Free Fall (26 page)

"I was supposed to meet him outside but he never showed," Karen pouted. "When I saw everyone coming inside I thought, what the heck, I might as well go in and hear some music, since I’m here anyway."

"That's his loss, really!" The guy next to her, Steve, was sympathetic.

Then it was established that the older gentlemen, Jerry, was a widower and that he and his two sons had a similar experience caring for their mother who had died of cancer. More sympathy was exchanged and by the time the drinks came Karen and the three men had bonded.

The music started and after a few songs Steve asked her to dance. She politely refused, saying that she was never much of a dancer and that she found it hard to dance to the heavy metal rock the band was playing. Steve took it in stride and went off in search of a dance partner. The other brother, Daniel, eventually got up and Karen saw him with a girl on the full dance floor. She and Jerry made small talk while watching the dancers and Karen sipped her drink slowly.

After two sets Karen was satisfied that Joseph would not be in the bar that night. She saw that woman put on her jacket and hug the black woman she'd at Peter’s party. She faked a call on her cell phone, told the men it was her mother calling and she'd take it outside.

"I’ll be right back," she said.

She got her purse and jacket and left the club. Outside she saw the back of Nina walking down the street. Karen sprinted over to the trash can and removed the makeup bag. Then she followed Nina at a discreet distance to a parking garage one block down.

Nina stuck the ticket in the automatic parking kiosk and paid the ten dollar parking fee with her debit card. Then she headed up stairs to the third floor of the parking garage to her car. She felt very tired but took the stairs anyway for the extra exercise. Just five weeks until the little Walker was born. That’s what she and Joseph called the baby, as opposed to ‘it’ or ‘he/she'. Although she wouldn’t admit it to anyone, Nina was getting tired of being pregnant. She was out of breath a lot and had to rest after the smallest amount of physical exertion. The first novelty of impending motherhood had worn off with her burgeoning figure and diminishing strength. The move and decorating the new house had exhausted her and she doubted there would be any more nesting urges to come. She went to the club only a few hours on weekends now, and all she wanted to do for the next five weeks was take it easy, do her yoga every other day and enjoy Joseph and her new house.

She reached the third floor and stopped to catch her breath at the top of the stairs. She heard a step in the stairwell behind her and turned.

"God, you could barely make it up those stairs. What a pig!"

"What?" Nina breathed heavily. She stared down the steps into the gloomy lighting and saw a black haired figure standing on the next landing.

"So, whose baby is it anyway?"

The figure climbed up the stairs and the face came into full view.

"Karen." A tingle of fear crept up her spine.

"Bingo! Surprised to see me?"

Nina could only stand there processing the knowledge that she was alone at night in a deserted parking garage with her stalker. The stalker that she had thought was gone. How foolish to think that Karen had given up so easily!

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Joseph will be here any second."

"I don’t think so. I didn’t see him at the club."

Fear blossomed, tightening her chest. Nina looked around her to the far end of the third floor where her car was parked.

"What do you want?"

Karen was silent for a moment, staring at her through glittering eyes.

"I want to take away your future." She brought out the knife and switched it open with a snap.

Nina turned to run but Karen grabbed her arm and pushed her up against the metal stair railing. She moved in close, with the knife just under Nina’s chin. Nina arched backward over the railing and drew in a breath to scream.

"Don’t scream," Karen said mildly. "There’s no one here, anyway."

In one blinding moment Nina realized that this woman was going to hurt her badly and possibly kill her and her unborn child. A fierce protectiveness ripped through her. She opened her mouth and screamed straight into Karen’s face. Then she swung out and slammed down across the arm holding the knife, feeling the stinging slash as the knife bit into her forearm. Nina feinted left, then scurried right to the stairwell as Karen whipped the knife in the direction of Nina’s belly, the blade snagged and tore the fabric of her top. Frantic to escape, Nina missed the first step down. One foot floated out into thin air and searched for purchase. Finding none, she tumbled forward down the concrete stairs, twisting her ankle. She landed hard on her left side with a loud crack from her elbow. Blood covered her right arm in a sticky mess and she felt her baby kicking wildly, turning somersaults within her.

