Chapter 5
—Reed—
—4 months later—
Eric and I talked smack and drank coffee, whittling away the day, when my personal phone rang.
Simone.
I kept my feet kicked up on my desk as I casually answered her call. “Hey, darlin’.”
“Hey, Reed.” The concern in her tone made me quit swinging from side to side in my office chair.
“Is something wrong?”
“Uh… I hope not. Just wondering if you’ve heard from Kase. She was meant to be here over an hour ago and it’s not like her to be late without a heads up.”
Each word sent another heat-laced shot of fear through my stomach. My booted feet dropped to the station floor, and I locked eyes with Eric, who’d been following my shift in moods.
“Have you tried calling her?” I asked.
“Of course. Multiple times. Even giving breaks just in case she was having another bathroom stop. My gut tells me something isn’t right, and I’m getting worried.”
Fear was contagious, and I fought to keep my head straight. “I’m sure she’s okay, darlin’. She can handle herself,” I assured despite the voice inside my head also telling me something was amiss.
Kasey wasn’t tardy. She was reliable as fuck. If she said she was gonna be somewhere at a certain time, you could bet your ass she’d be there.
A quaver of emotion crept into Simone’s voice, turning it shrill. “She’s been really tired lately, and I’m really worried, Reed. She should have been here by now.”
Despite not being in sight, I raised my hands to placate the situation. “Okay, okay. I’ll go for a drive and see if there’s anything untoward. When did you last hear from her?”
“When she was passing through Gallie.”
My heart dropped. Gallie was only twenty-five minutes away, tops. Thirty with a service station stop.
I locked eyes with Eric and his widened subtly when I asked, “Over an hour ago?”
“Yeah. There’s no snow, but there have been icy patches on the road…”
“Fuck,” I hissed before I could stop myself.
Eric’s spine straightened, and his expression grew tight while I addressed Simone with as much calm as I could muster.
“Keep calling her, Sim. We’re going for a drive now. If you get in contact with her, call me immediately.”
“Likewise. God, I hope she’s okay,” came her voiced prayer.
Already on my feet, I rushed to wrap up the conversation. “She will be, I promise. I’ll call you.”
“Thank you.”
The millisecond I ended the call, Eric hounded me for details. “What’s going on, Gats?”
I swallowed around the lump of dread in my throat. “It’s Kase. She hasn’t turned up at Banks and Simone’s place yet. I’m sure it’s nothing, but she was last in contact with Simone in Gallie… well over an hour ago.”
A prickle of wariness narrowed his eyes. “She’s over an hour late from Gallie?”
“Yeah, man.”
He snatched up his phone and hat. “Let’s go.”
We broke protocol and left the precinct locked but unmanned. As soon as we entered our patrol car, Eric radioed the other unit and asked them to return to the station.
I drove with my grip so tight on the wheel that my fingers cramped, and my knuckles turned white long before we reached the outskirts of town. The drive to Gallie township was straightforward, but there was a narrow pass that often iced over in winter. That portion of road had the highest crash tally out of all the local roads, and that was why I harbored a hint of unease.
I tried calling Kase, but each time it rang out and invited me to leave a message. After the fourth attempt, I disconnected with an agitated huff.
“Gats—”
“Eric,” I cut him off.
“I know, brother. But let’s just be real for a second. She’s probably stopped at the store on the way. You know how she rolls; keepin’ y’all guessing and all that shit.”
The seatbelt felt extra tight across my torso, and I jerked it looser as I accelerated out of town. “She never dodges my calls though, man. Let alone Simone’s. Something’s off.”
Eric hummed but didn’t speak.
An unusual sense of calm settled over us. The kind that clouded our space when on our way to a fatality. The thing was, we didn’t know Kasey had crashed. There might not be an accident waiting to be found. But we were both preparing ourselves to face that situation. As cops, we dealt with it all. Fatalities. Assaults. Abductions. Drownings. Missing persons…
Every single incident created another link of fear and worry for our own family, right along with another prayer to God to keep them safe when we couldn’t physically do it ourselves.
I slowed as we reached the narrow, tree-shaded portion of the road. Each blind corner brought a wash of relief before a renewed spear of trepidation knotted my chest again.
Two more corners and my pounding heart dropped painfully into my stomach.
“Shit,” I hissed, urgently scanning my eyes back and forth over the scene as I pulled up on the wrong side of the road, close to the crash.
