“Nick?!” I asked, hating that I couldn’t sit up and see for myself. That was Nick, right? “Do you have Joanie?” I asked, my hand reaching in the direction of his voice.
“I’ve got her.” Suddenly he was hovering above me, carefully holding Joanie toward me so that I could see her sleeping face scrunching up as if she was being woken and did not like it one bit.
I burst into tears and reached for her.
“She’s okay,” he said. “She’s okay.” He maneuvered Joanie so that her little forehead touched mine, and just that tiny bit of contact with my baby’s skin did more to calm me down than any words could have.
“It’s okay,” I whispered to her. “We’re okay.”
“We’re going to take you up to CT now,” a nurse said, and I had to say goodbye to my baby again.
They wheeled me up and I did my best to grin and bear it while they scanned my head, neck and spine. The back of my head hurt from being pressed against the backboard and I had to consciously fight down my panic.
Where was Sean? Where was Sean? Where was Sean?
They wheeled me back to the room I had left. “Nick?” I called as soon as we got into the room.
“Me and Joanie are right here, ma’am,” he said, and Joanie added her opinion by starting to cry.
A bit of my panic slipped away at the reassurance, but Joanie’s cries made me even more anxious to get out of this collar. She was probably getting hungry, and I was her only food source.
“Is she really okay?” I asked.
“The doctor looked her over while you were gone. They said she looks perfectly fine.”
I let out a shuddering breath of relief. I tried to work past the lump in my throat to ask about Sean, but despite much swallowing, the words wouldn’t come.
Only a couple minutes later, a doctor walked in and gave me the good news that my CT was clear. The nurses got me out of the collar and I was able to get off of the backboard. They sat the bed up so that I could finally hold my baby.
After handing her off, Nick sat unobtrusively in the corner and I was able to nurse her while the nurse and doctor worked to clean, numb, and stitch the laceration on my forehead.
They piled blankets on my lap and wrapped one around my shoulders when I started shaking from all the pent-up adrenaline. They propped my arms up with pillows so I wouldn’t have to hold Joanie up on my own, and as the shaking subsided, I was finally able to take a deep breath.
Still.
Where was Sean?
♪♫♪
Two hours later, the doctors had finished with me, so they signed my discharge papers and left me alone to get my things together. I sat on the hospital bed to change Joanie’s diaper and finally asked Nick the question that had been pounding against my heart for the past several hours. “Where’s Sean?”
He didn’t respond right away, which only made my panic ratchet up more. I looked up at him, my lips tight, my eyes wide. Terrified.
His face was horribly unreadable. “His security guys were not given permission to share that information with me.”
I blinked hard. Once. Twice. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t understand it either, Libby.” It was the first time he’d called me Libby.
“So he just…what? Left the scene of the accident after I was carted off in an ambulance?!” I screeched the last word. Joanie cried. I forced a deep breath through my nose.
“No, he…” I saw him debating with himself in his head before he crossed to me, pulling out his phone as he came, tapping and swiping before turning it to face me.
It was a video of Sean, out in front of the hospital, screaming at a crowd of photographers.
“I hope you leeches enjoyed getting your last pictures, because I’m done!” He sliced his hand viciously through the air. “I can put up with you chasing me all over town, but when you endanger her, when you endanger her baby, that’s it. I won’t do it. That woman has been through enough. And you’d better believe I’ll choose her over my career every time. So congratulations,” he mocked. “You’ve just sent me into retirement.” He turned his back on them and started toward the hospital doors.
“You’re contractually obligated to keep performing, Sean!” someone goaded from the back of the crowd.
Sean just turned around for a second, gave a shrug, and then walked through the hospital doors.
Nick turned the phone back toward himself and swiped some more.
I swallowed a couple times, feelings of abandonment burrowing under my skin. “So,” I started, “if he’s so devoted to me, then why isn’t he here?”
“Because of this,” he answered and turned the phone to me again, loaded with another video.
Sean was leaving the hospital with a woman in a wide-brimmed hat and huge sunglasses, the bottom half of her face hidden by what looked like a baby as she clutched the bundle to her chest.
I scrunched my nose and squinted at the footage. “Is that supposed to be me?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“So then where did he go after that?”
He pocketed the phone. “Like I said, his guys wouldn’t tell me anything else. He used that decoy woman to lead the media away from you, which did work, by the way. But after that”—he lifted his empty hands—“I’ve received no further information. And I did ask for more.”
“Where’s my phone? Is it here?”
Nick pulled it from the inside pocket of his jacket.
I looked through my notifications, expecting a call or a text. Maybe even a whole string of texts.
There was nothing from Sean. Why was there nothing from Sean? I blinked, confused, as I looked up at Nick. “So, is he going to pick me up to take me home?”
“No ma’am; he made sure I would be here to get you back to the house.”
My stomach dropped. Sean had arranged for me to get home. Without him. Without telling me where he was going to be. Without texting me. Without calling.
I called Sean’s phone. It rang and kept ringing. He didn’t answer. I called again. He didn’t answer. I texted and waited for a response.
I pinned my gaze on my bodyguard. “Why isn’t he answering, Nick?”
“I don’t know, ma’am.”
So much hurt. So much anger. I picked Joanie up, holding her securely against my chest, feeling her presence, focusing on it so that I could calm down.
Nick’s voice was quiet when he spoke again. “Are you ready for me to take you home?”
“Yes, please,” I whispered, keeping an iron grip on my crazy, which desperately wanted to come out.
He gathered my things and then let the nurse know we were ready to go. Nick handed me a baseball cap and big sunglasses. I glared at them even as I put them on. Then I sat in the wheelchair provided by the nurse with Joanie tucked in my arms and did my best to be unobtrusive and invisible as they wheeled me out.
No one was waiting to take photos of me. Sean’s decoy had worked.
The moment we pulled away from the curb, I grabbed for my phone again. Sean still didn’t pick up, but this time I left a message.
“Sean, I have a really bad feeling that you’re doing something stupid.” My voice quavered with the strain. “I don’t know why you aren’t answering my calls, but it’s starting to scare me. Please call me back, or text me, or something.” I breathed heavily, trying not to cry. “Please.”