I didn’t hit him that hard, but I didn’t hit him that gently, either. His car was rocketed forward. My neck snapped forward painfully, but honestly, what was more pain at this point? I was a ball of nerve endings, all of them shrieking. I was sure the bumper was dented, but thankfully, we hadn’t locked together. (What would I do? Carjack him, too? Get in his driver’s seat and drag both cars to Burbank?) The truck was still driving just fine. When his brake lights came on, I stayed behind him until he was out of his car and coming for me on foot. Then I yanked the steering wheel left and cut off the car coming up in the slow lane. I passed the guy, who was yelling so loudly I could hear his words clearly through the glass. “You fucking bitch! I’ll sue you—”
I had to creep forward for the whole car length it took to get past the Tesla, with him tugging at my locked door handle and screaming the whole time, but as soon as I passed it, I got back onto the side shoulder and floored it, leaving him a flyspeck in my rearview.
There must not have been a single highway patrol officer on the freeway because I blazed free and clear, picking up speed and bravery as I went. A couple more cars appeared to consider pulling in front of me, but it must have been obvious even from a distance that I’d run clean out of fucks. They all thought better of it, ducking back into the slow lane at the last minute.
I reached the San Fernando exit, blasting off the freeway like a rattling rocket. I screamed down North Clybourne, plowing off the road where it dead-ended into the parking lot. I took Billion Air’s oval driveway at fifty, slamming the truck’s wheels into the red curb in front of the doors. Sliding out of the vehicle, I groaned with pain. As I’d driven, adrenaline had numbed some of my trauma response, but it all came back now. Don’t pass out, Jillian. Don’t pass out. Tensing all the muscles I could bear to squeeze, I walked toward the doors. What I should have been doing was lying down until the dizziness passed, but if I could raise my blood pressure a bit by clenching my extremities, I might avoid fainting. If I was lucky.
A young woman dressed in a red jacket strode toward me. “Oh, my God! You—”
I knew I must look like the walking dead. “It’s an emergency!”
“You, uh, you can’t park there!” She looked over her shoulder to the young man who stood at the doorway security table. His eyes widened, but he put himself in front of the glass doors, barring my way.
I wasn’t prepared for this confrontation. Maggie had said there was no TSA, but I supposed if Hollywood people used the jetport they’d need some kind of private security. My brain stalled and went into freefall.
The woman said, “Ma’am, I can see there’s clearly a problem. Can I—can I help?”
My brain snapped back into place. “You have a woman who just came through with a baby. I’m her ob-gyn.” What the hell could I say that they would believe?
Then it struck me. I was the doctor. The question was what wouldn’t they believe? I gave myself a second to breathe and think, holding up one hand and bending forward at the waist. Then I said, “Her husband was driving down from Santa Barbara and missed the birth. He also missed the message from her that she was doing well and wanted to fly home. He came to the hospital right after I released her. I was talking to him outside when a car lost control on its way into the ER driveway, and he was killed.” I gestured down at myself, my words tumbling over themselves. “I was also—injured. I worked on him for fifteen minutes, but I couldn’t save him. I have to be the one to tell her—I have to tell her his last words for their child. My team called ahead to try to ground the plane—did you get that order?”
The guy looked at the woman. “I heard something in dispatch about Malibu PD calling in an incident, but—”
“That’s right,” I cut him off. “That was us. You know who my patient is, right? You recognized her?”
They both shook their heads.
“Oh, God. I have to get to her before the media does.” I looked over my shoulder as if a reporter might be right behind me.
The guy was nodding along with my story, but the woman wasn’t buying it as hard as he was. She said, “We can absolutely help you with this. I’ll simply need your driver’s license and your hospital ID first.”
I had nothing in my hands. I made a one-second show of patting the skirt’s empty pockets. “I raced here from the hospital, and I left my purse in my office.”
“I’ll just need you to wait out here until we can ascertain your identity, I’m sorry.”
“You really don’t know who she is? You’re not pretending?”
The man leaned forward. “Who is she?”
The woman shook her head. “Sorry, I’ll need your ID first.”
Whoever trained her needed a raise. I was a second away from bolting past them but I knew I needed her on my side, to get me through the airport and to wherever Maggie was. “Look. Call UCLA Medical Center, Santa Monica. Ask if I work there. Jillian Marsh.”
“How do I know you’re Jillian Marsh, though?”
I lowered my head and then raised it, letting her see my real face. “This is, truly, an emergency. I can’t give you more than that.”
