Chapter
30
It was two in the afternoon in California, when the phone rang at
the Carter house.
Aaron picked up the phone.
“Hello?” he asked.
“May I please speak with Mr. or Mrs. Carter?” came a professional
sounding voice.
“Sure, just a minute,” Aaron replied, unaware that something was
horribly wrong. “Mom! Dad!”
He found Jane reading in the living room. “Phone, Mom,” he said, handing her the
cordless phone.
“Who is it?” Jane asked, hoping it was Nick. She had kept trying to reach him, but still,
there was never any answer. She had been
getting a little worried about him.
“Don’t know,” Aaron said with a shrug. Jane took the phone from him, and he trotted
upstairs to his bedroom.
“Hello?” Jane asked.
“Mrs. Carter?” came a woman’s voice.
“Yes, this is she,” Jane replied.
“May I ask who’s calling?”
“This is Denise Long, from St. John’s Hospital, near Daytona,
Florida,” the woman replied. “I’m
calling concerning your son, Nickolas.”
Jane took in a shaky breath, her motherly instinct telling her
that something terrible had happened to her firstborn son. “What happened?” she asked, her voice barely
a whisper.
“Nickolas was found in his car on a blocked road en route to
Daytona. The car was in a ditch, sunk in
mud. Some construction workers found the
car while doing repairs on the road.”
“Oh, God. Is he alive?”
Jane asked, her voice shaking.
“No, ma’am. I’m very sorry,
but Nick was already dead when the workers got to the scene. An autopsy showed he died of liver
failure. We understand his liver
transplant rejected. Probably because he
didn’t have his immune suppressants with him.
None were found in the car.”
Jane began to shake all over, stunned at this horrible news. But there was more.
“Also, a young woman, Angela Harless, was found with your
son. She was dead as well, and an autopsy
showed almost a full bottle of aspirin in her system.”
“She committed suicide?” Jane gasped.
“That’s what it looks like,” the woman answered. “Was she Nickolas’ girlfriend.”
“Yes,” Jane said, her eyes filling with fresh tears. Although she didn’t know all the details of
the horrible deaths of her oldest child and his girlfriend, it was not hard to
see what had gone on. Nick had been the
first to die, and Angela had taken her own life shortly after, proving her
eternal love for Nick.
Jane let the phone drop, and buried her face in her hands,
mourning the tragic loss of her precious child.
The End
