Revengeful Deceptions (30 page)

“Please hurry she's pregnant and
her pulse is weak!” A feeling of dread and fury showered over him as he stepped
back and let the paramedics work on Dominique.

“She has asthma! Please help her!”
his voice shook with terror as he spoke.

All trucks were called in to handle
the large fire and by the time they had loaded Dominique onto the ambulance
half of the house had burned to the ground.

Everything was blurry when
Dominique opened her eyes. She felt incredibly light headed and sudden flash
backs of the moment when she was hit by the car came flooding back to her,
except this time Adam was by her side.

She pulled off the oxygen mask
momentarily to speak to Adam.

“Adam, the baby.”

“You and the baby are going to be
fine Dominique they're taking you to the hospital now baby, I love you so much
Dominique.” 

“The last time you told me that, I
never saw you again Adam,” she said in a tearful voice.

Adam frowned, she was right.
“Dominique I promise you, I’m not leaving you. I'll be right next to you.”

“I love you Adam.” Dominique
managed before passing out again.

“Sir we really need to get her to
the hospital, you can climb in next to your wife sir.”

Adam felt helpless as he climbed in
and watched the paramedics attend to his wife.

On the way to the hospital, Adam
called his parents.

“We'll be right there son, just
hold on.”

“Muriel, get dressed as quickly as
you can.”

“What is it Jonathan?”

“There's been a fire at the house.”

“Oh my god, what happened, are the
kids alright?” She cried.

“Adam is but he's in the ambulance
with Dominique. I'll phone the others in their rooms and tell them to meet us at
the hospital.”

Muriel felt her heart sink; she
knew that if Dominique lost this baby, she would not be able to recover from
the loss.

Jonathan dropped Muriel off at the
hospital and headed back over to the cottage. He wanted to speak to the fire
chief and find out exactly how the fire got started. He also wanted to find out
if the chief thought arson was involved because if it was, Jonathan had a
pretty good idea of who set the fire.

While he waited for the fire
department to get things under control, Jonathan made a call to his
investigator Paul and asked him to find and follow Brandon.

“You want me to follow your own son
Mr. Caruso?”

“No, I want you to find Brandon
DiNunzio. And so I don’t have to repeat myself, Peter DiNunzio is Brandon's
biological father. I need you to find him, follow him and find out his
whereabouts for the past few days. Get back to me as soon as you find out.”

“Yes Mr. Caruso.”

Jonathan was hanging up the phone
when the fire chief approached.

“Are you the homeowner, Mr.
Caruso?”

“Yes it’s our summer home, or it
was,” he said looking dismally at the charred mounds of wood.

“Sir it looks like arson, there was
no way that this was an accident. Whoever set this, was trying to kill the
occupants. They even went so far as to bolt the doors from the outside. Exactly
who was in this house Mr. Caruso?”

 
“My son and his wife were the only ones in the
house, they just got married...well yesterday,” he said looking at his watch.

“Well do they have any enemies? I
mean you gotta be pretty cruel to try and kill somebody on their wedding night.
And did I hear right that your son's wife is pregnant?”

“Yes she is and if you don’t mind,
I need to get to the hospital to check on her.”

“Certainly, when I find out more
I’ll be in touch sir.”

As soon as Muriel arrived at the
hospital, she pulled Adam into her arms, there was no time to talk as a nurse
came out and rushed Adam into Dominique's hospital room. The moment he set foot
in the room, a feeling of dread came over him. Several doctors and nurses where
standing next to Dominique as she lie unconscious in the hospital bed. They all
turned as Adam approached.

“Mr. Caruso? I'm Dr. Wallen,” he
said shaking his hand.

“Hello Dr. how is my wife? Are she
and the baby going to be alright?” Adam asked looking hopeful.

“Mr. Caruso, your wife is expected
to make a full recovery, however I’m afraid we lost the baby.

Adam felt as if someone had grabbed
hold of his heart and was squeezing the life out of it. He stood dazed for a
moment and as the tears filled his eyes he could barely make out what the
doctor was telling him.

“Mr. Caruso, we did everything we
could but there was too much smoke inhalation. Between that and the amount of
time that your wife was unconscious, there was nothing more that we could do.

Now your wife was in and out of
consciousness during the whole procedure Mr. Caruso, so she may not remember
what has happened, we thought it best that you be the first face she sees when
she wakes up.  If you need help with anything, just ask one of our nurses.
I am so very sorry for your loss.

