“You’re starting to dilate. I’d say a comfortable two centimeters and thirty percent effaced,” she says with a smile as she removes her fingers and pulls off the gloves. “You’re progressing quite well. I just want to keep monitoring that blood pressure.”
What else could possibly go wrong?
After checking out, I make my way to the parking lot to my car. It’s the last day of the year and the snow is starting to fall. I’ve never really minded snow, but now that I’m waddling through the parking lot, trying to be careful, well, the snow is just a nuisance. As soon as I get inside my vehicle, I crank up the heat and feel the first tear fall.
He’s never missed an appointment.
He’s been late once or twice, but he always made it. What the hell happened? Angrily swiping away my tears, I check my phone once more to see if I missed a call or message. There’s nothing on my screen. A part of me wants to drive to the gym and let him have it, but a bigger part just wants a hug. And maybe some rocky road ice cream.
So that’s what I do.
I stop at the grocery store, buy a tub of ice cream, and head to my sister’s house. When I pull into her driveway, I check my phone again to see if Harrison has sent me anything, but there’s nothing. Turning off the ringer, I throw my phone into my purse and grab the ice cream.
Before I even approach the door, she has it open. “What are you doing here? Wait, is that ice cream?”
I push past her as I state, “I just left the doctor. Yes, it’s ice cream. Help me eat it.”
Her eyes follow me as I grab two spoons from the kitchen—and not those regular sized spoons either. No, I grab the large, barely-fit-in-your-mouth spoons. “Uhh, Gwenny? I didn’t think you were supposed to eat ice cream,” she says hesitantly.
I scoop a huge bite of rocky road ice cream and reply, “I’m not. But Harrison missed our appointment and it was either eat ice cream or cut off his balls with a wooden spoon.”
“Ouch,” she says, coming over to the counter and grabbing the other spoon. “Sounds painful. Why’d he miss?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, shoveling more cold goodness in my mouth. “He didn’t show. I watched him put it in his calendar after last week’s appointment. He marked the entire three o’clock hour off so that he didn’t miss, but whatever.”
“Uh-huh, whatever. Obviously, you’re a little peeved.”
“A little.” I shrug.
“How’d the appointment go?” she asks, taking a much smaller bite of ice cream.
I plop down on the stool and use my spoon to draw a flower into the ice cream. “Not good. My blood pressure was high, but that’s probably because I was upset about Harrison missing the appointment. We got a call at two this morning about the alarms going off, and then he had trouble with his security code. They had to reset the whole system.”
“They’ve had a lot of trouble these last few weeks,” Gabby adds, setting her spoon down. “You’d think someone was trying to sabotage them.”
I glance at her, my heart pounding like a snare drum. “What did you say?”
“What?”
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know. I was just thinking out loud.”
“You said it sounded like someone was sabotaging them.” Just saying the words aloud has my mind racing.
Gabby stands up straight. “Do you think someone is?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “It’s just that a lot of weird things have been happening. First with my car, then with the building. Plus, some of the orders were changed, like the new towels for Porter arrived in orange and green instead of white, as ordered.”
“Who would mess with that?” she asks, giving me her full attention.
“No clue. I mean, Harrison and Chase are the only ones who order and have access to all of that stuff, right?”
“Well, besides Gina,” Gabby adds.
“But she’s been gone for three weeks,” I note, remembering how upset Harrison was when he found out Gina told me she overheard him saying I was getting fat in my pregnancy. That moment had been the straw that broke the camel’s back, and he’d called Chase to fire her immediately. With everything he’s been dealing with, he hasn’t had time to hire a new assistant yet.
“And didn’t these weird things start happening about three weeks ago?” Gabby asks.
I glance her way, and don’t need to use words to confirm her suspicions. My stomach tightens painfully, with much more intensity than earlier.
“Wow, what was that? Are you okay?” she asks, coming around to my side of the counter.
