbeat filled the room. Woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh, woosh.
“Is it supposed to be that fast?” Emily asked with concern as both men answered her at the same time.
“Yes,” echoed in the exam room. Avery had learned it in his paramedic training many moons ago, and the doctor looked at him with a smile. Before Dr. Bennett could comment, Avery offered a minor explanation. “Paramedic,” with a smirk.
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