by Leigh James
I winced. “Her daughters are eight and six—Katie and Quinn. They’re the sweetest little girls. Fiona said they’re absolutely crushed. Jim was a great dad.”
Levi seemed at a loss for words—he’d lost his own dad when he was young. He just shook his head, composing his features as we ascended the walkway.
An older woman opened the front door, and even though I’d never met her, I immediately recognized her as Fiona’s mother. “I’m Hannah Taylor, a friend of Fiona’s. This is my sister, Lauren, and part of our security detail, Levi and Asher Betts. They run Betts Security.”
The woman held out her hand. “I’m Evelyn Bartlett, Fiona’s mom. She’s expecting you.”
She motioned for us to come in, and I saw Katie and Quinn sitting on a long bench in the foyer, their faces blotchy from crying. They waved to me, then resumed clutching their somewhat beat-up stuffed animals.
I bent down to see them, careful to give them space. “Hey, girls. I’m so sorry about your dad.”
Usually, whenever I came to the house, they were all over me—asking me about my clothes and if I wanted to play dolls. Today, they barely looked up. “Thanks,” they mumbled in unison.
Their grandmother gently kissed them both. “I’m going to bring Hannah and her friends to see your mom, and then we can go to the kitchen for a snack, okay?”
Katie nodded. Quinn just stroked her stuffed bunny’s matted ears.
Mrs. Bartlett shook her head as she led us to the living room. “Those poor girls. They haven’t stopped crying and asking for their dad. This is just—it’s unbearable.”
Fiona sat in the far corner of a room decorated in varying shades of white and cream. With the sun pouring through the windows, the large room should have been cheerful. But seeing Fiona wrapped in a blanket next to the fireplace, her face a pale, puffy mask, sucked any joy from the atmosphere.
I willed myself not to cry as I went to my friend and wrapped my arms around her. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” Fiona pulled back, and I could see dark circles, like bruises, underneath her eyes. She hugged Lauren and motioned for us all to sit.
“Mrs. Pace, I’m so sorry to hear about your husband,” Levi said. “And I know this is painful for you, but I need you to tell me everything that happened when Jim was killed, and everything that’s happened since.”
Fiona wrapped the blanket back around her. “I’ve already made a statement to the police and to the FBI.”
“I want you to know that we work with law enforcement, and we cooperate with them fully. But if you decide to finalize things with our firm, you’ll want us to know everything. We might see something that the other agencies miss.”
Fiona nodded, then closed her eyes for a moment and breathed deeply, calming herself. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she looked directly at Levi. “Jim stayed late at the office for a board meeting. He left around eight o’clock. The security tape shows him walking to his car and then staggering a little and collapsing before he could open the door. There was no audio, but the other board members said they didn’t hear anything—the police think the gunman used a silencer. When they reached him, he was already dead. He was shot in the heart. The police said he died instantly.”
I forced myself to stay calm. If Fiona could be brave enough to tell us the story, I needed to listen without giving in to my emotions.
“Any information about the assailant’s vehicle?” Ash asked.
“They traced it to a rental place, but the car was rented under a fake name and just led to a dead end.”
“Do you have any idea who’s behind this?” Ash asked.
Fiona looked from me to Lauren. “It was Li Na Zhao. She…she threatened me a few weeks ago, saying that if I didn’t sell my company’s technology to her, she would make me sorry. I declined her offer. I went and spoke to Hannah and Lauren about it because it seemed like a direct threat. They agreed. But I never thought this would happen to Jim. I didn’t take any steps to protect him.” She winced and turned away, facing the fire instead.
“This isn’t your fault.” Lauren reached out and took Fiona’s hand. “Li Na doesn’t do what you’d expect, and no one could have prepared you for this. Have you…heard anything from her?”
“I got a letter from her lawyer. It was a proposal.”
“Was it from Petra Hickman?” Lauren asked. “I thought Li Na would have fired her.”
Petra had represented Li Na in her attempt to buy Paragon from Lauren. It hadn’t ended well.
