Reckoning by Shana Figueroa (30)

Val sprinted into the Harborview emergency room lobby and rushed straight to the receptionist desk.

“Where is Max?” she said between huffs, trying to catch her breath. “Maxwell Carressa, I mean. I got a call he was in an accident and I need to see him right now—”

“One moment, ma’am,” the receptionist said as she picked up a phone, “I’ll check with the doctor.”

“I’m his wife. Why can’t you just let me in?”

“I’m calling the doctor, Mrs. Carressa. He’ll be out in a moment, I promise.” She pointed at the lobby chairs. “If you wait over there, he’ll come get you.”

Her whole body shaking, Val backed away and stood uselessly off to the side. Even she realized storming the ICU would be counterproductive. She had no idea where he was or what condition he was in. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe he’d sprained some joints, broken some bones. As he lay battered and bruised, she would put her head on his chest as she’d done after he’d been shot, and they would finally spare a moment to talk. Maybe he could come home tonight.

Eleanor had made a veiled threat that she would kill him. But she wouldn’t try to make good on her threat so soon. Val had just seen her at the police station a couple hours ago—

“Mrs. Carressa?”

Val looked up from where she’d been staring at her feet. An older man in scrubs walked toward her. He held out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Dr. Carter.”

She shook his hand for half a second, the barest gesture of politeness she could get away with. “Where’s Max?”

He cocked his head toward the way he’d come. “Why don’t you follow me?”

She trailed close behind as he walked through the ICU, past blue curtains and buzzing equipment. A few staff members glanced at her in recognition, but no one stared. They were all professionals here. When she and Dr. Carter reached the other side of the ICU, he led her through a door into another smaller lobby, this one empty except for a single receptionist behind a desk.

“This is the area we use for well-known people who might attract media attention, like celebrities,” he said, then nodded toward the receptionist. “Justine will give you an access card for future visits, so you can come in and out this way, at your leisure.”

“Future visits?”

His face hardened into a professional mask, serious yet empathetic, and her stomach dropped. He was about to give her bad news. Oh God.

“Your husband sustained extensive internal and external injuries from the car accident. He’s in surgery right now to repair his major blood vessels and control the bleeding. Unfortunately, I can’t give you a prognosis until he gets out. All I can tell you is he’s alive right now.”

Dr. Carter went on about the specifics of Max’s injuries, but his words floated away from her as her whole body went numb. This was serious. Very serious. Eleanor had gotten to Max. How could the woman get across town so quickly? She must have had help, probably the same person who spirited her away from the police station in the blink of an eye—Mother. And how did Eleanor cause the accident? Did she drive the car that hit Max? Could she—

“Do you have any questions, Mrs. Carressa?”

Val sucked in a trembling breath. “How long will he be in surgery?” she asked, her voice weak.

“About five more hours. You can either wait here or come back later.”

“I’ll wait here.”

The doctor nodded. “Please let Justine know if you need anything. I’ll let you know as soon as his surgery is complete. Then we can talk about a long-term prognosis.”

“Uh-huh.”

He gave her what was meant to be a reassuring smile and disappeared back into the ICU. Val lowered herself into the nearest seat. What should she do? What could she do? The children—they were alone with Jamal and Dani, protected by bodyguards, expecting their mother and father to return at any moment. Unless they already knew about the accident, which wouldn’t surprise her. She wanted to hug them both tight, one in each arm. But she couldn’t leave the hospital until she knew if Max would be all right.

Phone calls. She had to make phone calls. Should she call Michael? Yes—but not now. After she had more info on Max’s condition. The poor old man had his own problems to worry about. First, she dialed Josephine and gave Max’s sister the news about her brother in the simplest and least disturbing way possible, impressed with how steady her voice stayed through the conversation. She asked Jo to please swing by and check on the children after the nanny’s shift ended; Jo agreed wholeheartedly, of course. Then she dialed Jamal, repeated what she told Jo about Max’s condition, and asked him to pass the information on to Dani, along with a simpler version to the children. He offered to stay for as long as she needed him there, but he’d already nearly gotten himself killed by a maniac while watching her kids, for Christ’s sake. She assured him Jo would pick up the slack and told him to enjoy some time off until she asked him to return. Why did he still work for them? It certainly wasn’t Val’s sunny demeanor that brought him back. Maybe he truly cared for the children. Or maybe he was another one of Northwalk’s pawns, waiting for the moment when both Val and Max were out of the picture so he could whisk the twins away without their parents getting in the way. Perhaps he was the one who would murder Val’s mother.

“Mrs. Carressa?”

Val jerked awake. She’d fallen asleep in the chair somehow, and her mind had decided to torture her with terrible dreams. She hadn’t realized how tired she was.

Rubbing her eyes, she saw it was Dr. Carter who’d awoken her. She jumped to her feet. “Is Max out of surgery?”

“Yes. Can we go to my office and talk?”

Val nodded, the pit of her stomach twisting into a tight knot. If everything was fine and dandy, would he still want to talk to her alone? Save for the receptionist, they were for all intents and purposes alone in the famous persons’ waiting area anyway. It must be a formality. He could still have something good to tell her.

When they reached Dr. Carter’s office, he shut the door behind him. The knot in her stomach tightened.

HIPAA concerns. It could still be good news.

