Chapter 6 - The Longest Night
The storm raged through the night, rattling the windowpanes and tearing branches from the old oak tree in the front yard.
At 2:00 a.m., the pain began.
It wasn't the dull ache I had felt after the fall in the nursery. This was different—a sharp, hot band of pressure that started in my lower back, wrapped around my hips, and squeezed my abdomen until I couldn't draw breath. I lay in the dark beside Conrad, counting the seconds in my head.
Forty-five seconds long. Eight minutes apart.
My daughter was coming. I was thirty-four weeks pregnant.
I stayed silent as long as I could, breathing through the waves, sweating into the cotton sheets, terrified that if Conrad knew I was in labor, he would take me to the private clinic in Sweetwater owned by his attorney's brother—a place where I would be entirely at their mercy.
By 4:00 a.m., the contractions were five minutes apart. I couldn't hide the low groan that slipped past my lips.
Conrad woke instantly. He didn't reach out to comfort me; he reached for the bedside lamp and snapped it on, his eyes sharp and alert in the yellow light.
"What is it?" he demanded, pulling back the blanket.
"My water broke," I lied, gripping the edge of the mattress as another contraction seized my body. "Conrad... the baby is coming now. We need to go to St. Mary's in Knoxville."
"St. Mary's?" He stood up, his face hardening. "No. St. Mary's is an hour away in this rain. We're going to the Sweetwater Medical Center. Dr. Vance is on call tonight."
"No!" I rasped, reaching out to grab his sleeve. "They don't have a Level III NICU in Sweetwater! The baby is early, Conrad! She needs a neonatal specialist or she could die!"
That stopped him. The accountant in his head—the part that needed a living child to secure the full estate trust his father had left behind—calculated the risk. He looked at my distorted face, at the sweat soaked into my hair, and he made a decision.
"Fine," he snapped. "Knoxville. But I am driving, and you will keep your mouth shut until I speak to the intake nurse."
He dressed me in heavy sweatpants and an old coat, virtually dragging me down the stairs. He didn't even turn off the house lights. As we stepped out onto the porch into the pouring rain, headlights flashed at the end of our driveway.
A dark blue sedan was parked near Mrs. Gable's hedge, its engine idling quietly in the storm.
Conrad didn't notice it—he was too busy loading me into the passenger seat of the Buick—but I did. As the Buick backed out into the street, the blue sedan pulled out behind us at a discreet distance, its high beams cutting through the gray sheets of rain.
Mrs. Gable had made the call. Willa was here.
The hour-long drive to Knoxville was a nightmare of rain, pain, and suffocating tension. Conrad drove fast, his hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel, glancing in the rearview mirror every thirty seconds at the dark car following us through the storm.
"Someone is behind us," he muttered, his voice tight with rising paranoia. "Did you call someone, Loretta? How could you call anyone? The phones are disconnected!"
I didn't answer him. A contraction tore through my middle, so intense that the dark road outside the window blurred into streaks of red and white light. I closed my eyes and focused on one thing: Keep breathing. Keep her alive until we reach the city line.
When we finally pulled under the bright, buzzing fluorescent lights of the St. Mary's Emergency Room awning, the blue sedan pulled up directly behind us, blocking the Buick's rear bumper.
Before Conrad could put the car in park, the driver's door of the sedan flew open.
A woman in a dripping yellow raincoat slammed her hands against Conrad's window. It wasn't Willa.
It was a uniformed deputy from the Knox County Sheriff's Department, accompanied by a woman in a sharp business suit carrying a briefcase.
"Conrad Mercer?" the deputy called out over the sound of the rain, his hand resting on his sidearm. "Turn off the vehicle and step out with your hands visible."
Conrad turned to me, his face turning a terrifying, mottled purple. "What did you do?" he screamed, his hand lunging toward my throat. "What did you do, you little bitch?!"
The passenger door was pulled open from the outside. Strong, warm hands grabbed my shoulders, pulling me gently out of the leather seat into the cool, rain-scented night air.
"I've got you, Etta," a voice sobbed in my ear. "I've got you. You're safe now."
It was Willa.
May you like
As the paramedics rushed forward with a gurney, I looked back over my shoulder. Two officers were forcing Conrad against the hood of his silver Buick, the cold steel of handcuffs clicking around his wrists in the bright hospital lights.
Standing under the awning, holding an umbrella over a stack of legal folders, was Mrs. Gable, nodding her quiet, steady head at me through the rain.