She looked up and saw Karen looking down at her, grinning. "Well, look at you! You just saved me a whole lot work."

Nina started to cry. "Please, don’t hurt my baby," she whimpered. She struggled to a sitting position and hugged her abdomen over a deep cramping pain that had started there. "Please, Karen. You don’t want to do this!"

"Do what?" Karen started down the stairs. "Ruin your life? Take your man away from you? Take your friends away from you?" She reached the landing and bent over Nina. "Take your career away from you?" She reared up and delivered a kick to Nina’s side. "Wreck your reputation? Take your dignity?"

She kicked out again and Nina tried to lean out of the way as the foot connected. "Stop!" she screeched and curled up into a ball. Again the foot landed and Nina screamed in agony.

"One dog that deserves to be kicked when it’s down. How’s it feel? How’s your baby doing?" Karen reached up for Nina’s purse that had fallen on the second step. She found Nina’s cell phone and took it. Then she stood staring at Nina’s stomach.

"No! Karen!" Nina couldn’t take her eyes off the knife in Karen’s hand.

Karen pointed to Nina’s left hand. "That isn't going to happen," she said. "Give it to me."

Nina pulled the engagement ring off her finger and tossed it to Karen, who caught it neatly.

"Not even three carats!" Karen said, inspecting the ring. "Cheap goods for a cheap club whore."

Nina, who had never prayed in her life, started praying to God, to the universe, to anything that might be out there to save her. She closed her eyes and used all of her energy to imagine herself and her baby in the comfort of her home, safe in Joseph’s arms.

She felt Karen move towards her and squeezed her eyes shut tighter.

"You’ll live. I’m not so sure about your baby though. You think I'd kill you? I want you to suffer just like I did."

Nina felt hot breath on her face as Karen moved closer.

"Congratulations," she said. "I really mean that."

Nina sensed her moving away and when she opened her eyes she was alone. She sat still for a minute, listening. Karen was gone.

She clasped her hands together and whispered, "Thank you!" Then she raised her bloody arm to the stair rail and tried to pull herself up to a standing position. Pain shot through her ankle, and she buckled. Using the brick wall as support she half hopped, half shuffled to the next flight of steps down. Once there she sat down and shifted her butt down the stairs one by one. At the bottom of the second floor landing she felt another searing pain course through her.

"No, no, no. Please, God," she sobbed. She crawled to the elevator and pressed the down button. When the elevator arrived she crawled in and pressed the button to the street. When the elevator door opened out into the dark night she dragged her body over the threshold and yelled for help.

A couple of young women were walking past and heard her cries. They helped her out of the elevator and onto the street.

"Call nine-one-one!" Nina bawled as another pain exploded within her. "I’m seven and a half months pregnant. I’ve been attacked. I need an ambulance, now!"

Three seconds later her water broke all over the sidewalk.

Karen hid around the corner of a building half a block down and watched as the ambulance arrived and Nina was put onto a stretcher. Jubilation swept through her. Yes! It looked like she was going into labor. The fat cow did it all by herself! Karen didn’t know much about pregnancy, but there was a good chance the baby wouldn’t survive, and if it did survive she hoped it would be brain damaged. What a stroke of luck that she was so stupid and clumsy to fall down the stairs. Karen was going stab her in the stomach but that might have killed her. She didn't want her to die. She just wanted to hurt her irreparably. Things couldn’t have gone better. Guess there’s no happily ever after for you, bitch. Karen started walking uphill away from the scene of her triumph.

It was too late to catch a bus so she snuggled into a doorway of a church with her coat over head and slept off the night. Nobody bothered her. Just another Seattle bum having a snooze. At six in the morning she went to the nearest bus stop and got on a bus heading north farther into Seattle. Along the way she was looking out the window and saw a car for sale in the parking lot of a grocery outlet. She pulled the cord and got off at Thirty-Fourth and East Union.

