Chapter 3: The Baby Came First
The ambulance doors closed and the noise from Sterling Ridge Estate disappeared.
One of the paramedics, a woman with short red hair and calm hands, pressed two fingers to my wrist.
"Stay with me.
What's your name?"
"Audrey."
"How far along?"
"Thirty-four weeks."
"Okay, Audrey.
Contractions every two minutes now.
We're moving fast." She looked at her partner.
"Call ahead."
The other paramedic reached for the radio.
I stared at the ceiling of the ambulance and focused on breathing.
"Is there someone we should call?" the woman asked.
I thought about Julian's shadow under the door.
"No."
She didn't push.
She just kept her hand on my wrist and watched the monitor.
"You're doing well," she said.
I almost laughed.
I was in premature labor in the back of an ambulance, my husband was being detained by state investigators, and my marriage was over.
But the paramedic meant it kindly, so I nodded.
The hospital came fast.
Bright lights.
A corridor.
Voices overlapping.
"Thirty-four weeks, contractions two minutes apart—"
"Get Dr.
Okafor—"
"Room four—"
They moved me to a bed.
Someone put a monitor on my stomach.
Someone else started an IV line.
Dr.
Okafor arrived in under three minutes — a tall woman with reading glasses pushed up on her forehead and the unhurried manner of someone who had done this ten thousand times.
"Audrey.
I'm Dr.
Okafor.
I'm going to take care of you and your baby tonight."
"Is the baby okay?"
She pressed two fingers to my stomach and watched the monitor.
"Heartbeat is strong.
You're dilated to six centimeters.
This baby is coming tonight."
"She's early."
"She is.
But thirty-four weeks is manageable.
We have a NICU team standing by as a precaution." She met my eyes.
"You did the right thing calling for help when you did."
I thought about the bathroom floor.
The locked door.
The ten minutes Julian had asked me to wait.
"I almost didn't."
Dr.
Okafor looked at me for a moment without speaking.
Then she said, "But you did."
The next four hours were the longest of my life and somehow also the fastest.
Pain came in waves.
The nurses talked me through each one.
Dr.
Okafor checked in every thirty minutes.
At some point Diana Cruz called the hospital room directly — I didn't know how she got the number — and the nurse held the phone to my ear.
"How are you?" Diana asked.
"Still here."
"The baby?"
"Coming."
"Good." A pause.
"The warrant execution is complete.
All servers secured.
Three individuals detained for questioning."
"Julian?"
"Yes."
I closed my eyes through a contraction.
"Diana.
Not tonight.
Tell me the rest tomorrow."
"Of course." Her voice softened in a way I had never heard from her before.
"Just focus on what matters right now."
At 2:17 in the morning, my daughter was born.
She weighed four pounds, eleven ounces.
She came out screaming, which Dr.
Okafor said was the best possible sign.
They let me hold her for forty seconds before the NICU team took her for observation.
Forty seconds was enough to understand that every decision I had made on that bathroom floor had been correct.
The nurse who settled me afterward was named Patrice.
She had gray-streaked hair and moved with the quiet efficiency of someone who had seen everything.
"Is there anyone coming?" she asked, adjusting my blanket.
"No."
She didn't say she was sorry.
She just pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down.
"Then I'll stay until you sleep."
I looked at her.
She shrugged.
"Slow night."
It wasn't a slow night.
I could tell from the sounds in the corridor that it wasn't.
But Patrice stayed anyway, and I was too tired to argue, and somewhere in the middle of not being alone I finally let myself cry.
Not from grief.
Not yet.
From the specific relief of having done the hardest thing and survived it.
My phone buzzed on the side table.
I didn't reach for it.
Patrice glanced at the screen.
"It says Julian."
"I know."
She set it face-down without being asked.
I was almost asleep when my personal phone buzzed a second time.
Not Julian.
A number I didn't recognize.
I would have ignored it, but something made me look.
The text read: *We need to talk before the morning briefing.
There's something in the files you haven't seen yet.
— R.
Holt*
I stared at the name.
May you like
Robert Holt was the Sterling family attorney.
He was also one of the individuals named in the warrant.
