Chapter 2 - The Heartbeat That Wouldn't Settle
Dr. Hannah Mercer did not wait for anyone’s permission.
She stepped around the reception desk, reached for Grace’s elbow, and guided her toward a private corridor.
“Come with me now.”
Grace’s pulse began to race.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Hannah’s voice was calm, but the speed of her steps was not.
“That’s why I need you on a monitor immediately.”
Grace glanced over her shoulder.
Vincent Caruso was still standing in the lobby.
He had not moved.
Patricia had.
She was already whispering frantically to one of the administrators as if she could rearrange the last fifteen minutes before anyone wrote them down.
Grace looked forward again.
“Dr. Mercer, they said I wasn’t on the schedule.”
“You were.”
Hannah pushed open a door marked MATERNAL-FETAL MEDICINE.
“I reviewed your referral at seven this morning.”
Grace stopped walking.
“Seven?”
“Yes.”
“My appointment was at nine forty-five.”
“I know.”
Hannah turned to face her.
“And at eight twelve, your name disappeared from my electronic schedule.”
Grace stared at her.
“Disappeared?”
“Someone canceled it.”
“Who?”
“That’s being checked.”
For the first time that morning, fear pushed humiliation completely out of Grace’s mind.
She placed both hands over her belly.
“My baby.”
“Let’s focus on her first.”
Hannah brought Grace into an examination room where a sonographer was already preparing equipment.
Within minutes, Grace was lying on her side with her coat folded beneath her head because nobody had found a pillow quickly enough.
A cold band tightened around her abdomen.
Then another.
The monitor crackled.
A heartbeat filled the room.
Fast.
Uneven.
Then faster.
Grace stopped breathing.
The sonographer’s expression changed.
Hannah’s did not.
That frightened Grace more.
“Is that normal?”
Hannah adjusted the sensor.
“Your baby is having episodes of tachycardia.”
Grace’s fingers dug into the paper sheet beneath her.
“How bad?”
“We’re watching the pattern.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Hannah looked at her.
“No.”
It was the first honest answer Grace had received all morning.
Hannah lowered her voice.
“You also have signs of placental insufficiency, which is consistent with the concern in your referral.”
Grace swallowed.
“Can she die?”
The sonographer looked away.
Hannah pulled a stool closer.
“If we ignore this, the risk becomes serious.”
Grace’s eyes filled immediately.
She hated herself for it.
She had promised she would not cry in this place.
But that promise had been made before she heard her daughter’s heartbeat stumble through a machine.
“What do we do?”
“We admit you.”
Grace blinked.
“For how long?”
“At least overnight.”
“I have work tonight.”
Hannah stared at her.
“You are not going to work tonight.”
“I can’t just not show up.”
“You can.”
“I clean offices.”
“I don’t care if you run the Federal Reserve.”
Despite everything, Grace gave a tiny, stunned laugh.
Hannah leaned closer.
“You and your baby are staying where I can monitor both of you.”
Grace turned her face toward the ceiling.
A tear slipped into her hair.
“My supervisor already warned me about missing another shift.”
“Then I’ll write whatever documentation you need.”
“That doesn’t mean he’ll care.”
“No.”
Hannah’s mouth tightened.
“But it means you will still be alive to argue with him tomorrow.”
The monitor suddenly accelerated.
Grace’s daughter’s heart rate climbed sharply.
The sonographer moved closer.
Hannah stood.
“Grace, roll onto your left side.”
Grace did it immediately.
“Is she okay?”
“Keep breathing.”
“Is she okay?”
“Her heart rate is too high.”
The room filled with motion.
A nurse entered with oxygen.
Another brought an IV tray.
Grace’s hands began shaking.
She had spent seven months imagining labor.
She had imagined pain.
She had imagined being alone.
She had imagined holding a tiny girl wrapped in a hospital blanket and whispering that the two of them would be enough.
She had never imagined losing her before getting the chance.
“Please.”
Grace grabbed Hannah’s wrist.
“Please don’t let anything happen to her.”
Hannah covered Grace’s hand with her own.
“I’m going to do everything I can.”
Outside the room, Vincent Caruso stood beside the nurses’ station.
Nobody had invited him there.
Nobody had tried to make him leave.
People rarely told Vincent Caruso to leave anywhere.
But this time he was not using power.
He was waiting.
Teresa Caruso arrived twenty minutes later in a dark green wool coat with one hand pressed against the bandage on her arm from her own tests.
She saw her brother at the end of the corridor and stopped.
Vincent looked pale.
Teresa had seen him after shootings.
She had seen him after federal raids.
She had seen him bury their father without blinking once in public.
She had never seen him look like this.
“What happened?”
Vincent did not answer immediately.
“There’s a woman here.”
Teresa frowned.
“That narrows it down.”
“Her name is Grace Miller.”
Teresa’s face changed.
Only slightly.
But Vincent caught it.
