Chapter 2
I turned slow, my fists still clenched at my sides.
Clara stood in the doorway, Elena’s older sister, her nurse’s scrubs still on, a medical bag slung over her shoulder. Her face was hard, her eyes sharp as she took in the coffin, Mom’s guilty flinch, Ethan’s white knuckles around his pocket.
I’d called her from the plane, twelve hours earlier, when Elena still hadn’t texted back. I’d told her something was wrong, that if I didn’t check in with her by 3 a.m., she was to come to Mom’s house and call the police if she had to.
She didn’t say hello. She didn’t look at me.
She marched straight for the coffin, pushing past Mom like she wasn’t even there.
“Move,” she said to Ethan, when he tried to block her path. He hesitated, then stepped aside, his face draining of color.
Clara flipped the coffin lid all the way open. She pulled a stethoscope from her bag, pressed it to Elena’s chest, her jaw tight.
One minute passed. Two.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide. “She’s alive. Faint heartbeat, shallow breathing. She’s hypothermic, probably from being in here, but she’s alive.”
She pulled a portable doppler from her bag, pressed it to Elena’s belly.
A loud, fast whoosh filled the room. Our son’s heartbeat, strong and steady, faster than it should have been, like he was scared too.
Mom screamed. “That’s impossible! The doctor said she was dead! We saw the death certificate!”
“Which doctor?” Clara said, not looking up from Elena. “The one who didn’t even bother to check her pulse before he signed it?”
Ethan lunged for the door. “I’m calling the police. You two are desecrating a body—”
I grabbed him by the collar of his jacket, slamming him back against the wall so hard a picture frame fell off the mantel and shattered.
“Touch that phone,” I said, my voice barely a growl, “and I’ll break every bone in your body before the cops even get here.”
He stared at me, his eyes wide with fear. For the first time in my life, I saw my little brother for what he really was. Not the goofy kid who’d followed me around as a toddler. Not the hardworking guy I’d trusted to run my construction company while I was gone.
A coward. A liar.
Clara was already on the phone with 911, her voice calm and professional as she gave the address, told them we had a female patient in her third trimester with possible strangulation injuries, no vital signs until recently, possible live fetus.
Mom was crying now, loud, heaving sobs, sitting on the couch with her head in her hands. “I didn’t know. I thought she was dead. Ethan told me the doctor confirmed it—”
“Shut up,” I said. I didn’t want to hear it. Not now. Not ever.
Ten minutes later, the paramedics arrived. They lifted Elena out of the coffin, her body limp, her head lolling to the side. They strapped her to a backboard, put an oxygen mask on her, started an IV in her arm.
I rode in the ambulance with her, holding her cold hand in mine, pressing my lips to her knuckles over and over.
“I’m here,” I whispered, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. “I’m home. I’m never leaving you again. I’m so sorry I wasn’t here to protect you.”
The siren wailed, red and blue lights flashing through the windows. I looked down at her face, at the faint bruise on her throat, and felt a rage so hot it burned every other emotion away.
Whoever did this to her. Whatever Mom and Ethan had been hiding.
I was going to burn it all to the ground.
We pulled up to the ER, the doors flying open before the ambulance even stopped. Doctors and nurses swarmed us, wheeling Elena away, shouting medical terms I didn’t understand.
A nurse stopped me at the double doors. “You can’t go back there, sir. We’ll come get you as soon as we know anything.”
May you like
I stood there, alone in the waiting room, my hands still covered in the cold silk from Elena’s dress, and let myself fall apart for the first time since Ethan had met me at the gate.
I slid down the wall to the floor, put my head in my hands, and sobbed.
