Chapter 22
Chapter twenty-two
Will opened the door to the cab with more enthusiasm than a kid on Christmas morning.
“Where are you headed?”
“To get married!” Will exclaimed, grinning uncontrollably as he closed the door to the cab.
The cab driver lifted disinterested eyes to the rearview mirror. “Address?”
Will gave him Naomi’s address and then asked, “Any experience tying a bow tie?” He tugged at the misshapen blob of fabric around his neck. After twenty minutes of swearing into a mirror and watching half a dozen YouTube videos, he’d called it quits and went outside to hail a cab.
If the driver heard him, he didn’t seem to feel the need to respond.
It didn’t matter. If the cab driver couldn’t help him, he was positive that Riley could.
Actually, he realized, Riley would probably have insisted on redoing his bow tie even if he had managed it on his own.
As the cab pulled out into traffic, Will leaned back into the seat and closed his eyes, barely aware of the springs in the seat poking him in the back as he savored the moment.
He couldn’t wait to see his bride, but at the same time, he wanted to linger here a little longer, to take everything in.
They had done it. Against all the odds, they’d found their way back to each other. It was perfect.
His eyes opened.
Almost perfect.
It was only missing one thing. Freya wasn’t here.
He pulled out his phone. His screen was clogged with messages, calls, notifications and e-mails, but as he skimmed through them he could see that none of them were from Freya.
He dismissed the notifications and pulled up his messages to her, a cascade of one-sided bubbles filling the text chain. He added one more.
WILL: OMG did you see it? She came! We’re going to get married RIGHT NOW before anything else can stop us. This is killing me, where are you?
It had only been a few hours since he’d first texted her his plan.
But he had no idea where she was, and since it was Freya, that meant she could be practically anywhere on the planet doing virtually anything.
It was as likely that her silence was due to the fact that she didn’t have cell reception because she was on a plane over the Atlantic as it was that she had her phone confiscated because she was in a top-secret government bunker.
Under any other circumstances, he would have started poking around at the studio, asking his colleagues if anyone knew anything regarding her whereabouts.
But he knew he wasn’t going to get answers out of anyone at NGN until they got answers out of him.
And he wasn’t ready to talk to them yet. Not until he had said, “I do.”
Sleuthing would have to wait.
As the cab pulled up in front of the apartment building, Will scanned the third floor, hoping to catch a glimpse of movement in Abby or Naomi’s apartment.
The lights were off in both apartments, which wasn’t particularly surprising given it was still the afternoon and the midday sun brought more than enough light into the west-facing windows.
Also not particularly surprising was the fact that he could make out the shadow of Mrs. Pachenkis against the light in her living room window.
He waved with an enthusiasm that he hoped would translate some of his gratitude to her.
On his cab ride to his apartment, he had called her to let her know about what they had learned, thanks to the crucial information she provided.
He’d been prepared for her, at best, to be disinterested and, at worst, to use his call as an opportunity to reprimand him for some past offense.
Instead, after he had finished talking, there was a brief silence, and then she said, “Good. She deserves to be safe and happy.”
It might have been his imagination, but he sensed a faint trace of sorrow laced in the words that hinted at an untold past. Perhaps, he wondered, she had never been afforded either of those things.
Walking through the familiar lobby, he stepped into the elevator and watched as the heavy doors slid shut behind him.
The tarnished and dented bronze surface offered him a final, albeit distorted reflection of his last few minutes as a bachelor.
He couldn't help but grin at his slightly disheveled reflection.
He ran a hand through his hair, smoothing out any stray strands, and then, with a warbly ding, the door opened and he stepped out, ready to begin his new life.
“—my God, we need an ambulance!” Naomi’s shriek cut through his elation like a lance. From the elevator, he could see that Abby’s door was ajar, and he immediately began to sprint towards it.
“Becca, stay with Abby and call 911,” he heard Riley say forcefully. “I’m going to get something to keep him restrained on the off chance he wakes up. Naomi, keep that gun pointed at Simon.”
Gun? Simon?
The shock nearly stopped Will in his tracks, but his concern drove him forward, heart racing, toward the door, unsure of what awaited him on the other side.
