Chapter 1 - The Emergency Call That Started A Nightmare
The Night Everything ChangedThe rain hammered against the reinforced glass of St. Catherine’s Emergency Department, but the storm inside was far worse. As a senior trauma nurse, I was used to chaos, blood, and the frantic adrenaline of saving lives. But tonight, a horrific multi-car pileup involving a city bus had turned our already understaffed Friday shift into a relentless war zone. We had patients bleeding out on stretchers, alarms chiming incessantly, and the metallic tang of copper and burnt coffee hanging thick in the air.
My shift was supposed to end at seven. It was now past nine, and I was pinned to a trauma bay, chest-compressing a man whose heart had given out under the stress of the crash. When the monitor finally stabilized into a steady rhythm, my knees buckled. My pale-blue scrubs were drenched in sweat, antiseptic, and someone else’s blood. My phone buzzed relentlessly in my pocket. It was Grace, the matchmaker who had ruthlessly badgered me for six months until I finally agreed to this blind date.
"Elena, where are you?" Grace’s voice shrieked over the ambient wails of the ER. "He’s been sitting at Beluchi’s for an hour! Do you have any idea who Dominic Moretti is? You don't keep a Moretti waiting!"
"Grace, I can't leave," I gasped, wiping my brow with the back of a gloved hand, careful not to contaminate anything. "A bus collision just came in. We're flooded. Call the restaurant. Tell him something came up at the hospital."
"I tried! They said he's waiting for you specifically. Elena, please, just call him yourself. Explain it!"
Before I could answer, another overhead page blared: Code Blue, Trauma 3.
"I have to go!" I yelled into the receiver and disconnected.
In my frantic state, I didn't call Dominic Moretti directly. Instead, I dialed our apartment landline, hoping our elderly next-door neighbor, Mrs. Delaney, was still awake to check on my five-year-old daughter, Lily. It was supposed to be a simple favor: Please tell Grace to cancel. But Mrs. Delaney, sweet as she was, was eighty-two and deeply exhausted. Her voice was groggy, slipping into sleep even as she muttered that she understood.
I hung up, believing my message would be relayed. I had no idea that Mrs. Delaney would drift off to sleep within seconds of hanging up the phone. I had no idea that Lily, curled up on the rug with her worn-out stuffed rabbit, Mr. Buttons, had overheard every frantic word of my conversation about Beluchi’s restaurant, my anxiety over whether my one decent navy dress still fit, and the name of the man waiting for me.
Lily was only five, but she was sharper than any child had a right to be. She knew where Beluchi’s was because I had obsessed over the location for three days. She knew the ceramic piggy bank on her dresser held twenty-seven dollars in saved coins.
She took twelve.
May you like
She put on her red wool coat.
She walked out the front door of our apartment building into the freezing New York rain, flagged down a yellow cab, and told the driver she needed to go meet her mommy.
