Read One Way or Another Online
Authors: Rhonda Bowen
One Way or Another (12 page)
Every word from Jasmine was like a shard of glass through Toni's brain. Her head began spinning and she tried to grasp the door frame, but her hands were too weak. She was too weak. And tired. Too tired to think, too tired to breathe, too tired to live.
And so she just stopped trying.
She never even felt her body hit the ground.
Chapter 14
“A
dam! Come quick! Oh God, she's dead!”
dam! Come quick! Oh God, she's dead!”
Adam dropped the plate in his hand. It shattered to pieces on the floor of the kitchen, but he barely noticed. “Jasmine, what's going on?” he shouted into his cell phone, jogging through the house toward the door. By the time Jasmine responded he was halfway into the car.
“It's Toni... . She's not breathing.... I can't reach Trey... .” Jasmine sobbed hysterically.
“Jasmine.”
He had to repeat her name several times before she finally responded. Even though his heart was thundering in his chest, he forced himself to stay calm. If both of them were panicked, no one would be helped, especially not Toni.
Toni.
The thought of her being dead brought the weight of a ton of bricks down on his chest. He whispered a prayer and switched the car into a higher gear. It creaked and shuddered but it did what it was supposed to.
“Jasmine, are you sure she's ... ?”
He couldn't even say the word.
“Have you checked for a pulse?”
“She's not breathing. I can't find a pulse. Adam ...”
Adam floored the gas pedal, ignoring the speed limit. “Have you called the paramedics?” he asked frantically.
“Yes.” There were more sobs from Jasmine. “Oh God, Adam, what if she's ... ?”
Adam felt his jaw tense as the thought finished itself in his head. He turned the car onto the main street.
“I need you to take a deep breath,” Adam said calmly, even as he bypassed two slow-moving cars and cut back into the left lane. “Can you do that for me?”
He heard Jasmine breathe in and out on the other end of the line.
“Yes.” She choked back a sob.
“Good.” Adam tried to keep the reassuring tone in his voice. “Now, Jasmine, you have CPR and First Aid training. You know what to do, don't you?”
“Yes,” she said, with uncertainty first but then again with more confidence. “Yes. I know what to do.”
“Good.” Adam turned the car onto Toni's street. “You do what you need to do. I'll be there in a minute.”
He clicked the phone shut as he pulled the car into a no-parking zone in front of Toni's building. As he jogged the last few yards up her front walk, he whispered a shorter more urgent prayer.
God, please let her be okay.
Â
“Please sit down. You're making me dizzy walking in circles like that.”
Adam stopped midpace and looked down at Jasmine, who was trying to find a comfortable position in a stiff waiting room chair at Saint Joseph's Hospital. That was hard normally, but became even harder when you were so pregnant you could barely see your toes.
It had been hours since the ambulance with Toni had arrived with them right behind, but they still had not been able to see her. All they knew for sure was that she was alive.
“Sorry, I didn't realize I was doing it.” He sat down beside Jasmine and rubbed his hands over his face. “Still no word from Trey?”
Jasmine shook her head. “I left a couple messages on his cell phone but nothing. He had to fly to Florida today so his phone is probably off.”
Adam nodded and leaned back, closing his eyes. The memory of the last time he was here flashed behind his dark eyelids.
It had been a Thursday night. He had been playing basketball late with Trey and some of the other guys who volunteered at the center. Then the call came that Khani was in the hospital. Khani had broken curfew and been hanging out in his old neighborhood, disobeying two of the center rules in one fell swoop. Something had happened and he had been stabbed several times in the stomach. By the time they had gotten to the hospital he was dead.
Adam clenched his jaw and took a deep breath. He hoped to God that the outcome tonight would be different.
He felt a small warm hand reach over and grab his.
“She's going to be okay,” Jasmine said, squeezing his fingers. “Just pray.”
He was way ahead of her on that one.
“Where is she?”
Trey's voice filled the quiet space of the waiting room. The nap of his hair, normally flat and neat, was disheveled from what Adam assumed was the same nervous raking over his head that he had been doing for hours. But more obvious was the fear that locked his pupils. Adam realized if he was feeling this crazy about the possibility of Toni not making it, Trey had to be going ten times more insane.
As soon as Jasmine saw him her facade of strength crumbled. She burst into tears and collapsed into his arms.
“How is she? Is she alive?” Trey asked desperately as he held Jasmine and looked around for the doctors at the same time.
“Oh God, Trey, she wasn't moving, wasn't breathing.” Jasmine threw herself against her husband's chest and another round of sobs erupted.
“She's alive.” Adam rested a hand against his friend's back. “But she's not conscious. We're waiting for the doctors to let us know what's going on.”
“Jasmine Shields?”
They all looked up at the tall, slim woman in a lab coat with a chart in her hand. “Are you here for Toni Shields?” the woman asked.
“Yes, I'm her brother, Trey, and this is my wife, Jasmine, and our friend Adam.” Jasmine peeled herself off Trey long enough for him to shake the doctor's hand.
“Dr. Mornan.” She smiled warmly and Adam's first thought was that nobody delivered news that someone was dead with a smile. He released a breath.
“Please, have a seat,” she said, motioning to a circle of chairs nearby.
Like obedient family, Trey and Jasmine claimed chairs, but Adam was tired of waiting. He needed to know what was going on.
“How is she?” he asked.
“She's stable, but unconscious,” Dr Mornan said. “Physically everything looks promising, but we are waiting for her to wake up.”
“Do you know what happened?” Jasmine asked, leaning against Trey.
Dr. Mornan clasped her hands and paused. “We're not sure,” she said carefully. “But we think she has stress-induced cardiomyopathy, which led to sudden congestive heart failure.”
