Chapter 43 #3
She was losing the baby. She was sure of it.
“Nicolette needs to go to the hospital,” Hawk said, standing up. “But before you go, I need your full attention, both of you. Are you listening?”
Barb was staring at Lorelei. “I’m listening,” she said.
Nicolette forced herself to sit up, and managed a nod.
“You girls pushed Lorelei so hard that she hit her head and died.” Hawk’s face remained expressionless. “This means that the two of you are directly responsible for her death. You will both be arrested for killing her.”
“Killing her?” Barb cried. “But that’s not what—”
“She’s dead because of you,” Hawk said. “That is literally what happened. Best case scenario, you’ll be convicted of manslaughter and sent to juvenile detention until you turn eighteen.
Worst case scenario, you’ll both be charged with her murder, tried as adults, and sent to prison for the rest of your lives. ”
“No,” Nicolette gasped. “Hawk, you know us. We would never do anything intentionally to hurt her. Please, you have to help us.”
“You will go to jail,” Hawk repeated. “Unless . . .”
He paused. The word hung in the air.
“Unless what?” Barb asked, her voice barely a squeak.
“Unless you do everything I tell you right now,” he said. “If you listen to me and do everything I say—”
“Tell us,” Nicolette begged. Hawk’s best case scenario might actually be the worst. She’d heard stories about juvie from her dad and his biker friends.
It was almost as bad as adult prison, if not worse.
There’s no way they’d survive there. “We’ll do whatever you say. I can’t . . . I can’t go to jail.”
“Marty’s car is still out there,” Hawk said. “Ask him to take you both to the hospital. It’s much faster than calling an ambulance. After he drops you off, tell him to come back here. I’ll need his help.”
“Oh god, Marty’s going to know?” Barb said.
“Don’t worry about that,” Hawk said. “Marty won’t say anything. He’ll do everything I tell him to.”
“But what do we tell Lorelei’s mother? Or . . . or the police, when she doesn’t come home?”
“You tell them when you left, she was still here with Sam,” Hawk said. “A hundred people saw them together tonight.”
Nicolette and Barb looked at each other.
“Now when you get to the hospital,” Hawk continued, “they may ask you who the father of Nicolette’s baby is.
You will say you don’t know. Or you can give them a name that isn’t mine.
But no matter what, you will not say that the father is me.
Allegations are enough these days to get me fired.
And if you ruin me . . .” His gaze fixes on Nicolette.
“I’ll have no choice but to ruin you, too.
So we can all help each other, or we can destroy each other. It’s really up to you.”
Oh, you selfish fucker, Nicolette thought, but she was hurting too much to say the words out loud.
“And what about Lorelei?” Barb asked, her voice timid. “What will you—”
“You let me worry about that.” Hawk glanced down at Lorelei’s lifeless body.
“She’s not your concern anymore, and no one will ever know what happened here tonight.
I’ll do what needs to be done.” He looked over at Barb, and then again at Nicolette, his face still stone.
“If you girls just stick to the story, everything will be fine. Do we have an agreement?”
Barb didn’t seem to know what to say.
“Yes,” Nicolette said, answering for them both, though she was barely able to speak. The pain was like daggers sticking into her belly. “Barb, please go find Marty.”
Barb took one look at her and left the bathroom.
When she was alone with Hawk, Nicolette said, “I think I’m losing the baby.”
“That’s probably for the best,” he said.
It was the last thing Nicolette could remember him saying. The fucked-up part was, he wasn’t wrong.
She only had fragments of memories of what happened after that.
She can remember Barb helping her to her feet as the walls spun around her.
She can remember catching one final glimpse of Lorelei before they left her there, splayed out on the bathroom floor with her legs askew, Hawk crouched over her.
She can remember getting into Marty’s car, and hearing Barb ask him, “Why are you helping us?”
“Because I have to,” Marty had answered. “If I don’t, he’ll tell everyone what I did.”
That fucker, Nicolette thought again, picturing Hawk’s expressionless face. She then wondered what it was that Marty could have done to give Hawk leverage over him, but then passed out in his backseat before she had a chance to ask.
The ride to the hospital, she can’t remember at all. But Marty didn’t stick around. He dropped them off at the emergency room doors, and then doubled back to the Starlight on Hawk’s orders.
It wasn’t until a couple of hours later, when the kind doctor informed Nicolette that her fetus was developing outside the uterus and that there was no chance of saving the pregnancy, that she realized Daniel Hawksfield never did tell them what he planned to do with Lorelei’s body.