What Mattered Most (7 page)

Mitchell’s muffled curses rent the air, and John pushed past a couple of black-clad deputies. A deputy knelt in the foyer with one knee on Mitchell’s back and recited the Miranda warnings while another snapped cuffs on Mitchell’s straining wrists. Beth sagged against the wall, blood-spattered hands pressed to her wet cheeks.

“Oh my God, John!” She threw herself at him, her arms clenched around his neck. “I’m so glad you’re here.”

“You okay?” His hand pressed against her spine for a moment, his gaze searching beyond the chaos, seeking Lanie. Where was she? The thick, heavy scent of blood hung in the air. He pulled back, his heart thudding against the wall of his chest. “Where’s Lanie? Is she—”

“Get the EMTs in here!” Falconetti’s panicked voice carried from the small bath off the foyer, and that note of alarm sent terror racing over his skin.

John put Beth away from him, and she reached for his arm, a beseeching note in her voice. “John, wait, she’s—”

He ignored her and steeled himself for what lay on the other side of that door. Blood, the bright crimson startling against the snowy tile. Falconetti knelt by Lanie, fingers that visibly trembled brushing over her throat, seeking a pulse. Her pallor terrified John—the only color in Lanie’s face was the dark slash of her eyebrows and the feathery shadow of her lashes. Even her lips lacked color. His lungs constricted.

She looked dead.

Aware of the paramedics clambering up the steps, John crossed the room to Lanie’s side, the blood-spattered tile cold and slick under his bare feet. Her limp hand lay on the mound of their baby. He dropped to his knees, and the impact sent pain jarring through his torso. He touched her cheek, the skin cold under his touch. “Lanie?”

“Good God.” The paramedic swore under his breath. “I need you out of the way. Now.”

Falconetti moved immediately, but John faltered until she leaned down and jerked him to his feet. The harsh move rocketed pain along his nerves, and he backed up a step, watching as the medics cut away clothing, checked Lanie’s airway and vitals and inserted an IV line. “What’s wrong?”

The medic didn’t look at him. “She’s got a head injury, and she’s going into shock from the vaginal bleeding. How advanced is her pregnancy?”

The question threw him, and he counted back, trying to come up with an accurate number. “Thirty-five weeks. Maybe thirty-six.”

“Any bleeding before this?”

“No.”

A second medic appeared with a stretcher. “Clear the room, please.”

John backed out of the room, his gaze never leaving her face. She was so still, as still as his mother had been… No. God, please, she couldn’t die.

A soft touch fluttered over his shoulder. “John? You’re bleeding.”

He grabbed Beth’s hand, her fingers cold in his. “I’m fine. How long has she been bleeding?”

Beth’s teeth chattered, blurring her words. “Since we got here. She—she hit her head when Doug… John!”

Rage burst into flame in John’s soul. Ignoring the pain clutching his chest, he moved toward the door where Burnett and a deputy were escorting a strangely subdued Mitchell from the house. He’d kill him. “Mitchell, you bastard, I’ll—”

Burnett caught him up before he made contact, and John fought against the other man’s hold. With ridiculous ease, Burnett pushed him against the wall, holding him with one arm. “Stop.”

Dragging his gaze from Mitchell’s retreating form, John glared at Burnett. “He—”

Sympathy glinted in Burnett’s hazel eyes. “This isn’t going to help her. Get yourself together, O’Reilly. Stop thinking about what you want and think about what she needs.”

The words quieted the clamoring vengeance. The stretcher rattled as the medics carried it from the bath. Caitlin brushed her hair away from her face and glanced in John’s direction. “You should go in the ambulance with her and let them take a look at your shoulder.”

Burnett nodded. “We’ll meet you at the hospital.”

John closed his eyes, his throat tight.
God, please. She wants that baby. Don’t. Please don’t.

The young physician’s assistant pulled the last stitch taut. “Do you want something else for pain? That local’s going to wear off in an hour or so.”

“No.” He deserved the pain, and he’d take it.

