Justice Lost (Darren Street #3)(6)

“I’ve been in that waiting room for a half hour,” I said, my voice rising along with my anger. “I want some answers. I want to know if Grace and our baby are all right. I want you to go, right now, and find someone who can tell me something, or I’m going to go find Grace myself.”

“Don’t get belligerent with me, sir,” she said. “I’ll call security and get the police here.”

“Good, good, let’s just have a reunion. Call security. Call the police. They know me. Tell them it’s Darren Street. I’ve been in prison before, and I’m suspected of committing several murders, although they’ve never been able to prove a thing. Tell them to come on down. Your choice.”

I couldn’t believe how cavalier she was acting. I was going crazy with worry over Grace and the baby. I was being cooped up in a small waiting room with only my imagination to tell me what was going on, and what my imagination was telling me wasn’t good. And then every time I walked out to try to get some information, I was faced with this cud-chewing cow, who obviously couldn’t have cared less about me or Grace or the baby or anything else except when she would eat next.

“Either you can call security and the police and there’ll be a hell of a scene, or you can just get off your lazy ass and go find somebody who can tell me what’s going on with Grace and our daughter,” I said. “What’s your name, anyway? I might want to catch up with you later.”

“What did you say? Did you just threaten me?”

“Did you hear me say a minute ago I’m suspected in four murders? I wasn’t kidding. Go find out what’s on.”

“Will you go back to the waiting room?” she said meekly.

“For ten minutes, tops.”

She got up and waddled off down the hall in the opposite direction of the waiting room. I did what I told her I’d do. I went back to the waiting room and paced. I looked at my phone the second I walked in and marked the time. The countdown began. At the seven-minute mark, a man wearing gray surgical scrubs and looking tired and defeated walked in. He was my height, about five nine, and had short, curly, salt-and-pepper hair, a strong build, and a thick stubble of sideburn and beard on his face. His eyes were hazel surrounded by pink. He appeared to be on the verge of tears.

He offered his hand and I shook it.

“I’m Dr. Frank Jenkins,” he said. “I’m the managing partner of the obstetrics and gynecology group that was responsible for Miss Alexander’s care.”

“Was?” I said, and I felt my legs begin to go limp. I backed up and managed to fall into a chair before I hit the floor. I thought I noticed someone else walk in, but I couldn’t really see. The world had gone gray; shapes had become indistinguishable.

“I’m so sorry. I’m going to try to explain this as simply as possible,” the doctor said.

He sounded as though he were in a barrel, a canyon, an echo chamber. It was a sound I’d heard only once before, the night a police officer named Bob Ridge told me my mother had been murdered. The echoes began to thicken, like he was underwater. I was able to process only bits of information.

“Uterine rupture . . . extremely rare . . . separated . . . torn . . . baby slipped out . . . abdominal cavity . . . hemorrhage . . . baby suffocated . . . mother bled . . . everything I could possibly do . . . tried to save them . . . there just wasn’t enough time . . . again, so sorry . . .”

The noise that began to emanate from me came from a primal place, a place so far removed from present day that I could very well have been sitting in a cave sharpening a spear when I received the news. I cannot describe it because I did not hear it. I felt it, though later I barely remembered the feeling. It was a wail of desperation so deep and painful that the only thing I could possibly have hoped to achieve was to bring Grace and the baby back before they got too far away.

Please, wait for me, Grace. I can’t take any more of this pain. I’ll be along soon.





CHAPTER 5

Grace and Jasmine were flown to San Diego, where they were buried in a beautiful cemetery on a hill overlooking the Pacific. I didn’t call her parents—I wasn’t able at the time—but Jenny Diaz, the nurse who worked so hard to save their lives, turned out to be one of the kindest people I’d ever met. She took it upon herself to contact Grace’s parents, and they made all the funeral and burial arrangements. I called Grace’s mother once, two days after Grace died, and was told that I was not welcome at the funeral or the burial. I didn’t know why she was projecting so much anger onto me, although I suppose I had caused Grace more than her share of heartache. But I wasn’t responsible for her death, so I ignored what her mother said about the funeral and the burial, and I flew to San Diego. I sat in the back at the funeral, kept my mouth shut, and kept my distance at the burial. I was on a flight back to Knoxville less than twenty-four hours after I left.

Another change had come over me, one of which I was aware but powerless to do anything about. I was back in the same tunnel-visioned, laser-focused, emotionless state that I had entered when my mother was killed and the police told me they had a suspect. I already had my suspect. His name was Dr. Nicolas Fraturra. I had to make certain of two things, though: First of all, I had to gather as much information as I could about exactly what happened in that birthing center. I remembered something about uterine rupture, so I began to research the subject. I learned it was extremely rare and could be deadly to both mother and baby. But I also learned that given prompt attention, both mother and baby had an excellent chance of survival without any long-term effects. The key was to quickly and accurately diagnose what was going on, and once the diagnosis was made, to immediately get the mother into an operating room so the baby could be removed and the doctors could stop the mother’s bleeding. Typically, from everything I read, the doctors had between ten and thirty minutes to operate once the uterus ruptured.