Chapter 6: Before You
The test results came back at eleven that night.
Dr.
Anand — my obstetrician, who had been paged the moment the police arrived — sat at the edge of my bed with the tablet in his hands and the careful expression of someone choosing words with precision.
"The panel found traces of a compound called misoprostol," he said.
"It's a medication used in certain obstetric procedures.
In the dosage we're seeing, it would have been intended to induce early labor."
The room was very quiet.
"Would it have worked?" Marcus asked.
Dr.
Anand looked at him.
"At seven months, the baby would have had a chance.
But there would have been significant risk.
To the baby and to Khloe."
"But it didn't work," I said.
"The dose appears to have been insufficient.
Or your body responded in a way that limited the effect." He set the tablet down.
"You're both stable.
The baby's heart rate is strong.
But I want to keep you here for at least forty-eight hours for monitoring."
"Fine," I said.
"Khloe—"
"Fine," I said again.
"Whatever you need."
Dr.
Anand left.
Marcus called Detective Reyes with the results.
I heard his voice in the hallway — controlled, precise, the voice he used in negotiations — and I lay in the bed with both hands on my belly and stared at the ceiling.
She had tried to take the baby.
Not hurt me.
Not frighten me.
Take the baby.
The thought arranged itself slowly, like pieces settling into a shape I didn't want to see clearly.
Marcus came back in and sat down.
"Reyes says this changes the charges significantly," he said.
"I know."
"Khloe—"
"I need to ask you something."
He waited.
"When you ended it with Isabella," I said.
"How did she take it?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"She said she understood.
She said she wanted us to stay friends.
She said she wasn't angry."
"And you believed her."
"She seemed — she seemed fine.
She moved on.
Or I thought she did.
She started her own company.
She was successful.
She seemed happy."
"Did she know about me before you told her?"
Another pause.
Longer.
"I think she may have," he said.
"Looking back."
"How long before you told her did she know?"
"I don't know."
"Marcus."
"I genuinely don't know." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
"But I think — I think she may have known before I ended it.
I think she may have found out about you and thought that if she waited, it would pass."
"And when it didn't pass."
"And when it didn't pass," he said, "she decided something else."
I looked at him.
"She's been planning this for a long time."
"Yes."
"The coffee.
The appointment.
The staircase."
He looked up.
"What staircase?"
I told him.
All of it.
The small things I had filed away and forgotten.
His face changed with each one — not dramatically, just a slow, steady shift, like a room getting darker as the sun moves.
When I finished, he stood up and walked to the window.
"I should have seen it," he said.
"You didn't know."
"I should have seen it."
"Marcus." I waited until he turned.
"This is not yours to carry alone.
But I need you to understand something."
"What?"
"She said she loved you first.
In this room, before she left.
She said it like it was a fact that changed everything.
Like it gave her a right."
He said nothing.
"Does it?" I asked.
"In your mind — does it?"
"No," he said.
Without hesitation.
"No.
It doesn't."
I believed him.
But I also knew that Isabella believed something different entirely.
And a woman who believed she had a right — who had spent months quietly, carefully, patiently acting on that belief — was not going to stop because of a police report.
My phone lit up on the bedside table.
Unknown number.
I looked at it for a moment, then answered.
Silence on the line.
Then breathing.
Then Isabella's voice, very soft.
"I just want you to know," she said, "that the attorney is the least of your problems."
The call ended.
I set the phone down.
"Who was that?" Marcus asked.
May you like
I looked at the blinking red light of the security camera in the corner of the ceiling.
"She's not done," I said.
