CHAPTER 1
Thursday, April 11
“I need some help, here!” Officer Traci Lucky announced, one arm wrapped around Gwen, her barely coherent burden. Gwen Camp was a dangerously skinny woman—who was probably in her twenties but who already looked closer to forty—with blue eyes, long dishwater-blond hair, and pasty skin. And she was pregnant.
Traci had found Gwen curled in a ball on the floor in the back of a house that she and her partner, Dylan, had just raided on suspicion of being a meth lab. That tip turned out to be wrong—there was no meth lab—but they’d found enough drug paraphernalia for Dylan to call in reinforcements.
Unfortunately, as Traci had gotten on her phone to call for an ambulance, Gwen had surged to her feet and started freaking out. Even hopped up, it seemed that Gwen didn’t want to incur the expense of an ambulance. After a couple minutes of arguing, she and Traci had come to a compromise. Gwen agreed to go to the hospital if Traci would take her in her police cruiser.
That was how Traci ended up here now, walking into Bridgeport Hospital’s emergency room with one of her hands wrapped around Gwen’s upper arm so she wouldn’t either collapse on her feet or change her mind and run back out into the street. The poor girl really did need some help.
Unfortunately, Traci’s urgent call for assistance was being ignored.
That hadn’t happened before.
Bridgeport’s usually sleepy emergency room was currently a hotbed of action. Easily thirty people filled the waiting area. Over in the reception area, nurses, attendants, and support staff were running around like they’d been transported to the middle of downtown Cincinnati.
Instead of the usual security guard, Emerson, one of Traci’s coworkers in the Bridgeport Police Department, was standing off to the side talking on his phone.
What the devil was going on?
Gwen pulled on her arm, bringing Traci right back to the job at hand. “I wanna go now.”
“No way. You’re getting checked by the doctors.”
Gwen frowned as she tugged on her arm again. “Can I at least sit down? I’m so tired.”
It was nearly two in the morning. Though Traci felt sorry for the girl, she was feeling tired, too. It had been a really long shift. “Are you ready to listen and sit where I tell you, Miss Camp?”
Gwen’s already disgruntled expression darkened. “Yeah, but I told you I don’t need to be here.”
“And I told you that you need to be examined. Your baby needs to get checked out.” Yes, her voice was wicked sharp and her tone brooked no argument. But this girl was beginning to get on her last nerve.
It took a second, but Traci’s words eventually settled in. “Oh,” Gwen said. A little bit after, Gwen got that vacant look on her face that Traci knew too well. This momma-to-be was either high as a kite or coming off something and was about to crash.
Traci gritted her teeth. She loved being a cop. Loved it. Few things—the hours, the craziness, or even the paperwork—got to her anymore. However, out of everything she saw in her line of work—and in all the years in Cleveland, she’d seen a lot—pregnant mothers who also happened to be drug addicts was her kryptonite. She hated it. Hated it.
Though she knew the reason why—her mother had taken in her fair share of alcohol and drugs while pregnant with Traci. Because of that, Traci had been born an addict and had spent most of her life trying to overcome that stigma.
She was an adult now, of course, and she had a good job and a good life. But sometimes those old wounds hit hard. All she saw when she came in contact with a pregnant woman on drugs was a lifetime spent making up for nine months of a mother’s neglect.
When she noticed Gwen curve a hand around her belly, Traci knew she couldn’t wait any longer. Still afraid to deposit Gwen in a chair—especially since there wasn’t an empty seat to be seen—Traci approached the crowded reception desk with Gwen in tow.
“Excuse me.”
The harried receptionist, who had been scanning something on her computer screen, took in Traci’s uniform and Gwen’s condition, and froze. “Yes?”
Traci pushed her way through “We need some assistance please. This woman needs an obstetrician.”
The woman looked over Gwen curiously. “Is she in labor?”
“No,” said Gwen.
“What’s the emergency, then?” Sharon asked.
Well aware of the number of people listening, and that Gwen’s relatively calm state was nearing its end, she said, “Do we really need to discuss this here?”
“I’m sorry, but—”
Putting a bit more force into her voice, Traci continued. “Look, we need to see someone as soon as possible. “Where can I go? You got an empty room back there?” She gestured to the partitioned triage area.
“Well, I’m not sure,” the receptionist said, just as if they were talking about the chances of rain. “As you can see, we are very busy now . . .”
“She can’t just come in here and take a spot. We’ve been waiting for an hour,” a man standing to Traci’s right interrupted.
In another life, Traci might have agreed with him. She knew she was absolutely using her uniform to get her way. But she knew that if she didn’t push this, Gwen would disappear back into the woodwork of the town and this baby would be born without a lick of care. And, well, if that happened? Traci didn’t know if she would be able to handle that.
“She needs to be seen stat. I have to get back to work.”
The man folded his arms over his chest. “Well, I do too.”
There was no way she was going to get into an argument with folks in line. “Sharon, where can we go?”
Looking as if she knew she was fighting a battle she couldn’t win, Sharon gestured to a nearby orderly. “Chris, take this woman to five,” she said to an orderly. “I think it just opened up.”
“Thanks,” Traci said.
“Hey, wait!” the man grumbled. “That’s not fair. I’ve been waiting—”
Traci ignored him as she shuttled Gwen through the electronic gate and to a set of double doors. The doors swung open, revealing a beehive of well-organized activity.
Gwen got quieter with each step, and almost seemed to grow younger as well. Her eyes widened as she took everything in. Within seconds, two nurses took charge of Gwen. After getting her weight, they escorted Gwen to a curtained room.
Traci stood outside the curtain, half listening to the nurses’ questions and Gwen’s mumbled half-coherent replies. Everything she heard made her cringe and ache to leave. Why had she gotten saddled with this girl, anyway? It felt too personal and too hard.