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“Mrs. Milek, I think you’re having a heart attack. I’m going to call 911.”
“It’s just—” the woman wheezed “—the flu.”
“If I’m wrong, they’ll send you home. If I’m right, you need paramedics.”
When Mrs. Milek turned back to the toilet and lost any ability she had to argue, Vivian called 911. After Mrs. Milek was loaded in the ambulance, Vivian grabbed her mother-in-law’s purse and dug out the house keys. She locked the door, then tried to call Karl at work. After leaving an anxious voice mail on some number in the inspector general’s office that she hoped would get to Karl, she got in her car and drove to the hospital.
CHAPTER TWELVE
KARL KNEW THE apartment was empty the moment he walked through the door. Despite the bird hopping from side to side in his cage—on the kitchen counter!—and whistling a greeting, his once-peaceful apartment felt devoid of life. He hung his coat and scarf in the closet, then grabbed a towel to dry the snow off his head.
“Vivian,” he called into the vacuum. He peeked in her room. He didn’t expect an answer, but he also hadn’t expected to see all of her stuff gone. The only thing left in the closet was one of the winter coats he’d bought her and the slight smell of jasmine. “Why did you leave the coat? What am I supposed to do with it?”
He looked by the front door, expecting to see her packed bags—perhaps she had taken a walk to clear her mind. But nothing was there.
Her aunt was on the other side of the country in a state where Vivian knew she couldn’t find a job.
Where else would she go? He breathed concern—not panic, not yet—out of his chest. He’d said he would find her somewhere else to live. She was practical enough not to run off—she was pregnant! Resourceful, her father had called her.
She must be just on a walk.
Between the knitting and the cooking and the walks and the job applications, Karl had found her to be a doer, and she would be better served by doing her walk quickly and getting back to the apartment.
He walked into the living area and looked around. Then he looked behind the couch and chairs. No bags. There weren’t bags near the dining table, in the kitchen, in his room or out on the balcony, either. The only evidence in his apartment that Vivian had ever been here was the coat in the closet, the bird on his counter and the smell of roasting meat in the kitchen.
She wouldn’t leave the bird. Her father may have won that bird in some scheme or another, but she’d driven the bird across the country. It didn’t matter that she’d had a destination in mind when carting the bird across five states and she might not have a destination now. Vivian held family dear, and the bird was family. She wouldn’t leave the bird. Perhaps she was waiting in the lobby.
When he finally exited the elevator in the lobby, Karl looked around for his wife. It would be some kind of slap in the face if she’d been sitting in the same seat where she’d originally waited for him, her bags piled at her feet. But the only person sitting in a lobby chair was a man—definitely not Vivian.
“May I help you, sir?”
Karl turned to face one of the building’s doormen. “Phillip, I’m looking for my wife.”
“She left about three hours ago, in her car. I offered to help her with her bags, but she didn’t seem to want my help.”
“She had all her bags?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“Thank you for the information and for offering Vivian help with her bags.” He turned to walk away, but thought better of it. “Phillip?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Ask management to see to those elevators. The ride from my floor to the lobby was inexcusably slow.”
“Of course, sir.”
The maddeningly slow elevator ride from the lobby to his apartment gave him plenty of time to consider his next option. A note. Vivian wouldn’t have driven off without leaving a note. Despite cheating and casinos and her wastrel father, Karl believed her when she said the baby was his.
His words had been said in anger, not in truth.
He also believed that she thought his role in the baby’s upbringing was important—and not just for financial reasons. She wouldn’t have cut him out entirely. And there was the stupid bird to care for. If she didn’t leave a forwarding address, she would’ve at least left instructions for the damn bird.