“You know that name.”
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I reacted because you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Her mother was Rebecca.”
Teresa went completely still.
“Rebecca Miller?”
“Yes.”
Teresa’s lips parted.
Vincent watched his sister carefully.
“Grace is twenty-eight.”
Teresa looked toward the closed examination-room door.
Then back at Vincent.
“No.”
“What?”
“No.”
“Teresa.”
His voice sharpened.
“She has Rebecca’s pendant.”
Teresa’s eyes snapped to his.
“The oval one?”
“Yes.”
Teresa sat down without meaning to.
Her knees had simply stopped cooperating.
Vincent remained standing.
“You know something.”
Teresa rubbed both hands over her face.
“I know what Father told us.”
“So do I.”
“That Rebecca left Philadelphia.”
“That she took money.”
“That she wanted nothing to do with us.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“That she said I disgusted her.”
Teresa looked at him with pain in her eyes.
“I never believed that part.”
Vincent’s stare hardened.
“You never told me.”
“You were twenty-one and furious at the world.”
“You should have told me.”
“I tried.”
“You said she was selfish.”
“I said maybe she was scared.”
“That is not the same thing.”
A nurse walked past them and then accelerated the moment she realized whose argument she had wandered near.
Teresa lowered her voice.
“There was something else.”
Vincent froze.
“What?”
Teresa looked toward the examination-room door again.
“Two weeks after Rebecca disappeared, I found my pendant missing.”
Vincent said nothing.
“I asked Father.”
“And?”
“He told me I had misplaced it.”
Teresa’s breathing became shallow.
“Three days later, it was back in my jewelry box.”
Vincent’s face darkened.
“You never thought that was strange?”
“I was nineteen.”
“You were not stupid.”
“No.”
Teresa’s eyes filled with anger.
“I was afraid.”
That stopped him.
The Caruso family had been built on fear.
Vincent knew that better than anyone.
His father, Domenic Caruso, had loved his children in the same brutal way he loved everything else.
Completely.
Possessively.
Conditionally.
Vincent turned away.
“Grace has a scar above her eyebrow.”
Teresa whispered the next words.
“Like Rebecca.”
“Yes.”
“And her eyes?”
Vincent looked back at his sister.
“You already know.”
Teresa stood again.
“Does she know who you are?”
“She knows my name.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Vincent did not answer.
Teresa stepped closer.
“Vince.”
He looked at her.
“Does she know what you think?”
“No.”
“Good.”
His expression hardened.
“Good?”
“She is seven months pregnant, possibly in danger, and she just got humiliated in a hospital lobby.”
Teresa pointed toward the closed door.
“She does not need you walking in there and telling her you might be her father because you recognized a necklace.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Twenty-eight years.”
“I know.”
“If she is mine—”
“If she is yours, she deserves proof before she gets the consequences.”
Vincent looked down the hallway.
He had spent most of his adult life being the consequence.
For once, he did not know what to do with that.
An hour later, Hannah stepped out.
Vincent moved first.
“How is she?”
Hannah’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re not family.”
The words landed harder than she intended.
Vincent’s expression barely changed.
Teresa noticed.
Hannah continued.
“I cannot discuss Ms. Miller’s medical condition with you unless she authorizes it.”
“Then don’t discuss details.”
Vincent kept his voice controlled.
“Tell me whether she is in immediate danger.”
Hannah studied him.
“She is stable right now.”
“Her child?”
“Also stable right now.”
The repeated phrase was deliberate.
Vincent understood it.
“Can I see her?”
“No.”
Teresa almost smiled.
Very few people said no to Vincent that cleanly.
Hannah looked toward the lobby.
“There is something else.”
Vincent waited.
“Hospital security reviewed the scheduling system.”
Grace’s door opened slightly behind Hannah.
Grace was sitting up in bed now.
She could hear them.
Hannah knew it.
“The cancellation of Ms. Miller’s appointment was not a system error.”
Vincent’s eyes sharpened.
“Who canceled it?”
“Patricia Cole used her credentials at eight twelve this morning.”
Grace’s face went blank.
Hannah continued.
“But Patricia says she did it because someone called the desk.”
“Who?” Grace asked from the room.
Everyone turned.
Hannah stepped aside.
Grace stared at her.
“Who told her to cancel me?”
Hannah hesitated.
The administrator standing behind her answered instead.
“The caller said he was your husband.”
Grace’s entire body went cold.
“I don’t have a husband.”
The administrator swallowed.
“He gave your full date of birth.”
Grace gripped the blanket.
“He knew your address.”
Vincent’s expression changed.
“And he knew the reason for your referral.”
Grace stopped breathing.
There was only one man who knew all three things.
Eric Dalton.
The father of her child.
The man who had vanished eleven days after learning she was pregnant.
Grace whispered his name.
“Eric.”
Vincent heard it.
And the look on his face became very different from fear.
May you like
It became intent.
