Chapter 4 - The Heartbeat and the Wire
The waiting room of the Valley Women’s Health Clinic was quiet, smelling of lavender disinfectant and clean paper. Women with swollen bellies sat with their partners, murmuring softly over baby name books and ultrasound printouts.
I sat in the corner, Everett’s heavy canvas jacket folded across my knees, clutching my handbag to my chest. Julian had offered to wait in the truck, but when we arrived, he had looked at the cluster of town gossips gathered near the pharmacy entrance across the street and silently followed me through the clinic doors. He sat two chairs away from me, his long legs bent awkwardly in the small plastic waiting room chair, reading an outdated hunting magazine with intense, defensive concentration.
"Mara Vance?" the nurse called.
I stood up. My knees felt slightly unsteady.
"You want me to come back?" Julian asked quietly, lowering the magazine. There was no pressure in his voice, only an open door if I needed an anchor.
"Would you?" I asked, hating how small my voice sounded.
Julian stood up immediately, setting the magazine on the table, and walked beside me through the double doors without a word of hesitation.
Dr. Eleanor Evans had been my physician since I was sixteen. She was sixty, with iron-gray hair cropped short and eyes that had seen every tragedy and miracle this county had produced for thirty years. When she walked into the examination room and saw Julian sitting in the corner chair, her eyebrows lifted slightly, but she didn't ask questions.
"Mara," Dr. Evans said, her voice warm but professional as she washed her hands in the small steel sink. "I was so sorry to hear about Everett. The whole county is mourning him."
"Thank you, Dr. Evans," I said, sitting on the edge of the examination table with the paper sheet crinkling beneath me.
"I received a rather bizarre communication yesterday morning," Dr. Evans continued, pulling on a pair of latex gloves. "A formal records request from an attorney named Marcus Kane, claiming to represent your legal guardian, demanding copies of your prenatal blood panels, conception date projections, and psychological intake forms."
My breath caught. "You didn't give them to him, did you?"
Dr. Evans turned, her expression settling into a look of cold, professional outrage. "I informed Mr. Kane that unless he produced a federal subpoena signed by a district judge with an active warrant, any further contact with my office would result in a formal HIPAA violation report to the state medical board, accompanied by a complaint for civil harassment. Your medical records are yours, Mara. Nobody else’s."
A wave of relief swept over me, so potent it made my shoulders drop three inches.
"Now," Dr. Evans said, her tone softening as she wheeled the ultrasound console closer to the bed. "Let's see how this little one is doing. You've had a tremendous amount of stress. Lie back for me."
The gel was warm, but it still sent a shiver through my stomach. Dr. Evans pressed the plastic transducer against my lower abdomen, her eyes tracking the flickering gray screen.
For ten seconds, the room was entirely silent except for the hum of the air conditioner and the rapid, shallow sound of my own breathing. I held my breath, the terror of two years ago rising in my throat like bile—the memory of an empty screen, the doctor’s mouth tightening, the terrible words: *I’m sorry, Mara, there’s no cardiac activity.*
Then, suddenly, the speaker on the console hissed.
*Thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump.*
The sound filled the small room, loud, fast, and rhythmic, like the galloping of tiny, wild horses across dry earth. It was the most beautiful, ferocious sound I had ever heard in my life.
"One hundred and sixty-four beats per minute," Dr. Evans announced, a bright, genuine smile breaking across her face. "Strong, perfectly regular. And look here."
She turned the monitor toward me.
There, floating in the dark sea of the screen, was my baby. It was no longer a shadowy smudge. I could see the distinct, perfect curve of a skull, the tiny buds of arms and legs, the miniature spine glowing like a string of pearls. As we watched, the baby gave a small, distinct jerk, kicking outward into the darkness.
Tears spilled over my eyelids, running down my cheeks and into my hair. I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth to keep from sobbing aloud.
From the corner of the room, I heard a sharp intake of breath. I looked over.
Julian had stood up from his chair. He was staring at the monitor, his rugged face completely stripped of its usual guarded reserve. His eyes were wide, glassy with unshed tears, his hand resting against the edge of the counter as if he needed the support. When he saw me looking at him, he didn't look away. He stepped closer, reached out with a hand that was calloused from timber and steel, and gently touched the top of my head, letting his fingers rest there for a second in an unspoken vow of protection.
"Eleven weeks, four days," Dr. Evans said, tapping the measurement markers on the screen. "That puts your conception date precisely on June twenty-second."
My heart hammered against my ribs. June twenty-second.
The night Nolan came home early from Marquette. The night we ate takeout on the laundry room floor.
"Dr. Evans," I choked out, wiping the tears from my cheeks. "Can you certify that date in a sworn medical declaration? Today?"
"I can," she said, looking between me and the monitor with a sharp, knowing nod. "I’ll have it signed, notarized, and delivered to Arthur Vance’s office before five o’clock. Whoever is trying to tell you this baby isn't where it belongs, Mara... you tell them they have to go through me first."
Ten minutes later, Julian and I walked out of the clinic into the bright midday sun. The world looked different. The sky was an impossible, piercing blue, the air crisp with the coming frost. The terror that had haunted me for six days had evaporated, burned away by the sound of that tiny, galloping heart.
As we reached Julian’s truck, my phone buzzed in my pocket. It was a text from an unknown number.
*Mara. It’s Nolan. We need to talk. Alone. Please. I’m at the boathouse at the county park. Paige and Calvin don't know I’m here. They're out of their minds, Mara. Calvin has done something terrible. You’re in real danger. Please come.*
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the glass.
"Julian," I said, holding out the phone. "Look at this."
Julian read the message, his jaw tightening into iron. "It’s an ambush. Kane knows the medical motion won't hold up if Dr. Evans certifies the dates. They’re trying to get you alone to force a settlement before the hearing tomorrow."
"I know," I said. My mind was moving with cold, calculated speed. "They think I’m terrified. They think I’m running scared."
"You aren't going," Julian said, his voice flat.
"I am going," I replied, looking him in the eye until he saw the steel behind my gaze. "I’m going, Julian. But I’m not going alone, and I’m not going unarmed. Everett left three cassette tapes and an external hard drive in that wall safe. Arthur has the tapes. But I’ve got something Nolan doesn't know about."
I reached into my bag and pulled out the small, voice-activated digital recorder Grandpa Everett had bought to dictate his memoirs before his voice failed him.
"You’re going to wire me?" Julian asked, the corner of his mouth twitching with a mixture of dread and awe.
May you like
"No," I smiled, a cold, sharp smile that felt entirely like Everett Vance. "I’m going to let Nolan hang himself with his own rope. And you’re going to be sitting two hundred yards away in the birch grove with a high-definition telephoto lens."
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