Chapter 2 - The Ambulance
The deafening crack of a gunshot echoed off the supermarket walls, shattering the momentary silence.
I screamed in sheer terror, squeezing my eyes shut as the quick-thinking paramedics shoved my stretcher violently down toward the hard linoleum floor.
Shards of glass rained down from the shattered fluorescent ceiling lights, dusting over my torn maternity dress and my tightly clutched stomach.
When I finally dared to open my eyes, I saw that Wyatt was bleeding heavily from his shoulder, but he had miraculously managed to tackle David to the ground.
The police officers swarmed the struggling men instantly, pinning my furious husband down and violently wrenching the smoking gun from his grasp.
“Get her out of here right now!” one of the medics yelled, wheeling my stretcher frantically toward the shattered exit doors.
The cool, refreshing evening air hit my face like a blessing as they lifted me into the brightly lit back of the waiting ambulance.
Medical monitors began to beep wildly in the confined space as they strapped a fetal heart monitor across my bruised, eight-month-pregnant belly.
“The baby’s heart rate is dropping rapidly,” the paramedic said, her face draining of color as she watched the jagged lines on the digital screen.
I grabbed her wrist with desperate strength, begging her through my tears to save my innocent child.
She immediately injected a clear fluid into my IV line, instructing me to take deep breaths, but my chest felt as though it were collapsing inward.
My racing mind kept flashing back to the unfamiliar name the police had screamed across the store.
Arthur Vance.
I closed my eyes and vividly remembered a heavy, locked drawer in David's home office that he swore only held boring tax documents and client contracts.
Suddenly, my personal cell phone buzzed aggressively from inside the pocket of my ruined dress.
The paramedic pulled it out for me, offering a comforting smile as she assumed it was a worried family member calling to check on me.
I looked down at the glowing screen and my blood ran ice cold in my veins.
The caller ID clearly displayed David’s personal number, but David was currently handcuffed on the floor of a supermarket surrounded by police.
May you like
I answered the call with a violently trembling hand, pressing the phone's speaker close to my ear.
“He is not the one you need to be afraid of tonight,” a metallic, heavily disguised voice whispered through the receiver before the line went completely dead.