As he reached for the handle and tried to push the door open, it resisted him, as if there was something blocking the way. He found a way to squeeze himself through the narrow crack and into the chaos that awaited him on the other side.
Naomi stood rigid, holding a gun pointed at Simon, who was unconscious on the floor. A few weeks ago, Will wouldn't have been able to pick Simon out of a crowd. But now, his face was seared into his memory like a brand.
Naomi looked up at him, and although her eyes were brimming with tears, they were also resolute. “Stay there,” she told him.
“Are you—” he began to ask, his eyes scanning her for signs of injury.
“It's over,” she stated, her declaration as firm as a wall of bricks, each syllable mortared in place. Will’s mind raced to put the pieces together. Naomi didn’t own a gun. Did that mean Simon had shown up with one? Had she managed to fight him off?
No sooner had he started to make some sense of what he was looking at and feel a modicum of relief that whatever had occurred, Naomi appeared okay, than he noticed Abby. She was on the floor on the other side of the room, pale, unconscious, and limp in Becca's arms, as Becca frantically dialed 911.
The next hour was a frenetic blur of activity: a flurry of different colored uniforms, beeps and blips of radio communications, and the TV drama sound of handcuffs locking. As the paramedics raised the gurney and began to wheel Abby out into hallway, Naomi remained glued to her friend’s side.
“We’re going to need to take your statements,” an officer stepped forward, their voice barely audible over the bedlam around them.
Naomi didn’t slow her steps as she told them, “I’ll answer any questions you have at the hospital.” She looked over her shoulder. “I’ll call a ride for all of us. Will, can you grab my purse before you come down? I put it on the table by the window.”
He nodded and then stepped aside to allow the line of paramedics, police, and friends to make their way to the elevator. “I’ll meet you down there,” he said as everyone crammed in.
As the elevator doors closed, the sudden silence felt expansive, as if the departure of the crowd had somehow freed up the air in the room.
He took a slow, deliberate breath, feeling as if it were his first since stepping off the elevator.
He wanted to use this brief moment of quiet to gather his scattered thoughts, to try and process the events that unfolded, but instead, he felt only a numbness creeping through his body that made it impossible to do anything except focus on the task ahead.
He walked into Abby’s apartment, trying not to make room in his mind for everything that had happened in the living room in the past few hours, and headed straight to the table where Naomi’s purse had been tossed at some point.
Outside, the sky had begun to darken, but he could still clearly see the line of emergency vehicles on the street.
The whirl of ambulance and police lights cast a frenzied splatter of colors across the sidewalk, their flashes looking like some kind of macabre dance of paparazzi cameras at a scene far removed from any red carpet.
Then another flash caught his eye, and he realized it was the paparazzi.
It was only one person, but the large, high-end camera was unmistakable.
Damn, they had gotten wind of this fast. He wasn’t sure who they were but then, he supposed it didn’t matter. If there was one, more would follow. The news would surely break soon, and there would be no stopping it.
Will took out his phone and tapped Freya’s name in his contacts. It went to voicemail, again.
Quickly, he pulled up his texts and typed out a message.
WILL: Something’s happened. I was really hoping you’d pick up.
I want you to hear this first before it gets picked up.
Naomi and Abby went back to their building to get some stuff.
Naomi’s ex-husband was there waiting for them.
With a gun. They subdued him. But not before he hit Abby with the gun.
She’s unconscious and the EMTs are rushing her to Northwestern right now. We’re following behind.
He put his phone back in his pocket and reached for Naomi’s purse.
But as he did, something else caught his eye.
Next to her purse was a small cardboard box haphazardly filled with a random assortment of items. Glancing in, he could make out sunglasses, a set of keys, a pair of gold and red Lululemon leggings and a matching T-shirt, and a small book titled Come Love with Me and Be My Life (Peter McWilliams Poetry Series #1).
None of them on their own would have stood out, but together they told an almost unmistakable story.
He looked up and saw the paramedics loading the gurney onto the ambulance. He wasn’t going to have enough time to explore his hunch so instead, he hurried out the door, typing one last message as he did.
WILL: I know it’s probably not my place and maybe I have no idea what I’m talking about. But come home.