“Fine, just those stupid Braxton Hicks contractions,” I reply, taking a few deep breaths.
“You sure? That seemed pretty intense.”
“Yeah, I’m sure.”
“What can I get you?” my sister asks.
“Maybe a glass of water.”
She guides me to her living room. “Come on, go sit down on the couch. I’ll grab you some water. You probably put your daughter in a sugar coma, since you haven’t had ice cream in months.” Gabby hustles off to the kitchen to get water. “Where’s your phone?” she hollers from the other room.
“In my purse. Why?”
“I’m going to call Harrison,” she says, returning with the glass.
“No, don’t do that,” I demand, taking a slow sip of water. “I’m fine. He’s obviously very busy, otherwise, he would have been at my appointment.”
She gives me a look that lets me know she doesn’t exactly agree with me, but she relents. “You can stay here and relax, but if you’re still contracting in an hour, I’m calling him.”
“Fine,” I grumble.
“In fact, I’ll shoot him a text and let him know you’re here,” she says, grabbing her own phone. I watch as she types out her message and taps Send. “There. At least he’ll know where you are.”
We spend the next hour visiting, chatting about everything from work to the gym. Chase is still training Gabby, but I’m not sure how much longer that’ll continue. She says all he does is push her buttons so that she’s all sorts of pissed off by the time she leaves. Gabby can give as good as she gets, most times, but with Chase, I don’t know. He pushes her to her limit, both in the gym and out of it, considering she threatens to maim him on a regular basis.
“Do you remember that time we met Harrison and Chase at Twist of Lime right after my twenty-first birthday?” Gabby asks as we reminisce about life before full-time jobs and bills. You know, when trying to figure out what to wear to the bar on a Saturday night was your biggest decision?
“No,” I tell her, trying to ignore the tightness in my stomach. This one’s just as intense as the contraction I felt almost an hour ago, but I try to hide it.
“You and I went to the cinema to see that new Ryan Reynolds movie. By the time it was over, you had a message from Harrison to meet him uptown. We went, and they were shooting pool with… wait,” Gabby says, jumping up from the chair. “Gina!”
“What?” I ask, getting up from the couch.
“Gina was there! Don’t you remember? She was hitting on Harrison hard when we walked in. He was being polite, but trying to get her off him?”
For some reason, that night comes back to me easily. I recall walking into the bar and spotting my boyfriend across the room. He was watching Chase shoot, barely paying any attention to the young girl beside him, except for the occasional polite nod and smile. And when I say she was beside him, I mean, hanging on his arm and rubbing herself against his side. I could tell he was uneasy by his body language, but the moment our eyes met across the bar confirmed it. He was practically begging me to rescue him without so much as saying a word.
“I went up there just as she was asking him to give her a ride home,” I recall.
Gabby snorts. “Oh, she was wanting a ride all right, and maybe in the back seat. She was so disappointed when we arrived, especially when he laid the kiss of all kisses on your lips.”
No
w that I remember. That kiss was a prelude to some amazingly dirty things later that night. “Didn’t she go home with Chase?”
Her jaw tics as she stares at me. “Yeah, she did. It all makes sense now, but when I saw her the next day, she said the guy she was trying to take home fell through, so she took his best friend instead.” I swear my sister gets pissed as realization sets in—that her friend slept with Chase.
“Why wouldn’t Chase remember her?” I wonder aloud.
Again, Gabby snorts in disbelief. “Are you kidding? That man sleeps with anything with a vagina. No way would he remember all of them, especially someone from seven years ago, during a night of drinking.”
My stomach clenches tightly, and this time, I’m unable to mask my discomfort. “Shit,” I groan, doubling over in pain.
“Gwen?” Gabby rushes to me and helps me sit on the couch. “I’m calling Harrison,” she adds, reaching for her phone.
“No, wait.” Deep breath, in and out. “I think you need to take me to the hospital.”
