Chapter 1 - THE RING IN HIS HAND
Mark closed his fingers around my wedding ring.
For one second, the young firefighter did not move.
His eyes dropped to my swollen hand, then to my belly, then toward the opening where my husband had disappeared carrying another woman.
Something hardened in his face.
“Stay with me, Lucy.”
I had never told him my name.
He had read it from the emergency notes lying beside my leg.
That small realization frightened me more than it should have.
If I was noticing details like that, some part of me was still trying desperately to stay conscious.
Mark shouted over his shoulder.
“Pregnant female, twenty-four weeks, altered mental status, respiratory distress.”
Two more firefighters entered.
One went immediately to the elderly man.
Another lifted the little boy.
Mark stayed with me.
That mattered.
A stranger stayed.
My husband had not.
They slid an oxygen mask over my face.
The first breath hurt.
My lungs pulled at the air like they had forgotten what oxygen was.
“Fetal movement?”
Mark asked.
I shook my head.
His eyes changed.
Not panic.
Urgency.
They lifted me onto a rescue board.
As they carried me from the elevator, the department store ceiling seemed impossibly high.
Red emergency lights washed across the marble floor.
Shoppers had been pushed behind security barriers.
Paramedics moved between stretchers.
Someone was crying.
Someone was praying.
And near the ambulance bay, Alex stood beside Valerie.
He had one hand on her shoulder.
A paramedic was examining a tiny cut above her eyebrow.
She was sitting upright.
Talking.
Breathing normally.
Alive.
Alex finally looked up.
He saw me.
His face went completely still.
Then he looked at my stomach.
“Lucy?”
The sound of my name from his mouth almost made me laugh.
He stepped toward me.
Mark stepped between us.
“Back up, Lieutenant.”
Alex stared at him.
“That’s my wife.”
Mark’s jaw tightened.
“I know.”
Those two words landed harder than any accusation.
Alex looked confused.
Then Mark opened his palm.
My platinum wedding ring rested in the center.
All the color left Alex’s face.
“What is that?”
Mark did not blink.
“She asked me to give it to you.”
Alex looked at me again.
I could barely keep my eyes open.
“What did she say?”
Mark glanced toward me once.
Then he looked straight at his lieutenant.
“She said she and the baby won’t be waiting for you anymore.”
Around us, the rescue continued.
Radios crackled.
Stretchers rolled.
Firefighters shouted.
But Alex heard every word.
I knew because his face looked like someone had just opened a door beneath his feet.
He reached for me.
“Lucy, wait.”
The paramedics pushed my stretcher toward the ambulance.
This time, I found my voice.
“You already made your choice.”
The ambulance doors closed between us.
May you like
And for the first time since I married Alex Davis, I did not wonder whether he would follow me.
I only wondered whether my daughter was still alive.
