The Fall on the Stairs
Chapter 02 - The Fall on the Stairs
Vanessa grabbed Natalie’s shoulders and tried to pull the phone from her hand.
Natalie twisted away. Her heel caught the edge of the top stair.
For one terrible moment, she balanced between Vanessa and open air. Vanessa could have steadied her. Instead, her fingers released.
Natalie fell.
She struck the wooden steps on her hip and shoulder, curling around her stomach as she slid. Agnes screamed and ran forward. Vanessa remained above them, one hand pressed to her mouth.
“Call an ambulance!” Agnes shouted.
Natalie could not breathe. A sharp pressure tightened across her abdomen, then eased. She searched for movement beneath her ribs.
The baby kicked.
Relief came with tears.
Her phone had landed beside the banister. The screen was cracked, but Ethan’s hidden voicemail remained open. Beneath it was a number she had never noticed, embedded in the recording’s information.
Agnes knelt beside her. “Do not move.”
Vanessa started down the stairs. “She slipped. I barely touched her.”
“You let go,” Natalie said.
Vanessa stopped.
Agnes looked up with a fury that seemed too personal for an employee. “Stay away from her.”
While they waited for the ambulance, Natalie pressed the unfamiliar number. It rang once.
A man answered in a weak, uncertain voice.
“Hello?”
Every sound in the room vanished.
Natalie knew that voice. She had heard it in sleepy morning conversations, in whispered promises at their courthouse wedding, and in the last message sent before a mountain road supposedly took him away.
“Ethan?”
There was silence on the line.
Then the man whispered, “Natalie?”
Vanessa lunged for the phone.
Agnes stood and blocked her.
“Who is this?” Natalie asked, though she already knew.
“I don’t know where I am,” Ethan said. “They told me you left. They said the baby wasn’t mine.”
Sirens approached the estate.
Vanessa’s face lost all color.
Natalie gripped the phone with both hands. “Ethan, listen to me. I never left you. Your family told me you were dead.”
A door slammed somewhere upstairs.
Ethan’s breathing quickened. “There’s a woman coming. She takes the phone every night.”
“Tell me anything you can see.”
“A blue door. Room four-oh-seven. A sign outside says North Harbor.”
The call ended.
Paramedics entered moments later. As they lifted Natalie onto a stretcher, she caught Vanessa staring at the dark hallway rather than at her.
“Who is at North Harbor?” Natalie demanded.
May you like
Vanessa’s voice was barely audible.
“You should have signed the settlement.”
