Chapter 20
Antonio was speeding down the freeway when the phone rang again. This time, it was Damon’s phone, and he noticed his brother-in-law’s jaw tightening as he answered it. After a few moments, he hung up and took a breath.
“She’s definitely at Englewood Hospital That was a midwife there, who says Alyssia was brought in under the name of Emily Fountain. She’s in labour, but the baby isn’t doing well. Put your foot down, Blackwood!”
Without another thought, Antonio slammed on the accelerator, weaving in and out of traffic like a snake on steroids. The evening rush hour had finally begun, with people driving home from work, and it was all he could do to avoid an accident.
Horns blared as the car filtered its way through the streets of New Jersey until they pulled up at Englewood Hospital with a screech of brakes. He threw himself out of the car, tossing the keys to his father, and burst through the Emergency Room doors before grabbing the first nurse he saw.
“Sorry, I’m looking for a midwife? Where’s your labour and delivery department?” he all but shouted, to which the terrified nurse pointed shakily at the wall. He ran his eyes down the wall and saw signs for labour and delivery, and felt his heart stop as he realised it was three floors up.
“Thank you!” he called, running full speed down the hallway. Damon followed closely behind him, a hand on his gun, as they made their way through the hospital to the labour and delivery department.
As soon as they got to labour and delivery, Antonio spotted the receptionist and strode towards her, trying not to appear too threatening, although he was fairly sure he looked like a man who’d gone mad.
Not that it really mattered, because he felt like a man gone mad, but it wasn’t the greatest idea to walk in looking like some sort of serial killer.
“Hi, I’m looking for a woman in labour,” he panted. The receptionist indicated the entire ward, raising her eyebrows at him.
“Got a lot of women in labour here, sir. You’ll have to be specific.”
“Right, sorry, of course. She was brought in tonight, um … Emily? Emily Fountain?”
“Let me see ...” The receptionist tapped on her keyboard. “Is she your wife?”
“Yes.”
“OK, we have one Emily Fountain at the moment. She’s in Bay 4, bed 2.”
Antonio nodded his thanks and made his way through the ward, stopping dead when he spotted Douglas. Behind him, Damon let out a hiss of anger as he ran into his back, and he had to grab him before he shot the man on sight.
“No!” he whispered, putting a firm hand on Damon’s gun. “You can’t fire here, there’s women and children!”
“Let me drag him outside, I beg you,” Damon snarled, struggling against his brother-in-law’s grip. “I’ll shoot him dead in the parking lot, I swear to God!”
“Not now!” Antonio ordered. “If we kill him, we won’t find Maria, and she’ll just try again.
Alyssia matters more. This is what we’ll do.
When we go in there, you put the gun in his back and keep him quiet.
Draw the curtain behind you so nobody else sees, and get the midwife in so that we can figure out what to do.
When we have a plan for Alyssia, you can drag him out of here. ”
“Fine,” Damon growled, before following his brother-in-law. “But you better not screw me over, Antonio. His ass is mine.”
Maria slammed on the brakes as she pulled up to the hospital parking lot, cursing as she did so.
Her plan was beginning to unravel, and New Year’s Eve was drawing closer by the hour.
Douglas had stopped answering her calls and texts, which was pissing her off even more, but she was determined to find out what was happening.
“That brat better not have got to him,” she muttered to herself, swiping her lipstick over her lips in a savage motion. “I swear, if he’s double crossed me, I’ll end that girl’s life quicker than he can blink.”
She stalked into reception, causing the nurses to jump back in shock, and made her way to labour and delivery, her heels clicking on the linoleum floor.
As she marched through the hallways, people shrank back against the walls, almost as if she were a leper or some kind of terrorist. She caught a glimpse of herself in a reflective wall, and stopped to try and make herself look less insane, wiping her smudged lipstick away and tidying her eyeliner with a swipe of her sleeve.
After all, a crazy lady barging into labour and delivery was grounds for a psych hold, and she wasn’t exactly keen on being committed just yet.
“Where is she?” she shouted as she banged open the doors to labour and delivery. An elderly nurse looked up at her, clearly in no mood to be shouted at, and she forced what she hoped was a smile onto her face.
“Who are you looking for?” the nurse asked, her voice a clear indicator that she was in charge. Maria gritted her teeth and did her best to speak calmly.
“I’m looking for Emily Fountain. She’s my daughter-in-law.” Her tone was almost saccharine in its sweetness.
The nurse tapped on her keyboard and shook her head, offering up an apologetic smile. “Sorry, no Emily here. Are you sure you’re in the right department?”
“Yes, I’m sure. She’d be about … five foot six, in labour, looks like someone pissed in her cornflakes, black hair …no?”
“All of our labouring mothers have gone home. We have two ladies awaiting induction and another one who has had her baby already, but they’re in intensive care.”
Maria swore under her breath, turning on her heel to look around the ward.
Sure enough, the only mothers that were there were a scrawny blonde who looked like she was coming off heroin and a black mother who was walking around rubbing her belly like it was some sort of Holy Grail.
There was absolutely no sign of Alyssia, or Douglas for that matter.
“What about a man?” she asked, earning herself a raised eyebrow from the nurse. “Was there a tall man with grey hair here? He’d have been with the woman I just asked about.”
“The only men we’ve had in here are the ones you can see. Sorry.”
Maria swore again, her mind racing. Where could they have gone? Surely Alyssia hadn’t just popped the baby out and gone on her merry way? She curled her lip, wondering where the woman might have gone, and then spotted Damon watching her from around a corner.
“Thank you,” she threw over her shoulder at the nurse, before hurrying towards Damon.
When she got there, however, he was gone.
She swallowed a scream of disappointment and looked up and down the hallway, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Slowly, painfully slowly, she walked towards the exit, her mind racing at warp speed.
“I’ll find you, you little puttana,” she hissed, her teeth clenched. “Wherever you are, I will find you!”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw several nurses hurrying towards the operating rooms, and a thought popped into her head.
Alyssia’s baby had been breeched when she went to hospital, so it was more than likely that she’d had to have a caesarean to get the baby out.
If that was the case … her breathing intensified as she scanned the walls desperately, finally seeing the signs for the operating rooms and recovery suites.
“I’m coming for you, puttana,” she gritted through her teeth. “That baby’s mine.”