After handing John a sheaf of discharge papers, the PA rattled off wound care instructions that John only half-heard. He shoved the papers in the chest pocket of the ruined scrubs he still wore. Outside the cubicle, he hovered and peered into Lanie’s room. Twin IV bags hung above her sheet-draped body, pushing blood and fluids back into her system. A harried nurse glanced up and hurried in his direction, attempting to push him down the hall. “Sir, you can’t be here. You’ll have to go to the waiting area.”

John dug in. “How is she? What about the baby?”

For a second, her face softened. “She’s stable. Dr. Lott will be out in a few moments. Now, please, go to the waiting area.”

With one more long look, he went. Guilt crushed his throat. If not for him, she wouldn’t be in this damned, sorry situation. If he’d ignored the attraction and kept it in his pants, there wouldn’t be a baby to risk losing. Mitchell wouldn’t have seen her as a target. And she wouldn’t be lying there, with doctors struggling to save her life.

Even at this early morning hour, the waiting room was crowded. Haven County deputies formed a sea of green uniforms, and John ignored the baleful looks sent his way. They blamed him, and that was okay. He blamed himself.

A long bank of windows comprised the room’s eastern wall. Caitlin Falconetti stood in front of those windows, arms wrapped around her midriff. Burnett stood behind her. The other man bent his head, lips moving in a whisper. Eyes closed, Caitlin nodded, tired worry etched into every line of her face. Burnett wrapped her in a quick embrace, and she leaned on him, the bond of a strong friendship obvious between them.

Had Lanie ever wanted to lean on him that way?

The idle thought brought a fresh wave of guilt. She was eight months pregnant, for God’s sake, with a baby that had been a complete surprise to both of them. But if there had been times when she’d wanted reassurance, he hadn’t known. She’d said everything was fine, and he’d taken the words at face value, relieved at not having to delve deeper. Shame burned along his skin. He’d failed her in so many ways, starting with the first time he touched her while still believing he loved another woman.

He walked toward Burnett and Falconetti. She looked up, and her gaze bored into John. “What’s going on?”

John jerked a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. They wouldn’t let me in. She’s stable, though. The nurse said the doctor would be out soon.”

Caitlin tucked her hands in her pockets, her gaze straying to the window again. “Not soon enough. Lord, I don’t believe this is happening.”

“John?” Beth’s soft voice slid over his jangling nerves. The blood was gone from her face, but rusty stains still marred her ivory sweater. Her blood or Lanie’s? He shuddered at the memory of all that blood, red splotches against white tile, a small pool beneath Lanie’s still body. “I’m going upstairs to Nicole’s room. Is there any news?”

He shook his head. “Not yet.”

Beth glanced sideways at Burnett and Falconetti. Resentment at Beth’s presence radiated from Falconetti’s stiff posture. Beth touched his forearm, a quick, light brush of her hand. “Do you need anything?”

“No.” He forced a smile for her benefit. “Go see about Nicole. I’ll come find you once I know something.”

A weary smile flitted across her face, and her fingers tightened for just a moment on his arm. “She’s going to be just fine. You know how strong she is.”

“Yeah.” He cleared his throat of clogging emotion. From the corner of his eye, John caught that odd resentment flashing through Falconetti’s eyes again. He watched Beth walk away and rubbed a hand over his nape.

“You know, you don’t have to stay if you’d rather be somewhere else.” Falconetti’s cold voice jerked his attention away from Beth, and John glanced around to find her watching him with narrowed eyes.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Cait.” Burnett reached out for her arm, and she shrugged him off. “This isn’t—”

“Caitlin?” The double doors to the ER unit swung open, and Sheila Dolciani strode into the waiting area, accompanied by the tall, balding man John had glimpsed in the ER with Lanie earlier. “This is Dr. Lott. He’s been Lanie’s physician tonight. Doctor, this is John O’Reilly, the baby’s father.”

Lott gave him a curt nod and turned his attention to Caitlin. “I understand you hold a medical power of attorney for Ms. Falconetti?”

Caitlin darted a startled look at Sheila. “I do. We had them written up years ago, when we first went into law enforcement. But—”

Sheila smiled, a strained expression that didn’t last long. “She’s going up to surgery in a few minutes. We need you to sign the consent forms.”

