Chapter 5: Two Heartbeats
I called Diane's number and got her voicemail.
I called my obstetrician's emergency line instead.
"Dr.
Yuen's after-hours service, how can I—"
"This is Mara Voss.
I'm twenty-eight weeks, twins, high-risk cervix.
I've been having cramps for the last two hours.
They're getting stronger."
A pause.
Typing.
"Mrs.
Voss, are you able to get to the hospital?"
"Yes."
"I'd like you to come in now.
Don't wait."
I hung up and stood in the hallway with my coat half on, trying to think through the pain.
My hospital bag was upstairs.
My car keys were on the hook by the door.
Adrian was still in the study.
I took the keys.
The front door was ten steps away.
I counted them.
Adrian appeared in the study doorway as I reached for the handle.
"Where are you going?"
"Hospital."
One word.
I didn't look at him.
"Mara." He crossed the hallway in four steps.
"I'll drive you."
"No."
"You can't drive yourself, you're—"
"I said no." I opened the front door.
The night air hit my face, cold and sharp.
"Stay away from the study.
Don't touch the filing cabinet.
Don't delete anything."
"Forget the filing cabinet.
You need—"
"I need to get to my daughters." I stepped outside.
"Everything else can wait."
He didn't follow me onto the drive.
I made it to the car.
I made it out of the neighborhood.
I made it four blocks before I had to pull over and breathe through a cramp that lasted forty-five seconds by the clock on the dashboard.
When it passed, I drove the rest of the way.
The maternity unit was quiet at that hour.
A nurse met me at the entrance with a wheelchair I didn't want but accepted.
They took me straight through to a monitoring room, attached sensors to my belly, and within three minutes I could hear it — two heartbeats on the machine, steady and fast and real.
I pressed my hand over my eyes and held it there.
"Mrs.
Voss." Dr.
Yuen's resident, a young woman named Priya, sat beside the bed.
"The heartbeats are strong.
That's good.
But you're showing early signs of preterm labor.
We're going to give you medication to slow the contractions and keep you overnight for observation."
"How early?"
"Hopefully we can hold this off for several more weeks.
But you need to be here, not at home." She paused.
"Is there someone we can call?"
I thought of Diane.
Of Gerald Holt driving away.
Of Vanessa walking out with her bag.
"My sister," I said.
"Her name is Ruth."
Priya handed me the phone.
Ruth arrived within the hour.
She came through the door with her coat inside out, her hair still half down from sleep, and she stopped when she saw me in the bed with the monitors attached and said nothing for a moment.
Then she said, "I'm going to kjll him."
"You're not," I said.
"Mara—"
"Sit down, Ruth."
She sat.
She took my hand.
She looked at the monitors.
"Are they okay?" she said.
"They're okay."
She exhaled.
"Tell me everything," she said.
So I told her.
All of it.
The filing, Gerald, the study, Vanessa's face when she understood what she'd signed.
Ruth sat through all of it without interrupting, which was not something she did easily.
When I finished, she was quiet for a moment.
"Three years," she said.
"Yes."
"You planned this for three years and you never told me."
"I couldn't risk it.
If Adrian suspected anything—"
"I know." She squeezed my hand.
"I know.
I just—" She stopped.
"I should have seen it.
What he was doing to you.
I should have seen it sooner."
"You saw it," I said.
"You told me at Christmas two years ago.
You said, *Mara, something is wrong in that house.* You were right."
"You told me I was overreacting."
"I was protecting the plan." I looked at her.
"I'm sorry."
She shook her head.
Her eyes were wet.
"Don't apologize to me," she said.
"Just—" She looked at the monitors.
At the two lines tracking two small lives.
"Just keep them safe."
"That's all I've been doing," I said.
The medication was working.
The cramps were easing.
The lines on the monitor stayed steady.
Ruth fell asleep in the chair beside my bed sometime after two in the morning, still holding my hand.
I lay in the dark and listened to my daughters' heartbeats and let myself feel, for the first time in three years, something close to relief.
Then my phone lit up on the bedside table.
A message from an unknown number.
*You think you've won.
You haven't.
There are things in that firm you don't know about.
Things that will come back on you.
Think carefully before morning, Mara.*
May you like
I stared at the screen.
Then I took a screenshot, forwarded it to Diane, and turned the phone face-down.
