Woman on the Edge(5)

“If you could see her in the board meetings …” Nicole said to Tessa. “Anyway, you’re right. It will all be fine.”

Tessa laughed. “You okay to make the meeting?” she asked.

“Of course.” Nicole straightened. She was a CEO, for God’s sake. She’d taken her company public when she was only twenty-eight. How could she be undone so easily? The past was the past. It was just a letter. Words couldn’t hurt her now.

“Tessa, I’m fine. I can totally make the meeting.”

“Okay. Swing by my office when you’re out, and we can go for dinner to celebrate your last day.”

“I’d love to, but Greg and I are having a date night. I could go into labor at any time, so we want to make the most of these last few days together.”

Tessa smiled and walked out of her office. Nicole went to her desk and shoved the letter in her drawer. But as she collected herself and prepared to leave for her final board meeting before she became a mother, Donna’s message rang ominously through her.

You can’t keep her safe.

A horrific thought occurred to Nicole: What if she’s right?





CHAPTER THREE MORGAN




The brakes grind with an earsplitting screech against the metal tracks. I scream and scream and scream and when I open my eyes, the train has barreled right into the station. And it’s too late.

“Help me! That woman just jumped! Oh my God! I have her baby!” I cry. My arms and legs shake so violently I’m afraid I’ll drop the baby. I barely look down onto the tracks, but when I do, I see the woman’s limbs splayed at all the wrong angles, and I know she’s dead. I look away, afraid to see more. The flashing red lights of the train bouncing off the walls blind me. I hear alarms, and yet all the sound feels far away, as if I’m underwater.

Swarms of people howl, push, and shove. The train’s doors open, and commuters spill off until there’s no room left to move on the platform. People are panicking, yelling, pointing down at the woman on the tracks. Where are the police? Where are the paramedics? Even though I know there’s no hope, they at least have to try.

Fighting not to throw up, I wrap my arms around the baby’s back and turn us both so we can’t see her mother.

One person after another surround me until I’m so hot I can barely breathe. I see their lips move, but I can’t take it all in. It’s too fast, too intense.

“Who was she?”

“Why did she jump?”

“Was she a friend of yours?”

“Is the baby okay?”

They’re all firing questions I can’t answer. Sweat pours down my face, and I need air, but I’m swallowed by the crowd, frantic to move.

I feel a thud against my back, and I stumble. “Call nine-one-one! Help!” I scream again as I fall forward.

A hand grabs my arm and pulls me away from the edge.

“Please, please help me,” I cry to the man in a Chicago Transit Authority uniform I find beside me. I’m afraid I’m going to pass out and drop this precious child. He steadies me with one hand on the baby’s back and the other around my shoulder.

I can’t get enough air into my lungs. I lean into him. “I— She—”

With a sickening wave of panic, I realize that the baby could be injured. I frantically peel away the yellow blanket she’s wrapped in. I brace myself, afraid I’ll see blood and bruises, but it’s all baby-smooth skin of chubby arms and legs. A perfect baby in an ivory onesie who presses her little rosebud mouth to the shoulder of my thin white dress.

My knees buckle. Then the baby is taken from my arms, and a sudden coldness rushes through me.

“This is the woman, Officer!”

“Ma’am, are you okay? Did you witness the incident?” a police officer says as he drapes a blanket over my shoulders.

“She was talking to the lady right before she jumped.”

“She took her baby!”

A cacophony of voices thrashes in my ears. I watch as the baby is handed from a male officer to a female one. Then they both disappear in the crowd, and the baby who was a moment ago safe in my arms is gone.

The officer by my side leads me away from the tracks. When we’re farther up the platform, he pauses to let me lean against the hard tile of the wall.

My teeth chatter. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what just happened. Where are they taking that poor child? Why would her mother do that?

Take my baby.

Morgan.

Had the woman really said my name, or had I imagined it? I clutch my head, soaked with cold sweat, and watch the other witnesses comfort one another and emergency personnel race down to the track level. It’s almost as if I’m not really here. I have no clue who that woman was. I can’t stop crying.

The officer stands beside me, watching me with interest. “Why don’t we go to the station where it’s quieter and we can talk?” he asks gently.

The station? No. I never want to go back to that place.

I was taken there after I found Ryan lying on the floor of his home office, a shotgun dangling from his fingertips and a bleeding hole in his stomach. My husband was dead by his own hand. I knew nothing then. I know nothing now.

Why is this happening?

I have no choice but to follow the officer as he marches through the mob. I have no choice but to look down when I pass the dank, dark pit of the tracks, where the mother’s mangled body is being lifted onto a stretcher. Her arms are askew, her legs crushed, and her face covered in blood, so much blood her features are no longer visible. Bile rises to my throat and I gag. My legs are so weak, I’m barely able to walk.