Fiona shook her head. “No—it was from a business attorney in Cupertino. Someone I’ve never heard of. I didn’t respond.”
“I need that letter,” Levi said immediately. “Li Na hasn’t reached out to you directly or claimed any sort responsibility for your husband’s death?”
“No. She hasn’t. I wouldn’t expect her to—would you?”
“She was very straightforward when she kidnapped Hannah.” Lauren’s gaze flicked to me. “But that was different, I suppose.”
“Because Hannah was still alive.” Fiona’s voice was flat.
“Did you tell the police and the FBI about Li Na’s proposal and the timing of the correspondence from her attorney?” Ash asked, his voice gentle.
“Yes,” Fiona said. “But they didn’t think there was anything they could do. They need more evidence.”
Levi leaned forward. “We’ll come up with a plan to deal with Zhao—I promise you that. But we need to focus on your safety and your daughters’ safety. If you’re comfortable talking about what my company can do for you, I think we should.”
“Please. Go on.”
Fiona wrapped herself deeper into her blanket as Levi and Ash outlined the personal security services they could offer, along with what a Betts Security team could do at Protocol. I watched as Fiona listened carefully, asking pertinent questions and assimilating the information. Even in her grief, she was alert and astute.
“When the girls go back to school, how would that work with personal security agents?”
“That’s the most important thing.” Ash nodded. “We can talk to the school administration—we’ve handled situations like this before. Our goal is to keep the child safe at all times, while minimizing the impact of having a security detail with them.”
They kept talking while my mind wandered to Katie and Quinn. Their two little faces, puffy from crying, and the way they clung to their stuffed animals. I dug my fingernails into my palms to stop the tears. Those poor little things, having their father taken from them like this…
I hugged Fiona fiercely before we left, promising to see her at the service tomorrow. On the ride home, as Levi and Ash discussed the logistics of their new security assignment, Lauren looked at me with concern. “You’re awfully quiet.”
I looked out the window, away from her. “It was the girls.”
She reached over and took my hand in hers. “I know. It’s terrible to see them suffer like that. They’re innocent.”
“I just don’t understand. I mean, I don’t understand any of what she’s done.”
“Who?”
“Li Na.” I pulled my hand away. “I don’t understand how she could have Jim killed just because she wants in on Protocol Therapeutics’s profit margin.”
“But that’s not all she wants,” Lauren said. “She wants what comes with that—the notoriety, the importance. Gabe has a whole theory about her.”
“I’ll have to ask him.” I watched cars fly by on the freeway, feeling unsettled and angry.
My thoughts eventually circled back to Fiona. Seeing my friend’s quiet devastation had gutted me. “I don’t even know what to say about what Fiona’s going through…”
Lauren sighed. “I don’t, either—but you and I both know you can’t get over losing someone suddenly.” Lauren and I had direct experience with this. Our parents had died in a car crash. “All we can do is be here for their family.”
“And get rid of Li Na,” I said bitterly
.
Lauren patted my hand. “Yeah. That would help.”
* * *
I let the hot water rush over me as I combed my hair and put more conditioner in. I didn’t ever want to get out of the shower. I wanted to stay under the warm water, pretend everything was normal, and forget my friend’s husband had been murdered by the woman who’d been chasing my sister for the past year.
Lauren and Fiona were both trying to make the world a better place with their technology. They wanted to help people, but they were being targeted and punished for their visionary technological advances.
I closed my eyes as I rinsed my hair, but I kept seeing the Pace girls in my mind. I remembered when my parents had died—I’d been sixteen. When the police had come to the house and said there’d been an accident, I didn’t believe them. No one drove more slowly or safely than my father in his Subaru station wagon. I’d made the officer take me to the morgue at the hospital before I believed they were dead.
But then I saw them. They were dead.
