Chapter 1 - Seventeen Missed Calls
The breakfast bag hit the hardwood floor before Caleb understood what he was seeing.
Coffee spilled across the doorway.
The flowers slipped from his hand.
“Hannah?”
His eight-month-pregnant wife was lying beside the bed, one shoulder pressed against the cream upholstery, both hands wrapped around her abdomen.
Blood had soaked through the towel beneath her.
Her shattered wedding photograph lay near her fingertips.
Caleb crossed the room in one movement and dropped to his knees.
Hannah’s head began to fall.
He caught her before it struck the floor.
“I’ve got you.”
Her chest rose in shallow, broken breaths.
Her lips barely moved.
“I couldn’t reach you.”
Caleb pulled out his phone.
Seventeen missed calls.
All from Hannah.
The first had come more than an hour earlier.
His stomach turned cold.
He dialed emergency services while supporting her against his chest.
“Eight months pregnant,” he told the dispatcher. “Heavy bleeding. She’s conscious, but barely.”
Hannah gripped his sleeve.
“I called… your mother.”
Caleb stopped speaking for half a second.
“My mother?”
Hannah’s phone lay beside the shattered frame.
He picked it up.
An unread message appeared.
The preview showed a photograph of Dr. Morgan, Hannah’s obstetrician, standing outside their townhouse with a medical bag.
Caleb stared at it.
That explained the dark jacket hanging over the chair.
The suitcase.
The photograph Lorraine had sent him earlier that morning.
His mother had warned him that Hannah was preparing to leave with another man.
Caleb had believed her long enough to ignore Hannah’s first calls.
Another message appeared beneath the photograph.
It was from Lorraine.
Caleb opened it.
His face lost color.
“Mom?”
Hannah forced her eyes open.
“She answered… instead.”
A siren echoed outside.
Footsteps thundered through the townhouse.
Caleb stared at the unfinished message while paramedics rushed toward the bedroom.
He could only see the first line.
DON’T LET THE DOCTOR—
Then the screen dimmed.
May you like
And Caleb realized his mother had known Hannah was bleeding before he did.
👉 Lorraine’s message looked like a warning, but the deleted call history on Hannah’s phone suggested she had been inside the townhouse that morning.