She sat at the edge of the chair across from his desk and waited for what felt like an eternity for him to sit down and start talking already. When he took a deep breath before he started speaking, she regretted her impatience. She already knew this was going to hurt. It would hurt more than anything she’d felt in her life.

“We’ve managed to control the bleeding, and your husband is still alive and in a stable condition, for now. However, he suffered several fractures of his lumbar and upper vertebrae, which in turn have damaged his spinal cord to a degree we can’t quantify yet. He also had some traumatic brain injuries. He’s not responding to any stimuli, and his respiratory reflex isn’t working.”

“He…can’t breathe on his own?”

“That’s correct.” Dr. Carter leaned forward, and with eyes full of compassion he said, “We have a neurosurgeon flying in tonight to evaluate him and see what our options are, but I’m going to be honest with you. His long-term prognosis isn’t good. It’s unlikely he’ll ever wake up.”

All she could do was stare at him. He’d probably had this conversation with dozens—maybe hundreds—of other people, because everybody dies. Shit happens. Bad luck.

But this wasn’t bad luck. This wasn’t a random car hitting another random car on a random day in a random city. This was her Max, the love of her life, the father of her children, the man she was destined to be with.

And now Eleanor had killed him.

“I am so sorry, Mrs. Carressa. We’ll have a better understanding of the situation after the neurosurgeon evaluates him, but I want to temper your expectations.”

“Can I see him?” she asked, ignoring the tears rolling down her cheeks.

Dr. Carter nodded and stood. She followed him again, gripped by the sensation she had stumbled into a terrible dream as if he were the Ghost of Christmas Future, showing her all the terrible things to come unless she changed her ways. If only she’d stayed away from Eleanor when Max had originally asked. If only she’d left the city with him instead of insisting on facing their enemy. If only she’d managed to stop Eleanor on the ferry. If only she’d chosen to go home with Max and Lydia instead of joining Sten at the police station. If she’d done any of those other things, just one of them, maybe Max wouldn’t be brain-dead and fighting for his life in a hospital bed right now. But she couldn’t go back—only forward. They were slaves to the future, Max used to say. He was right.

The doctor stopped in front of a patient’s room and opened the door for her. When she stepped inside, she gasped. Max lay in the hospital bed with dozens of tubes protruding from his body while a machine beeped steadily in the background. His face looked waxen where it wasn’t covered in black bruises, his body limp, his eyes closed. A gas bag pushed air into his lungs.

She’d seen this moment before. The morning she spent in his home—the guest house to the Carressa mansion—back when they’d first met, she had this vision. Val had seen him die a few different ways over the years, and she’d prevented them all—but not this one. She’d caused it this time.

Holding back a sob, she asked, “Can I have a few moments alone with him, please?”

“Of course,” the doctor said, and left.

Val pulled a chair to his bedside and sat down. She touched his hand, and the sob burst out in one painful wail that racked her whole body. Slapping her other hand over her mouth, she forced herself into some semblance of composure, for the sake of not dying there with him on that spot—not then anyway.

“Well, you were right,” she said to his placid face, still the handsomest one she’d ever seen. He could have been horribly disfigured and he’d still be the most beautiful man she had ever met. “I should have stayed away. We should have left, all of us. But I couldn’t. You know me. I can’t leave well enough alone.”

She swiped away some of the continuous tears streaming down her face.

“I want to say I tried to do the right thing, but…So far I haven’t stopped anyone, or saved anyone, and now here you are and…and you didn’t deserve this.”

Val looked at the gas bag, blowing steadily in and out to the slow rhythm of the heart rate monitor.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about my, um, time with Sten. It occurred during the months I’d been forcing myself to stay away from you, and it was tearing me apart. And Sten was there, also frustrated and unhappy, and it just happened. You have to believe me when I say I never cheated on you. I never will. I’m yours, always. Until the end of time.”

She let out a dry laugh as though they were having an actual conversation. As she stared at Max’s silent, immobile body, her smile quickly faded.

“What should I do now? You want me to leave, I don’t even have to ask. Take the kids and run, that’s what you’re thinking. And I should leave you here, you’re also thinking, because you believe you’re not important. But that’s not true. You’re important to a lot of people. The kids need you.” Her voice cracked. “I need you.”

Another sob forced its way out. For several minutes she cried at his bedside, caressing his hand and wishing she could look into his beautiful hazel eyes with their starbursts of emerald green in their centers one more time, and be amazed at the unmatched brilliance roiling behind them.

Finally, she tapped into her steel core, the one that turned her anger into strength, and her tears abated.

“You meant something, Max. You were a force of good in this world, despite all the terrible things people did to you, and Eleanor took you away. So now I’m going to take something from her.”

With a new determination, she stood. “I’ll be back soon,” she told him. “I’m going to check on my mother and our babies, and then I’m going to deal with our problem, once and for all.”

She leaned down and kissed his cheek, her tears sliding off her face and onto his. Then she set her face to stone and left the hospital. Bright midmorning sunlight blinded her tired eyes as she dodged paparazzi out of the regular-people entrance to get back to where she’d parked her car, and drove home.

Eleanor implied she would kill Val during the Christmas festival at the Seattle waterfront that night. Now she knew where Eleanor would be, and when. All she had to do was show up, and change the future.