A paramedic asks me questions through my open window, but I can’t answer her. I only have enough energy to focus on my family. Fear has a vise grip on my heart, squeezing and tightening until it feels like I can’t breathe. My breath oozes out in wheezy, panicked spurts, and I’m struggling to get enough air into my lungs. An oxygen mask is carefully placed around my nose and chin just as the roof is finally lifted off.
A fireman wrenches the driver side door away, leaning in to press his fingers against Reeve’s neck. He avoids eye contact with me while holding his fingers against Reeve’s pulse point. Looking over his shoulder, he shakes his head at the male paramedic waiting behind him. He turns back around, and his sympathetic eyes lock on mine. An anguished sob escapes my mouth. “No!” I scream. “No! Don’t say it! Don’t you dare tell me that!” Hysteria bubbles up my throat, and I tighten my fingers in Reeve’s hair, crying as I silently plead with the universe.
It’s a mistake.
It’s got to be.
Reeve would never leave me.
He’s promised me so many times.
“Mrs. Lancaster,” the kind paramedic lady says. She told me her name, but I can’t remember it. “I’m so very sorry for your loss. There is nothing we can do for your husband now. We need to focus on you and your baby.”
“Reeve.” I hold on to him, clinging to his shoulders, crying with the worst, most unimaginable pain sitting on my chest. “You can’t leave me. I love you too much! I can’t go on without you. Please, wake up. Baby, please.” It physically feels like my heart is rupturing behind my rib cage. Wracking sobs heave from my chest, and I want to die too.
“It’s time, Mrs. Lancaster,” the paramedic says, squeezing my arm in a show of support. “You need to let my colleagues remove your husband from the car.”
“No,” I sob. “Don’t take him from me.” Tears coat my face in a steady stream, and fluid leaks out of my nose.
“You need to let go, sweetheart.” A male paramedic gently pries my hands from Reeve as they pull him from the car and lay him on a stretcher. A blue sheet is placed over him, covering him from head to foot. My tears crawl to a stop, and I’m in a daze as I’m lifted out of the car and placed on a stretcher on the ground while the paramedics check me out.
“Mrs. Lancaster?” Kara—that’s her name—says. “Can you feel the baby moving?”
I shake my head, running my hands over my bump. Warm liquid gushes down my legs. “She’s not kicking,” I whisper, closing my eyes. If I lose my daughter too, I won’t survive this.
“We’re going to airlift you to the hospital,” she explains, pointing to a chopper in the middle of the field behind us. I hadn’t even heard it land. I look up, spotting other helicopters in the sky. “Your baby is in fetal distress, and you’re hemorrhaging badly. We need to get you to the delivery room.”
Nausea swims up my throat, and I feel disoriented. My eyelids grow heavy. “Stay with me, Vivien,” Kara says, her voice sounding distant. “We’re losing her!” she shouts as I’m lifted off the ground, and that’s the last thing I’m conscious of before I pass out.
9
Dillon
“Turn on the TV,” Ash shouts, barging into the recording studio on the grounds of my L.A. pad, with tears streaming down her face. “Hurry the fuck up, Jay!” she yells at her fiancé, impatient with his slow reaction. “Stick CNN on now!”
“What’s going on?” I ask, immediately alarmed.
“Dillon,” she sobs, throwing herself at me.
Goose bumps sprout on my arms, and my mouth is suddenly dry. Keeping one arm around my sobbing sister, I remove my guitar, setting the Fender aside. Ro shoots me a quizzical look, as Jamie flicks through the channels. Conor is sprawled across the leather couch, smoking a joint, oblivious to the tension in the air.
“This is bad, Dil,” Ash whispers, wrapping both her arms around my body as the screen loads. “So, so, bad.”
All the blood drains from my face as I read the headline flashing across the screen.
REEVE LANCASTER AND PREGNANT WIFE IN LATE-NIGHT CAR ACCIDENT
My heart throbs painfully behind my chest cavity, and I hold my sister tight as the reporter speaks from the scene of the crash. Yellow police tape cordons off the road, and I watch with mounting horror as the shattered remains of a black and gold Maserati are hauled onto the back of a tow truck. Crowds of reporters, photographers, and innocent bystanders surround the cordoned-off area, holding up umbrellas to ward off the heavy rain that continues to fall.
“What can you tell us, Claudine?” the anchor in the studio asks the reporter.
“All we know at this time is that Reeve Lancaster and his pregnant wife, Vivien, were returning from a charity event when their car was hit by another vehicle. According to a local resident, who witnessed it from his bedroom window, Reeve lost control of the car and they crashed into a tree. The couple was trapped in their vehicle until firemen from a nearby station cut them free. Unofficial reports say Reeve was confirmed dead at the scene while a severely injured Vivien was airlifted to the hospital.”
I tune out after that, shucking out of my sister’s hold as I grab my jacket and keys. Panic slaps me in the face, and bile churns in my gut. “I need to go to her.” I toss a look at Ash over my shoulder as my fingers curl around the door handle. “Find out which hospital they’re at, and call me on the way.”
“Like fucking hell I will.” Ash stomps forward. “I’m coming with you.”
“Will they even let you near her?” Ro asks, standing from his seat at his drum kit. “It’s not like any of us have had any contact with her since she left Dublin.”
Guilt swirls in my veins. I’ve been keeping so much from everyone, and it’s all about to come out in the worst possible way. But I can’t think about that now. All I can think about is getting to the hospital to see Vivien. “They’ll let me in.” I have no clue if they will, but I’ll use the brother-in-law card if I have to.
“We’re coming with you.” Jamie slides his arms in his brown leather jacket.
“Conor can stay here and lock up,” Ro says, stalking toward me. Conor grunts, barely aware of this conversation. Jamie grabs my car keys from my hand. “I’ll drive. You sit in the back with Ash.”
We race outside, climbing into my Land Rover. “I need to tell you something,” I say after Ash has made a few calls and confirmed which hospital they have taken Viv to. Ro eyes me through the mirror as Jamie takes the next exit onto the highway. “I’ve seen Viv recently.”
“What the fuck, Dil?” Ash fixes me with an incredulous expression. She jerks her head back suddenly, her eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Please don’t tell me you’re having an affair with her behind Reeve’s back?”
“Jesus. Of course not.” Vivien would be the last person to cheat on her husband, and my sister knows how I feel about the subject. I shake my head. “It’s nothing like that.”
“Then what is it like? And why are we only hearing this now?”