Everything happens quickly after that. My sister grabs my purse and my hand and leads me toward the passenger seat of my car. I keep my hands protectively around my stomach as she tears out of the driveway. “Gabby, slow down. You’re going to get pulled over.”
“You’re in labor, Gwenny. I don’t think I can do slow,” she replies, practically taking the corner on two wheels.
The moment we hit Main Street, traffic seems to slow down. It seems busier than usual, even more so than a Friday night, just after six o’clock. “What the heck?” I wonder out loud.
“There must be an accident,” Gabby says. “We’ll turn off up here.”
“It’s okay. I haven’t had any contractions in a few minutes. Maybe they’re false ones again,” I reason, wondering if I’m jumping the gun by going to the hospital. I’m not due for another week, so maybe these are just intense Braxton Hicks contractions, preparing me for what’s to come soon. I’m just about to tell her to turn around when I see smoke. “Something’s on fire.”
Gabby looks ahead. “God, I think it’s up by the gym.”
My heart starts to pound a bruising beat in my chest and my breathing is labored. Fear starts to creep up my neck, setting my nerves on edge. The gym takes up most of the block. There’s a bank and travel agency to the north, but that’s it. In my heart, I know. I know what I’m about to find isn’t going to be good. “Get us up there, Gabby,” I whisper, panic setting in as I think about something happening to Harrison.
“They’re rerouting traffic. We’re going to have to go on foot,” she says, turning off into a parking lot about a block away from the gym. “Let’s go,” she adds, the moment she stops haphazardly in a spot.
I’m out of my car much quicker than I would have anticipated. With my hand in hers, we practically run toward the gym. Two fire trucks are positioned in the street with their hoses running into the building my husband purchased and built into his livelihood. It’s dark, but the streetlights give just enough glow that I can see the damage inside.
“Hold it right there,” a fireman says, holding up his hands to keep us from proceeding any closer. “You have to back up behind the barricade.”
I just start to open my mouth when I see a familiar face. “Chase!” I yell, pulling the attention of our friend.
He runs over to where we stand, panic and relief mixing on his dirty face. “Jesus, Gwen, where in the fuck have you been?” he asks, pulling me into a tight hug.
“What? Where’s Harrison?” I glance over his shoulder, but don’t spot him anywhere.
“He went looking for you! You haven’t been answering your phone and he’s freaking out.”
“Oh, shit. My phone’s on vibrate in my purse,” I confess, instantly regretting the immature move of shutting off the ringer when I was mad. “He missed our appointment. I was upset,” I add, feeling horrible.
“He’s been going crazy,” Chase informs.
“I texted him and told him where she was,” Gabby adds.
“His phone broke. Everything’s gone to complete shit this afternoon,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck and glancing at the building.
Gabby steps up to Chase and throws her arms around his neck. If he’s startled by her sudden show of affection, he doesn’t show it. “What happened?” she asks as she pulls away.
“Everything,” he groans. “The phones went down first. They say someone cut our line and it’d take a few hours to get it back up and running. Then the computers. I’m pretty sure it was a virus. I had just checked Harrison’s schedule right before it happened because one of his clients needed to reschedule. It said your appointment was at four,” he says, but I interrupt.
“My appointment was at three. I watched him put that in his calendar.”
“We know that now. He went to the appointment but was told you were already done and gone. He tried to call you, but his cell phone wasn’t working. He came back here, confused as hell as to how the mix-up happened. I was on the phone with IT for our software program when the fire alarm went off.”
“Christ,” Gabby declares.
“We were able to get everyone out, but it was difficult. The place was pretty busy already and one of the yoga classes had just started.”
“I can’t believe this,” I whisper, watching as the firefighters start to pull out of the building.
“We’re pretty lucky,” Chase says. “They say it started in the girls’ locker room. Towels and an accelerant.”
“Arson?” This from Gabby.
“Looks that way.” He sighs.
“We need to find Harrison.” I glance around, trying to figure out where he’d be. Clearly if he’s out looking for me, he’s going to check all the obvious places first. Our place, my parents, even Gabby’s.