Forty five minutes later Karla Wassenbaum was the owner of a 1997 Ford Escort Wagon with one hundred and thirty thousand miles on the odometer. The guy wanted twenty-five hundred for it. Karen paid cash. The guy couldn’t believe his luck since he had just parked it in the lot a half an hour earlier.

Karen found her way back to the Northgate Park-and-Ride and removed her suitcases from the trunk of her Mercedes. I’ll miss this good old car, she thought as she said goodbye to it. She drove the red wagon to Interstate Five and pointed it south. It was time to pay a visit to her sister. There were still things that needed to be done.

THIRTEEN

NINA
was admitted into emergency at the University Of Washington Medical Center. The trauma team assessed her injuries and an obstetrician examined her. They splinted her left arm, bandaged the cut on her right arm, and iced her ankle. Later she would have a cast and thirty-four stitches. The first concern was the impending delivery of a thirty-three week old preemie.

Nina’s contractions ceased soon after she arrived at the hospital and Dr. Scott, the sharp looking obstetrician on call, explained to a distraught Nina that they would have to perform an emergency C-section.

"You’ve lost the baby’s swimming pool," she said kindly. "And its heart rate is too high. I’ve decided to get you into surgery."

"Will my baby be okay?" Nina was terrified.

"I’ve performed hundreds of these procedures. I promise you’ll get the best care possible. After the baby is born we will assess its needs and take it from there." She took Nina’s hand and squeezed. "I know this is hard. At this stage the baby should have developed enough to breathe on its own. That’s all I can tell you until we get a look."

"I need Joseph," Nina said.

"Is he the father?" At a nod from Nina, the doctor turned to one of the nurses and asked her to call him.

"She took my phone—all my numbers are in my phone. I don’t know his number by heart." Nina said desperately. Fresh tears started to flow until Nina remembered Trish. "Call the Live Wire! I know that number. My friend Trish should still be there."

Trish arrived just as Nina was finished receiving an epidural from an anesthesiologist.

"Oh, my God! Are both your arms broken?" Trish asked, her eyes wide with disbelief as she looked at Nina’s bandaged and splinted arms.

"No." Nina lifted her right arm and an IV tube dangled from it, "this one’s cut." She lifted her left arm, "this one’s fractured, but they won’t know how badly until they can get an X-ray."

"You poor baby! What happened? Were you mugged?" Trish sat close to Nina’s head and listened as she quietly explained what had happened in the parking garage.

Varying degrees of shock, anger and determination flitted over Trish’s face as she heard what happened. "I’ll kill her! That bitch is dead!" she said. "I can’t believe this! Where is she? Did they catch her?"

"No, no one has seen her. The police have been notified. I guess they’re looking for her. I’m going into surgery. They’re going to take the baby."

"Oh, Nina! Is the baby going to be alright?"

"They won’t know until after the surgery."

An orderly came in and got Nina ready to transport to the surgery suite.

"Call Joseph, Trish. Call him right now."

"I will. I’ll call everyone." Trish kissed her cheek. "Look at my face, Nina. Everything is going to be alright, you got that? You’ll have your little Walker in your arms in no time at all."

"Okay," Nina said shakily. "I love you, Trish."

"I love you too, sweetie."

Joseph and Nina’s child was born on Saturday, December eighteenth at three thirty in the morning. The tiny infant weighed in at just four pounds, nine ounces. A frightened Nina was strapped down on the surgery table like a crucifixion. Two plates were splayed out on each side for her arms, the left arm straightened out as far as the pain in her elbow would allow. The anesthesiologist was at her right, monitoring her IV. A rubber tarp was spread like a shield across her chest so she couldn’t see what was going on below. The doctor and nurses made small talk over her body and she felt like an inanimate piece of meat ready for butcher. Once they began, she could feel pulling and tugging on her midsection, and her mind balked at the thought of what they were doing. She saw pieces of gauze flying in her peripheral vision. Near the end she peeked at someone standing over her, Dr. Scott probably, her head covered with a surgical cap and mask, and saw in the doctor’s glasses a reflection of a grayish looking blob being slipped from her uterus. She watched as the uterus plopped down on her stomach outside of her body. She averted her eyes.