Jasmine gasped.
“She is very young and there is no history of heart disease in her records, which is why we think that it may be a temporary stress-induced condition,” Dr. Mornan continued. “Our guess is that the weak condition of her heart affected the blood flow and lead to her loss of consciousness. We did an angiogram and we did not see any blockages in her heart, which is good. However, she is not out of the woods yet.”
“Is she going to be okay?” Adam asked.
“We want to do some more tests to confirm,” Dr. Mornan said. “But yes, she should be okay. Her condition is not deteriorating and we think with rest she should improve. We will have to observe her for the next few days to be sure.”
“Can we see her?”
Dr. Mornan nodded. “Follow me.”
Within moments Adam was standing inside Toni's hospital room. Tighter knots formed in his stomach as his eyes fell on her tiny frame, surrounded by white hospital sheets and connected to IVs and a heart monitor. Her dark hair spread out around her face like a halo, a stark contrast to the white pillow on which she lay. It had been barely two days since the last time he had seen her but somehow her face looked drawn and hollow. She looked like she was fading away.
Trey and Jasmine continued to talk to the doctor while Adam slipped into the chair by her bedside. He pulled her limp, cold hand into his, closed his eyes, and said a silent prayer. Her hand jerked and he opened his eyes to see if she'd miraculously awakened. If the intensity of his emotion could revive her, she'd be on her feet and doing a dance. But she had not stirred. He realized it was probably just an involuntary muscle spasm or something like that. He sighed heavily and forced words through the lump in his throat.
“I'm sorry, Toni.”
“This isn't your fault,” Jasmine said gently as she and Trey came to stand on the other side of Toni's bed.
“It is,” Adam said, knowing better. “I knew something was wrong. I should have made her go home.”
“No, this is my fault,” Trey said. “I should have been taking better care of her. I should have been watching her. After the thing with the house ... she wasn't okay.”
“What thing with the house?” Adam asked.
Trey sighed. “With our parents' house. When she found out we were buying it, she freaked.”
“Trey,” Jasmine said, rubbing his shoulder, “I'm sure that wasn't the reasonâ”
“Yes, it was,” Trey interrupted, his voice shaking. “You don't understand. That was the house our parents died in. That was the place they were killed. That was where Toni almost died.”
“What?”
Adam's eyes opened wide as he looked up at Trey. Jasmine raised her eyes at her husband's. They were equally shocked.
“She never told you, did she?” Trey looked between Jasmine and Adam.
Trey sunk into the chair beside him, rubbing his hands over his face tiredly. It seemed as if he aged several years right before Adam's eyes.
“I barely know what happened. She only told me once and then refused to talk about it again, but from what I know, all three of them were home,” Trey began heavily.
“Our dad was a parole officer for the state. He testified against some guys and because of his testimony, the guys ended up in prison serving extended sentences. When they got out, they came looking for all the people who were responsible for putting them awayâincluding our father.”
Adam watched the pain that marked Trey's features as he told the story. He knew talking about it was hurting his friend, but Adam wanted to know that truth. He needed to know what was going on with the woman lying in the hospital bed in front of him.
“Somehow they figured out where he lived and showed up. They got into the house, shot both our parents, and then shot Toni. She fell down the stairs into the basement.”
Jasmine gasped and covered her mouth, tears springing to her eyes immediately.
Trey paused, and Adam could see it was becoming difficult for him to breath. Jasmine squeezed his shoulder.
“She lay ...” Trey closed his eyes. “She lay at the foot of the stairs in the basement bleeding out for two hours before the police showed up. They said if she had been there even an hour longer she would have ...”
Adam squeezed Toni's hand tighter and blinked back the mist in his own eyes. He turned to look at her, lying peacefully in the hospital bed. The long lashes of her large beautiful eyes rested gently against her cinnamon-colored cheeks. Her pink flushed lips, which were usually shaped into a pout of some kind, lay silent and relaxed, as if she had a lot to say but chose not to. Adam was learning that there was a whole lot that Toni didn't say.
“She was in the hospital for about a week,” Trey continued after he collected himself. “Then our aunt came and we stayed in a motel for a while. We couldn't go back to the house because the police were investigating, and then when we finally could go back we didn't want to.”
“So what happened?” Jasmine asked. “Where were you? Where was Toni living?”
Trey shrugged, then looked down. “I'm ashamed to say I went back to school. Our aunt took care of Toni for a couple months but she didn't stay either. But at least she helped keep Toni from ending up under state care.”
Trey shook his head. “She was only seventeen.”
“I can't believe she never told me,” Jasmine whispered, her eyes clouded with sadness. “I can't believe you didn't tell me, Trey.”
“She never talks about it,” Trey said. “After it happened she pretty much shut everyone else out.”
He looked up at Jasmine. “I couldn't tell you. I couldn't talk about it,” his voice wavered. “Because then you would know the kind of person I amâsomeone who would abandon his baby sister when she needed him most.”
“Oh, honey, you didn't abandon her,” Jasmine said softly as she wrapped her arms around Trey, who buried his face in her middle. “You didn't know how to handle it. You were dealing with your own grief.”
“I should have been there for her,” Trey said, his voice muffled with tears. “I was her brother. I should have taken care of her.”
Adam didn't say anything. He agreed. Trey should have been there for Toni. And even though it would be years before he met Trey and Toni, Adam wished he had been there for her. She should never have had to go through that part of her life alone.
Trey kept talking. It was as if he had carried around the truth long enough and he needed to let all of it out. “After our parents died she was the one who took care of everything. She was the one who cleared up everything with the lawyers, got them to take care of selling the house. Most of the money paid for the rest of my tuition.”
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