“We can’t call him. His phone is still jacked up,” Chase says, just as a contraction takes hold. I lean over slightly, grabbing my stomach and trying to breathe deeply through the pain.
“Gwen?” Gabby steps up beside me. “Shit, we have to get you to a hospital.”
“Harrison?” I ask, gasping through the most intense contraction I’ve had yet.
“I’ll find him,” Chase declares, taking me in his arm and starting to guide me toward his truck. “Mine’s closer. Take it and get her to the hospital,” Chase adds, pulling his keys from his pocket and handing them to my sister.
“Her car is in the lot by the hardware store,” Gabby replies, racing toward Chase’s big truck.
When we reach it, another contraction takes hold, this one refusing to let up. I moan loudly, fighting through the pain. It’s so intense that it’s hard to breathe, let alone think. Chase has the door open and is getting ready to help me up when I feel it. Wetness runs down my leg as I make eye contact with my husband’s best friend. The fear in his eyes sends me into a full-blown panic.
“Gabby, my water broke!”
Chapter 19
Harrison
My heart races, the heavy rhythm beating like a bass drum against my chest. This day was already fucked up, but to make it worse, I missed our appointment. Someone is fucking with us, to the point someone changed the time on my calendar. I’ve never missed an appointment, and guilt and sadness weigh heavily on me for not being there. Now I don’t know where she is. I’ve tried calling her, with no luck. No one has seen her.
Fear takes hold as I press the accelerator a little farther to the floor. Maybe she’s at home, sleeping. She’s a week away from her due date, and I worry constantly. What if something happened? What if she’s hurt, what if…? I shake my head and press the accelerator even harder. I won’t be able to ease this fear until I find her.
With my tires squealing, I pull into our driveway. I hit the button for the garage door. Her car’s not there. I still rush into the house, calling out for her with no reply. I search every room and come up empty-handed. “Fuck!” I reach for the house phone that I told her years ago we didn’t need. She argued it might come in ha
ndy one day. Today is that day. My cell phone is jacked. The screen is locked or some shit. I can’t get it to unlock. I can’t answer or make calls, send texts. All I can do is stare at the now worthless piece of shit. Just another pile of shit on this fucked-up day.
Quickly, I dial her number, and it again goes straight to voice mail. “Damn it, Winnie, where the hell are you?” I say, crashing the phone down on the receiver. Stalking to the garage, I slam the door, and race to my truck. I barely remember to hit the button to close the garage doors. Not that it matters. Someone could rob us blind, but I don’t give a damn. All that matters is finding my wife.
I’m aware that I’m a maniac, and that chances are she’s fine, but there’s been too much shit happening the last few weeks. The list is ever growing, and now I can’t find her. I know she was at her appointment, but that’s it. Turning my truck toward Gabby’s house, I’m cussing myself for not trying to call her when I had the chance. I also should have called our parents, but hindsight and all that. I’m not turning back, losing ground. I need to find her. I need to see with my own eyes that she and our baby are okay.
Please, God, let them be okay.
I make it to Gabby’s in record time, and there are no signs of either of them. The truck is barely in park before the door is flying open and I’m jogging to the front door, pounding. “Gabby!” I yell, trying to peer through the windows.
Nothing.
Silence greets me.
“Damn it!” I race back to my truck and fly out of her driveway, heading toward her parents’ place. Worry and fear grip at my chest. Where could she be? She’s miserable at this stage of her pregnancy, even though she tries to hide it, I can see how tired and uncomfortable she’s been. She has to be at her parents or mine. Those are my last two options. I can’t imagine her wanting to do anything but prop her feet up. Where else would she go? Maybe she went to the gym? That’s possible. We could be circling around each other. It’s a cluster fuck over there right now, but I’ll drive by and see if I can spot her car. Luckily, it’s not much of a detour to get to her parents’ place.
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