I shivered as I turned the water off, then wrapped myself in a towel. I didn’t want to think about my parents. I didn’t want to think about the poor Pace girls. But I couldn’t stop the flood of thoughts about Fiona and her girls and what they were going through right now—what Li Na Zhao had done to them, done to all of us. I started to blow dry my hair as my thoughts zigzagged around, making me feel dizzy. I pictured Jim Pace dead, his body sprawled in the parking lot. Wesley, hooked up to all those tubes. Those little girls’ faces, the way they’d clung to their favorite stuffed animals. I’d dug out my old teddy bear and slept with it after my parents died. It had smelled familiar, a scent memory from my childhood. I’d wept against it, begging to go back in time.
I kept working on my hair, but suddenly I realized that I was having a hard time catching my breath. I put the blow dryer down and threw on my favorite Stanford T-shirt and a pair of sweats. Every time I exhaled, I felt my body shake. I held up my hands—they were shaking, too.
What the hell?
Feeling dizzy, I sank down onto the terracotta floor. I leaned my back against the wall and did yoga breathing—in through the nose, out through the mouth. I tried to clear my mind and concentrate on my breathing, but it was as though the floodgates had opened. The images wouldn’t stop coming.
Those poor girls. Their little faces. I felt a hole in my chest as I ached for them.
Wesley in the hospital bed, pale as death.
Jim Pace sprawled in the parking lot.
Wesley getting shot in front of me in the kitchen. He went down and slammed his head on the marble island. I’d thought he was dead.
I’d thought I’d never see him again.
The morgue at the hospital when I was sixteen. I could never forget what my mother’s face had looked like, waxen but calm. Dead.
Dead, dead, dead.
I tried to catch my breath, and I heard myself gasp. I gulped for air as my whole body shook. My hands curled into fists, and I felt tears stream down my face. Breathe, Hannah. But I couldn’t. I was hyperventilating.
And the images kept coming.
Gabe shooting the driver in Oakland, the window splintering into a million tiny cracks.
The burly guard standing over me in the dark. I could feel his breath on my face.
The hollowed-out, flat look in Fiona Pace’s normally vibrant eyes.
“Wes,” I croaked desperately. “Wes.” But my voice didn’t raise above a whisper. My heart hammered in my chest, and the tears poured freely now. I could hear my ragged, wheezing breaths. Am I having a heart attack? I tried to raise my hand to bang on the door, but I couldn’t get my arms to cooperate.
“Wesley.” I tried to yoga breathe, but I wondered if this was it, if all the stress was finally getting to me and I was going to die like this, on my sister’s stylishly tiled bathroom floor in my ratty Stanford T-shirt.
“Help,” I said as my body shook. “Help!”
I heard Wesley in the bedroom. “Babe? You in there?”
I struggled to get enough air to breathe and to call for him. “Wes. Wesley!” I tried to scream, but it came out like a hoarse whisper.
He knocked on the door. “Hannah? Did you call me?”
I started sobbing. “Wes…Wes, open the door.”
He opened the door and stuck his head in. When he saw me on the floor, he rushed in and immediately put his hands on my face. “Hannah? Talk to me.”
“I can’t—I can’t breathe,” I wheezed. “And my hands are numb. They curled into fists, and they’re numb. I can’t move them.”
“Okay.” Wes leaned down and grabbed my wrist, checking my pulse. He counted silently for a moment, his brow knitted in concentration. When he’d finished, he asked calmly, “What are you feeling?”
“I think I might be having a heart attack.” I struggled for a breath.
“I’m going to get you the help you need. Hold on. I’m right here—I’ve got you.” He stood up for one second, never letting go of me, and leaned out the door. “Lauren!”
I thought I heard movement from the hall, but I couldn’t be sure. I kept trying to catch my breath.
“Breathe, baby. I’m going to call an ambulance.”
“No—no!”
But he was already in the bedroom, on the phone. He came back immediately as he called 9-1-1. “I have a twenty-five-year-old female with signs of tachycardia. She’s having trouble breathing.” He gave them our address and put the phone down. “They’ll be here in a few minutes. Stay with me, babe.” He sat down next to me on the floor, gripping my clawlike hand. “Let’s breathe together.”