“Fucking Christ,” Eric growled, unbuckling.
I forced myself to take a fucking second. To inhale when all I wanted to do was scream on a never-ending exhale. It was Kase’s car without a doubt. A motorbike lay on its side in the ditch. A lone male sat beside it, getting checked over by an EMT, while a second helmet sat hauntingly discarded at the front of her car.
The motorcycle passenger and Kasey were nowhere in sight as I approached the cordon tape.
Constable “Willy” Wilson—a Gallie township officer—raised a hand and gave us both a sad head shake.
“Another fatality on this stretch,” he stated solemnly.
“Who?” I whispered, unable to roll away the numb weight that clung to my shoulders. Eric’s hand landed on my shoulder as the officer started to explain.
“A young woman. Looks like the motorcycle hit a patch of ice and crossed the center line, directly into the path of the oncoming woman driver.”
I shook my head, trying to sort through the haze. With a dry mouth and nausea rising up my throat almost to the point of no return, I forced out three words. “The deceased. Who?”
Sorrow-filled green eyes met mine. “The passenger of the bike. However, the driver of the car was unconscious when they loaded her into the ambulance, and it’s unclear whether her baby has survived.”
Relief swept through me. It wasn’t my girl fighting for her life—Kase wasn’t pregnant. I exhaled hard, trying to rid the anxiety from my chest.
But that new information gave way to another question.
“Was the car stolen?” I asked Willy.
His chin tucked back. “No. Why?”
“Because that’s Kasey’s car. If she was the sole occupant and she wasn’t driving, then—”
I cut off as his face blanched. And I knew—I fucking knew—what he was about to say before the words slid out.
“Kasey Quinn was the pregnant woman in the car. I checked her ID myself, Reed.”
A shoot of white-laced pain bolted from my lungs to my toes. Shock rang in my ears so loud it blocked all other sounds aside from my punching breath.
“I… I…” I stammered before gritting my teeth.
Willy was talking, but his voice sounded underwater and a mile away.
My head tipped back to the afternoon sky as an unchecked sob tore up my chest.
“Oh god.” Fingers met my hair and gripped. I wrenched harder while slipping into denial. “No. She wasn’t pregnant. My Kasey wasn’t pregnant. You’re wrong.” I shook my head adamantly. “She wasn’t.”
Willy’s expression downturned further. “I’m sorry, Reed. I really am. I wish it wasn’t so.”
Another sob knotted in my throat; this one accompanied by my knees giving out. Eric grappled with me. Wrestled me in his strong hold and held so tight my wrenching sobs had no choice but to stay locked inside. I fought against him, but his grip stayed unyielding.
“Fuck, Gats. I got you, man. Get yourself together. Just for the moment,” he commanded against my ear.
The low warning brought a bolt of calm, of stark clarity that snapped into place when I re-opened my eyes to take in the scene. After a shuddering inhale, I straightened, receiving a clap of fortitude to the back of my head from Eric.
I no longer saw the smashed front of Kase’s car or the crumpled bike. Not the paramedics or casualty. No. I saw the thick swallows of the other officers on the scene. I saw glances aimed my way. The puffs of breath leaving their warm chests in the cold afternoon air. Windshield glass sprinkling the road like ice confetti, unlike the slick layer that lay invisible on the road.
Then the sounds. Birds. Walkie-talkies clicking on and off as officers communicated. Muted conversations of crash analysis.
The slam of the ambulance doors jolted me into another shift of clarity. With the motorcycle rider now heading to the hospital, my eyes settled on the body bag shrouding the deceased woman I hadn’t noticed before. While her soul had already departed, her body awaited the coroner.
My throat clamped without warning. It could have been Kase. And while she left the scene alive, I had no idea if she made it to hospital.
“How long ago did this happen?” I asked Willie.
He checked his watch. “Roughly an hour.”
Eric seemed to read my thoughts, and he bumped my forearm. “Get in the car, Gats. I’ll take you to her.”
While my intentions followed Eric, my feet remained rooted to the road.
“Gats!” my partner called. “Reed!”
A touch to my shoulder sent a bolt shuddering down my spine. Fear paralyzed me. The same fear I felt when my brother Banks had been on his deathbed. Only now, I was facing losing the love of my life. Right along with a baby I had no idea about.