Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE FULL OF LAWYERS
The first ambulance arrived at 6:58 p.m.
Two police vehicles stopped behind it.
A black federal SUV pulled into the driveway seconds later.
Red and blue lights flashed across Sylvia’s carefully arranged Christmas decorations.
The neighbors came to their windows.
David’s worst fear had arrived.
People were watching.
Paramedics entered the kitchen and immediately moved him away from me.
A woman named Carla knelt beside me.
“How far along are you?”
“Thirty-one weeks.”
“Did you strike your abdomen?”
“My back hit the counter.”
“The pain started immediately.”
Carla’s expression remained professional.
But her movements became faster.
She placed an oxygen mask over my face.
Another paramedic checked my blood pressure and listened for the baby’s heartbeat.
The monitor produced a rapid, uneven rhythm.
“We need to move now.”
David stepped forward.
“I’m her husband.”
“I’ll decide which hospital she goes to.”
A federal agent blocked him.
“You will stay where you are.”
Special Agent Marcus Reed entered behind the officers.
He was taller than I remembered.
His dark suit was damp with snow.
He looked at the broken phone.
Then he looked at Sylvia.
“Who destroyed that device?”
David answered.
“It fell.”
Rachel Monroe spoke from the dining room.
“No.”
Everyone turned toward her.
Rachel worked with David at the county prosecutor’s office.
She had remained silent while Sylvia humiliated me.
But she had seen the push.
She had seen David throw my phone.
“I watched him do it,” Rachel said.
David stared at her.
“Be careful.”
“You are speaking without context.”
Rachel’s eyes hardened.
“A pregnant woman asked for an ambulance.”
“You destroyed her phone.”
“That is the context.”
Another guest stepped forward.
His name was Paul Brennan.
He was one of David’s closest friends.
He looked sick.
“Sylvia pushed her.”
Sylvia’s mouth opened.
Paul continued.
“Both hands.”
“She hit the counter hard.”
One confession broke the room apart.
Other guests began talking at once.
Some claimed they had not seen clearly.
Others admitted they heard me begging for help.
A few quietly moved toward the front door.
The police stopped them.
“No one leaves until statements are taken.”
David’s face reddened.
“This is my home.”
“It belongs to my mother,” he corrected.
Agent Reed looked around the decorated dining room.
“Tonight, it is a potential crime scene.”
The paramedics lifted me onto a stretcher.
As they carried me outside, I saw David standing beneath the mistletoe Sylvia had hung over the kitchen doorway.
His polished career.
His reputation.
His carefully controlled image.
All of it was beginning to crack.
Then Agent Reed approached the stretcher.
“Your father is on his way.”
I closed my eyes.
The baby’s heartbeat continued racing through the portable monitor.
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Behind us, a police officer asked David to place his hands behind his back.
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