“Wes? Wes!” Lauren came around the corner, and her eyes went wild when she saw me. “Hannah!”
“She’s okay. Her pulse is high, but she’s okay—the paramedics are on their way. I think she’s having a panic attack.”
I shut my eyes, sobbing and trying to breathe. I didn’t want them to see me like this. It was so fucking mortifying.
“What can I do?” Lauren sounded panicked.
“Go wait at the door for the ambulance—bring the paramedics in here and tell them she needs oxygen. They’ll have everything we need.”
I heard Lauren run for the door, and Wes leaned against me, stroking my hair. “Shh, it’s okay. We’re going to get you the help you need, and you’re going to be okay.”
“I don’t—I don’t know what’s happening.” I squinted my eyes open and looked at my hands, which were still curled like claws. “Why are my hands like that?”
“It happens. I’ve seen it happen to my buddies. Shh, now, they’re almost here.”
Wesley kept talking to me gently and breathing with me, and as the minutes passed, I started to feel myself able to take a full breath.
“That’s my girl. Good girl,” he said.
My shoulders shook with sobs. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologize for. I’m sorry you’re going through this—but you are going to be okay, and I’m not leaving your side.”
“O-okay. Okay.”
The paramedics came in then, and I cringed away, embarrassed that my breathing was returning to normal and I was not, in fact, on the verge of death. The first one through the door, a young Asian woman, immediately wrapped a blood pressure cuff around my bicep and put an oxygen mask over my face.
The influx of oxygen helped me catch my breath. I managed to breathe a sigh of relief.
The paramedic was everywhere at once. “What’s her name?” she asked Wes.
“Hannah.”
“Hannah, I’m Kerry, and I’m here to help.” She checked my blood pressure. “Good. It’s within normal range. Are you on any medication?”
“No.” I tried to move my hands, but they still wouldn’t unclench.
“Nothing? Vitamins, supplements, anything?” She hooked up some electrodes to my chest and checked their connection to a machine. “This is an EKG, by the way—to check your heart rate. Now, about the medicatio
ns?”
“I was on birth control, but I haven’t taken them in a while…” With everything going on, I’d completely forgotten to take my pills.
“Have you ever had any trouble with your heart before, or is there any family history of heart attack?”
“No.”
Kerry read the EKG results, smiling at me reassuringly. “Everything looks fine.”
“Is she okay?” Lauren asked. I hadn’t realized she’d been watching, and I didn’t have to look at her to tell she was crying.
“She is—she’s going to be just fine. Do you mind waiting outside? I want to give her some air.” She looked from Lauren to Wes.
“Okay,” Lauren said, but she didn’t sound okay.
“Babe?” Wes hadn’t budged from my side.
“I’m fine,” I croaked, “but please take care of Lauren.”
Wes squeezed my hand one last time and left me alone with Kerry. The two other paramedics came into the bathroom, entering notes into their tablets and picking up the equipment Kerry had used.
“Are you feeling better?” She had a calm, efficient tone that I appreciated.
“Yes, I can breathe better now.” Still, my shoulders shook with sobs. “I’m just embarrassed—was that…did I just have a panic attack?”
Kerry slowly massaged my hands, working my fingers open and helping me flex them. “Are you having numbness in your fingers still?”
“It’s like they fell asleep—they’re tingling, but the feeling’s coming back.”
“Have you ever had a panic attack before?” Kerry asked.
“No. Never. I thought I was having a heart attack.”
She watched me carefully. “Any history of anxiety or depression?”
“No.”
“Any recent trauma? Boyfriend trouble?”
“No boyfriend trouble, but there’s been a lot going on. A friend of mine lost her husband this week—he was murdered.”
“I’m so sorry.” She checked my blood pressure again and motioned for the paramedics to give me some tissues.
I took the oxygen mask off and unceremoniously blew my nose—I’d already humiliated myself in front of these people. It didn’t matter if I blew my nose too loud.
