I hit the button to answer the call. "Why aren't you home yet? I'm starting to get lonely here."
Silence. Sniffling.
Men are talking in the background.
There's a siren in the distance.
I hear a police radio.
Shit.
"Karissa?" Panic brews inside of me. "Answer me, sweetheart."
There's a ruffling, the phone moving, before a voice breaks in. "Mr. Vitale?"
"Yes," I say. "Who the fuck is this?"
"Detective Jameson," he says, "with the NYPD—"
"Homicide division. I know. Why do you have my wife's phone?"
I can feel it, can feel it pecking at my core, the anger, the devastation, the goddamn fear.
No. No. No.
"I just want to notify you that there was an incident this evening—"
"Don't do it," I say, my voice cracking, interrupting him.
Don't you do it.
Don't you say it.
Don't make a notification over the phone.
Don't make a notification, period, because I refuse to believe you need to notify me about anything. Tell me this is all a mistake, tell me you just happened upon her phone, but don't you tell me the one thing… the one fucking thing… a homicide detective would notify someone for.
"Don't tell me something happened to her," I say, "not unless you want the world to burn."
He hesitates.
He knows I mean it.
He's dealt with me enough.
He made the notification twenty years ago in the hospital.
Showed up in that room, as I lay in that bed, and told me Maria was gone.
I knew it already then, knew I lost her.
But I refuse to believe that will ever happen again.
I refuse to let it.
"Your wife's being seen by a medic right now, but she seems to be just fine," he says. "As I said, though, there was an incident, and she asked that you be notified."
"Where are you?"
"Well, we're at Corlears Hook Park but—"
I don't let him finish, hanging up and shoving my phone in my pocket before running out the door. Corlears Hook. What the hell was she doing there? It's not near NYU. It's not on her path home. It's nowhere she should've been.
Traffic is a mess.
A nightmare.
I speed around cars, cutting through lanes and running red lights, even driving the wrong direction, all in the name of getting there faster. I sideswipe a parked car but keep going, cursing under my breath, hoping nobody got my license plate number for it. For most, it would be nothing more than a fine, a slap on the wrist, but they'd find a way to send my ass upstate for life for it.
Corlears Hook Park runs along the shoreline. It's a small park, compared to some of the others in the city, so it isn't hard to find where I need to be. Dozens of cop cars surround the area, lights on, a section quartered off by crime scene tape. I pull my car up toward the entrance, jumping the curb and just leaving it there.
They're lucky I bother to shut the damn thing off.
"Sir? Sir! That's not a parking spot!"
"Tow it, then," I say, walking right past him, grabbing the police tape and ducking under it, heading right for the crime scene. I can see an ambulance not far from me, near a small concrete building. The officer tries to stop me, grabbing my arm, but I yank away from him, continuing on.
He radios for help. I hear him, desperately shrieking that someone's entered the perimeter, and I see others turning their focus my direction, like they're about to come after me. Detective Jameson steps around the side of the building then, directly in my line of sight, right in my path, and calls them down. "It's fine, gentlemen. He's the victim's husband."
Victim.
"Where is she?" I ask.
"Like I said, she's fine." He motions toward the ambulances. I can make out two, which tells me she wasn't the only victim here. "She's still being seen."
I walk right past him, but he jumps in front of me, in my path. "Wait."
"So help me God, Jameson, don't try to stop me from seeing her."
He holds his hands up defensively. "I'm not. I'm only asking you go that way."
He points the long way, around the other side of the building, and I start to argue, but I get it. If I keep going, I'm going to trample right through his crime scene, and he still pretends to care about integrity and justice.
So I do it, this small concession, because he's well within his right to throw me to the ground and arrest me right now for interfering, and I've got more important things to worry about.
The first ambulance is locked up tight, the lights off. The one right beside it is wide open, officers surrounding it. Dead center, standing in front of the back door is Jameson's partner, Andrews. I can't see Karissa past all the cops and medics, but I'm guessing that's where I'll find here, so I head right there.
They part when they see me coming, like they're afraid of what I'll do if they don't. They all move out of my way except for Andrews, but it doesn't matter, because I shove right past him. The moment he moves, the moment I get a good look at the ambulance, my heart drops right to my fucking toes.
She's sitting there with her feet dangling, a dazed look on her face. Blood stains her clothes. Her hair's even matted with it, but I don't think it's hers. Thank God it isn't hers. There's a bandage on her cheek, and her eyes are bloodshot as they seek me out.
The moment she sees me, she closes her eyes.
She closes them, and breathes deeply, like she's overwhelmed with relief.
I don't hesitate. I grab her. I yank her off the back of the ambulance and pull her right into my arms. Her feet can't touch the ground, and I'm probably going to break her back with as hard as I'm squeezing, but I can't help it. Because I feel it, the relief she's feeling. I feel the deep breath she took. I feel it in my soul.
She starts sobbing as she nuzzles into my neck, clinging to me right back.