Unbreakable (Unrestrained 4)

I shook my head and we ended the embrace. I was barely able to speak.

“Nothing more than you do,” I said and wiped my eyes. “She’s being kept sedated until her vitals stabilize and then they’ll wake her up. They’ll be taking her for a second head CT to check on any swelling or bleeding on her brain. We’ll know more then but her first CT looked good.”

“How is Sophia?” Elaine asked, giving me a hug as well. “The nurse said she was doing well.”

“She is,” I said and nodded, my emotions overwhelming me. “She’s beautiful and is breathing on her own already. She’s strong.” I smiled through my tears, thinking of Sophia in her incubator.

“Can we go in and see Katie?” Ethan asked, his mind focused on his daughter. “She was there for me, and I want to be there for her.”

The nurse had come over to us and was listening.

“Yes, go right ahead, but only one person at a time.”

“Ethan, you go in and talk to her,” Elaine said. “I’ll go and see Sophia in the NICU.”

“There’s a chair beside the bed and you can sit for a few minutes,” the nurse said and pointed to Kate’s room. Ethan made his way into the room and leaned over Kate with some difficulty, managing his semi-useless arm and cane as best he could so he could take Kate’s hand and kiss it.

My chest tightened at the sight of the two of them together as I remembered Kate with Ethan just over a year earlier when he had his stroke.

“I’ll go to the NICU,” Elaine said and laid a hand on my arm. “You stay here and help Ethan if he needs a hand. I know my way,” she said and leaned up to kiss my cheek. “Poor Drake,” she said softly. “You must have been frantic.”

“I tried to keep calm, but I felt sick when I got the call from Kate’s bodyguard that she’d been in a hit and run.”

“Her bodyguard?” Elaine said, her face shocked. “When did she get a bodyguard and why?”

“It’s a long story, Elaine,” I said. “We can talk about it later. Go and see Sophia. She looks really good for twenty-nine weeks.” I smiled and gave her another brief hug and she went down the hallway towards the bank of elevators.

My phone rang, and I checked the call display. It was Fred Parker. I answered.

“Drake,” he said, his voice alarmed. “I just heard that Kate was hit by a car by Central Park. Did they find who did it?”

“No,” I said, rubbing my forehead. “Not yet, but they have a partial plate and think it’s a rental. They’ll track it down.”

There was a silence on the other end for a moment. “What is it, Fred?”

“It’s just that, I called Lisa in this afternoon after you left and let her go, so I was worried that maybe she was angry…”

“You let her go?” I said, dread filling me that this was all my fault.

“I spoke with a few of the other department heads and they concurred that she wasn’t a good fit with the program, given her behavior. She was upset, of course, but she didn’t say or do anything to make me suspect she might do something like this…”

I rubbed my forehead. “We don’t know for sure that she did it,” I said, although it seemed like a real possibility. “But I think she may have.”

“I’m so sorry if this is my fault, Drake,” Fred said. “I never for a moment imagined that she could do something like this.”

“I understand,” I said, and sighed, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. “If she did, I’m sure the police will find her. Right now, I’m more concerned with Kate and my daughter.”

“How are they?”

I recounted what had happened and their current status and we ended the conversation. Before he hung up, Fred apologized once more.

“Don’t worry,” I said, a bit lightheaded at the news it was probably Lisa. “It was my fault, if anyone’s to blame, for not dealing with this when I first was alarmed by her behavior.”

We hung up and I took out McDonald’s card and called the number, relaying to him the information that Lisa’s residency had been cancelled because of my complaint about her harassment. He thanked me for the information and then I went back to the room to check on Ethan. He was seated beside the bed, Kate’s hand in his, his head bowed. He appeared to be praying, his eyes closed, his lips moving silently. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I sat back in the waiting room.

We spent all evening in that room, and when the nurse shooed Ethan out of Kate’s room, Elaine took his place at Kate’s side.

“Why don’t you come with me to the NICU and we can see little Sophia,” I said and took his arm, helping him down the hallway to the elevators. He was entranced by Sophia, and was choked up with emotion as he watched the nurses handle her, changing her diaper and adjusting her oxygen feed.