Chapter 2 - THE BAG
Dominic looked down the corridor where Celeste had disappeared. Two guards were already heading toward the elevators.
“Find her,” he told them. “Call the police.”
One guard glanced at his suit, then at the operating-room doors. “We’ll contact them.”
Dominic understood the hesitation. People knew his name. In his old life, a request from Dominic Vascari could sound like a threat even when he meant it as a plea.
“I’ll tell them everything I know,” he said. “Start with the parking garage.”
He turned back to the nurse. “Was Mara able to say anything else?”
“She asked for someone named June.”
Dominic knew June Bell. She had been Mara’s closest friend since college. He had not called her once after Mara left.
He called now.
June answered on the first ring. “Is she alive?”
“She’s in surgery. How did you know?”
A long silence followed.
“June.”
“Mara called me from her car,” June said. “She was scared. She said she had proof and was coming to the hospital.”
“Proof of what?”
“I don’t know. She said if she didn’t make it, I should give you the blue box.”
“What blue box?”
A crash sounded somewhere near June’s end of the line. She stopped speaking.
“June?”
“I’m at Mara’s apartment.” Her voice had dropped. “Someone just opened the front door.”
“Get out.”
“The back stairs are past the kitchen.”
“Go now.”
He heard hurried footsteps, a door slam, and then the call cut off.
Dominic stood with the dead phone against his ear. He wanted to send every man he knew to June’s building. Instead, he called 911 and gave the dispatcher her address. Then he called the one person in his organization who might still tell him an ugly truth to his face.
Rafe answered. “Boss?”
“Find out who hit Mara’s car. Work with the police. Don’t touch anyone.”
Rafe paused. “Understood.”
The operating-room doors opened again. A surgeon in blue scrubs came out, pulling off her mask.
“I’m Dr. Chen. Your wife has internal bleeding. We’re operating now. The baby is showing signs of distress.”
Dominic’s hand closed around the back of a chair. “Tell me what you need.”
“I need you to be available if we need a decision. Do you know whether Mara has any medical conditions?”
“No.” The answer shamed him.
Dr. Chen nodded once and went back through the doors.
Dominic sat down. Mara had carried his child for eight months, and he did not know where she bought groceries. He did not know her doctor’s name. He didn’t even know the address of the apartment where she had been living.
His phone lit up with a message from an unknown number.
A photograph filled the screen.
Celeste’s cream handbag sat open on the seat of a black car. Inside lay a folded ultrasound picture. Across the top, in Mara’s handwriting, were the words:
TELL DOMINIC WHEN IT’S SAFE.
May you like
Beneath the photograph came one line.
You should have listened to your wife.
