Page 69 of A Whirlwind of Color (The Light to My Darkness 2)

***

I kept my arms folded across my chest so that I wouldn’t be tempted to reach for James’ hand. Not that I could've even if I'd wanted to. He was keeping his distance from me. A whole person could fit between us on the sidewalk. And sometimes they did, almost knocking into me. God I hate New York. It was loud and crowded and…I glanced at James…lonely. I hadn’t expected it to feel so horribly lonely.

“Scarlett will be up in about an hour,” James said. “I’d like to be back before then. She hasn’t had a normal day in quite some time.”

“Of course.” It had been like this ever since we started our walk. He wasn’t giving me anything. If I was going to learn about what happened, I needed to steer the conversation. The hairs on the back of my neck rose as a chill ran down my spine. I glanced over my shoulder. It was the same sensation I’d had in the apartment. Like someone was watching me. Two of our security guards were a few paces behind us. Certainly they were watching us. It’s just in my mind.

I turned my head back before I gave myself a chance to collide with anyone on the sidewalk. This was my chance at getting answers, not pretending I was being followed. “So someone tried to hurt me?” I wasn’t even sure if I believed that anymore. I was pretty sure I had tried to hurt myself. The note in my pocket was proof enough of that.

James looked straight ahead. “Dr. Nelson. Your OB-GYN. While you were pregnant with Liam, he said he found a heart murmur that had been there all along that was getting worse the longer you carried our son. He claimed your last OB-GYN was negligent not to tell us. But he made the whole thing up.”

“I don’t have a heart murmur then?” I didn’t know what that meant so I was happy it wasn’t true.

“You didn’t until him. He successfully gave you one as he slowly poisoned you and our son.”

Poisoned?

“Your heart murmur is mild again now, after the delivery. Your cardiologist believes you’ll have a normal, healthy life without any surgical intervention. We were lucky we figured out what was going on when we did. Before it was too late.”

All I heard were the words surgical intervention and before it was too late. I had almost died. This crazy doctor had poisoned me. And for what? “Why would a doctor do that? I don’t…”

“We think he wanted his practice to be number one. The OB-GYN you had for Scarlett retired, but his practice was still considered the best in the city, even though Dr. Nelson was now considered the best OB-GYN. He couldn’t shake the reputation of the practice, so he tried to deface them. By blaming your death on them.”

But I didn’t die. Right? I pinched the inside of my arm. I still had trouble believing this life was real sometimes. I couldn’t just embrace it as easily as everyone wanted me to. “You know all this and he’s still not in custody? Was it not enough proof?”

“No. We have all the proof we need. We have the whole thing recorded.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The police think he skipped town. There’s a warrant out for his arrest.”

I glanced over my shoulder again. Was that why I felt like someone was watching me? Was it possible that Dr. Nelson was out there right now? I shook away the thought. “Do you think he’ll try to hurt me again?”

“We don’t know. But even if he does try, he won’t succeed.”

I should have been freaked out. I should have had more questions. But I didn’t. Maybe because part of me still felt like I was dreaming. That none of this was real. Besides for that nagging feeling that someone was watching me, I didn’t find his story alarming at all. I didn’t even really know if I could trust his account. I had a note that explained everything a little differently. “So let me get this straight. A crazy doctor drugged me in an attempt to make it look like I had a slowly growing heart murmur that would lead to my untimely death?”

James finally looked over at me. “I guess that's the gist.”

I laughed.

He scowled.

“That’

s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard. He walked into our house with cameras everywhere and spiked my pills? He must have known he’d be caught. What a whack job. Hold on, so if I was poisoned, what happened to you?”

“Ellen swapped our weekly pill holders in our suitcases. I took a few days worth of the pills.”

“You didn’t notice the difference?”

“I thought Ellen just got a new brand of multivitamins. I didn’t think anything of it.”

He was absentminded. That much was clear. And apparently he relied on Ellen a lot. I wondered if he relied on me as much. “So I went into a coma, delivered a premature baby, and lost my ability to have any more children in my lifetime. What happened to you?”

He grimaced. I just wasn’t sure which part had upset him. “I’m fine,” he said.

“You’re not fine. I saw the stitches on the side of your chest. Your face gets pale when you exercise. And you keep running out of breath. You’re out of breath right now.” I grabbed his arm to stop him.

---