Foreboding slithered down John’s spine. “Surgery for what?”

Lott and Sheila exchanged a glance, and she drew a deep, visible breath before speaking. “There’s intracranial bleeding from the head injury. A craniotomy will be performed to suction out the blood and relieve the pressure on her brain—”

“Oh God,” Caitlin whispered, a hand over her mouth. John shuddered. The idea of someone cutting into Lanie at all made him want to throw up. The idea of someone cutting open her skull was worse.

Sheila’s dark gaze flicked in his direction. “And then there’s the baby.”

She’d lost the baby. The knowledge slammed into John’s chest, his heart jerking. He ran a hand over his face, swearing beneath his breath.

Sympathy glowed briefly in Sheila’s eyes. “She lost a lot of blood. We’ve had her hooked up to a fetal monitor, watching the baby’s vitals, and they’re not evening out like they should. The attending OB/GYN thinks the best route is to deliver him. He may be a little underweight, and his lungs will need to be monitored. But he stands a better chance if we deliver him.”

His head snapped up, relieved disbelief surging in him. “She didn’t lose the baby?”

“No.” Sheila shook her head and glanced at Caitlin. “But his heart rate is slower than it should be, and it’s not climbing. We need to get her into surgery.”

Caitlin ran a hand through her hair. “Two surgeries? Is she stable enough for that?”

An uneasy look flashed between the two doctors before Sheila spoke again. “We don’t have any other viable choices. We’ve got to stop the bleeding on the brain, and we have to deliver that baby, not only to save him but to save her. We haven’t been able to stop the vaginal bleeding.”

“Are you saying she could still die?” Fear made John’s voice hoarse.

“Without the surgery, yes.”

“My God.” Caitlin closed her eyes. “Get me the forms.”

Sheila held out a clipboard, and John watched Caitlin peruse the papers. Tears shimmered on her lashes, and a couple escaped to trickle over her cheeks. With shaking hands, she signed each copy and shoved the clipboard back.

Sheila tucked the board under her elbow. “We’ll get her up to the surgical unit to be prepped.”

Caitlin wiped her eyes. “May I see her first? Please?”

Dr. Lott’s nod was curt. “Two minutes. We don’t have time to lose.”

Sheila slanted a reassuring smile in John’s direction. “Would you like to come?”

He nodded and followed them beyond the doors marked
No Admittance
. A nurse hovered in Lanie’s cubicle, monitoring her vital signs. The stretched skin of her exposed abdomen, circled by a wired belt, glowed white under the bright lights. Her eyes remained closed, her face pale, but some color had returned to her lips. John advanced as far as the bed, hesitant to touch her. His touch had placed her in this situation.

Caitlin showed no such hesitation. She curled her fingers around Lanie’s hand and leaned close to her ear. “Lanie? It’s Cait.”

If she’d expected a reaction, none came, just the steady blip of the heart monitor. John watched her thumb stroke over the back of Lanie’s limp hand in a light caress. Her low whisper seemed loud in the eerie quiet of the cubicle. “You’ve got to get better, Lane. You just have to. I love you.”

She straightened and brushed at her wet cheeks, not looking at John. “I’m going to leave you alone with her.”

“Thanks.” His throat closed. A draft rippled the privacy curtain with her exit. He stared down at Lanie’s still form, her chest rising and falling in shallow breaths. On the nights when he couldn’t sleep, the nights that had come more and more often in recent weeks, he’d often watched her while she slept. The abandoned way she lay, the soft sighs she sometimes made, her warmth next to him had soothed the tight knot that held permanent residence in his gut.

Nothing about her unnatural sleep soothed him now.

Still afraid to touch her, he leaned close. Her long lashes cast smudges of shadow on her cheekbones, and he remembered the way that dark fringe felt brushing his skin. An unfamiliar dampness burned his eyes. “Lanie?”

Her name left his lips on a rough, hoarse whisper. He brushed a finger over her jaw, let his hand settle for just a second on the swell of her stomach. The faint scent of mingled cinnamon and vanilla tickled his nostrils. A harsh, dry sob dragged at his chest. “Oh God, Lanie, I’m sorry.”