She spoke to her phone, asking it to call the hospital. She kept it on speaker and asked to be transferred to Obstetrics, which was really fucking smart of her. It took seven rings for them to answer, and Lisa Weston’s voice at the nurse’s station had never sounded sweeter. Before the security officer could speak, I grabbed her phone out of her hand. She stared at me, shocked, as I said loudly, “Lisa, it’s me.” Nurses knew doctor’s voices by just a word or two. “I need you to verify my identity by saying my name and that I work there.”
“Jillian?”
“Please do this for me. I’ll explain everything later.”
“I’m worried. But okay. Whoever this is for, you’re talking to Jillian Marsh. She’s an ob-gyn in our department.”
“Thanks.” I disconnected and handed it back. “My patient’s name is Maggie Barnswell. I need you to take me to her as fast as possible. She cannot find out she’s a widowed single mother from the media. If she does, the lawsuits will be civil, and they’ll be on you personally.”
The woman nodded as she stood straighter. She picked an iPad off the desk and flicked though it. “Ms. Barnswell just boarded. Follow me.”
My right hand shook, sending spikes of pain through my body—we had to hurry. Maggie could leave—the plane could take off, and that would be it. “Can you stop the plane?” What if it took off?
“I sent a message through the system for it to stand by until we get there. Do you need—maybe a wheelchair?”
“No.” I must have looked as broken as I felt. But we couldn’t waste time on her going to get one. I limped as quickly as I could after her, ignoring my full-body pain as best I could. We wound through the terminal, if that was in fact what it was called. It looked more like a formal living room with plush chairs and enormous, thousand-dollar bouquets of flowers. There was a coffee bar and a regular bar, and servers were setting out a full breakfast. I smelled bacon, and my stomach roiled.
She led me to a set of double doors, waving a hand at the man who stood next to the actual red velvet rope that stood across them. So American. Regular people got whole-body scans. The über-rich got a velvet rope.
We went through and out onto the tarmac. She pointed at a limo sitting next to the long panes of terminal glass. “You can ride to the plane in comfort, or we can walk.”
“Just—which plane is it?” Nine or ten small planes sat parked in front of us.
She pointed to a small white plane, the farthest one, at least a hundred yards away. The steps were still down, the door open.
I started to jog toward it but realized three steps in I couldn’t do it. My knees buckled and my vision darkened as pain threatened to take me all the way down. “Limo,” I gasped.
She flagged the car toward us. It was already moving our way—the driver must have seen me stumble. Her radio chattered at her, and she said, “All our planes just got grounded. You don’t need to worry about her plane leaving yet.”
Bree. Thank God.
The woman opened the door for me before saying something to the driver and pointing at the jet. She didn’t get in.
Even though I knew the plane wasn’t going anywhere, I begged the driver to hurry. Maggie still had Violet. I couldn’t move fast enough, so he had to.
He hit the gas as if he’d been waiting for someone to tell him to, and I used the few seconds it took to get there to try to steady my breathing. I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to stand up when we got there.
He parked near the plane’s stairs. “Do you need anything else, ma’am?”
Inside me, a river of fear started to flow, so wide and deep that it drowned the pain. “Can you stay? Just . . . in case?” In case what? In case I needed someone to drag my body parts away after Maggie ripped me into pieces?
“Yes, ma’am. Of course. My name’s Tony. Yell if you need me.” He looked concerned, and I couldn’t blame him. “Are you in danger?”
My heart thudded in my chest. “I think I am. Yeah.”
“You need the cops?”
I thought about it. I doubted they could help at this point. “Maybe later. But right now, can I borrow your cell phone?”
He turned his head to look at me. “What for?”
“I want to record audio.”
Tony had no reason to trust me. Not one. But he lifted his chin. “All right, then.” He took out his phone and opened the recorder. I stepped out of the car and slipped it into my pocket. Whatever happened, at least there’d be a record of it.
Even so close to the plane, it was still hard to get to it. My entire body screamed that it was inches from dying and that I needed to stop everything, including breathing. I pushed my brain into overriding that demand. A man in an orange jacket was headed our way—to close up the steps? So the plane could take off? Had they ungrounded the flights already?
No way in hell. Not without me getting to my daughter first.
First step. Second step. Up the mountain. Breathe. I pulled on the handrail as if it were the hand of salvation itself.
Would there be a flight attendant? Would I have to fight a pilot? My heart beat as if it was trying to jackhammer itself out of my chest.
But at the top of the steps stood only Maggie.