The doctor gave Adam's shoulder a
light squeeze before leaving the room.  As the nurses silently filed out
of the room, one of them brought Adam over to the chair and sat him down.

“Sir is there anyone I can call for
you, is there anything I can do?”

Adam fought back tears, “Yes, if
you would be so kind as to ask my mother to come in.”

“Of course sir, I’ll send her right
in.”

As Muriel tiptoed into the room,
she could tell by the anguished look in his eyes that they had lost the baby
and as she held her sobbing son in her arms she couldn’t help but think of how
they were going to break the horrible news to Dominique when she awoke. It
wasn’t until much later that Adam even spoke to his mother who was still
cradling him in her arms.

“How am I going to tell her mom,
how?” He sobbed.

“Son, we'll do it together, but the
most important thing right now Adam is that the two of you get through this
together.”

“It's my fault that this happened
you know if I had been paying more attention to her I would have seen that she
was passed out. I am the reason she lost the baby.” This time his whole body
shook with fear and sorrow.

“She's going to wake up and find
out that our baby is gone and she's going to hate me, she's going to wish she
never laid eyes on me, look what I’ve done to her mom,
just
look at what I’ve done.”

“Adam, sweetheart, oh my poor
sweetheart, that's not true, none of this is your fault. Honey look at me, this
is the result of some sick individual, not you Adam. Whoever set that fire is a
very sick person and you had nothing what so ever to do with it. Now I want you
to pull yourself together Adam because you’re going to have to be strong for
your wife, you’re going to have to be there for her now more than ever Adam.

Now come with me, we'll splash some
cold water on your face then we will go and see if your father has arrived.
Everything will be alright Adam, we will get through this together,” Muriel
promised her son and took him into her arms once
more.             

As she led him out into the
hallway, Muriel was glad to see that Dominique's closest friends and Jonathan
were the only ones in the small waiting room.

Tears of sorrow flowed as Muriel
told them the terrible news before breaking down herself. Pam and Rob held each
other close as they relived the time when Dominique had learned that she lost
her husband and son almost three years ago. “She won't recover from this Rob,”
his wife cried into his arms.

“Yes she will baby, she's strong,
and we’ll help her get through it just like when she lost Stephen and Teddy.”

Hearing that sent Adam over the
edge, he didn’t want to think of the impending grief that his wife was about to
endure all over again. Getting up from his seat he pushed through the small
crowd and took off running, he wanted to run until he could no longer feel the
pain.

Once he reached outside, the tears
returned with a vengeance. He wanted to hit something, anything, he wanted to
hit it so hard that whatever it was would feel as bad as he did.

He clenched his fists and began
pacing, pacing back and forth, muttering to himself that he would find the
murderer of his baby and kill them, kill them with his bare hands.

His father's voice brought him out
of his silent rage.

“Son,” he said placing his hands on
Adam's shoulders, Dominique is awake and she's asking for you.”

Chapter Twenty Nine

Before she even opened her eyes,
Dominique felt the loss. She was cold, and when she instinctively placed her
hands on her belly, she started to scream, she hoped and prayed that it was all
a terrible dream and that by screaming she would be able to wake herself up,
but as the nurse came bounding into the room she realized that it was not a
dream, that she and Adam's baby was gone. Adam could hear the screaming as he
ran down the hallway to her room. And as he passed the waiting room he saw them
all sobbing, sobbing for Dominique as her screams had brought them all into her
nightmare.

Adam held her all night long, even
after the nurse had given Dominique a strong sedative, he held her. Just
knowing that she wanted and needed him there with her was reassurance enough to
him that they would make it through.

As he stretched out in the back
seat of his rental car, Brandon did a few lines to celebrate. Not only did he
get rid of Adam and Dominique, but he also managed to burn the entire house
down. That was something even he wasn’t expecting.
This will definitely move
me up among the ranks. No
more lame
ass jobs for me,
now it’s time for me to start telling those assholes what to do.

For a moment, Brandon thought about
going back to the scene just to make sure they were dead, but he thought better
of it when he remembered almost three years ago he had gotten out of his car to
see the dead bodies of Stephen Greenway and his kid.

“Ain't
no
way I’m going back there,” he said out loud, “I'm catching the ferry back to
civilization first thing in the morning.”

While the others returned to the
inn to get some much needed rest, Adam stayed at the hospital with Dominique.
It wasn’t until the next morning that the pain and reality of it all once again
hit her. But this time she held onto Adam as if her life depended on it. He had
told her that he would be strong for the both of them and that they would get
through it all together. But the moment Dominique told him that it was okay to
let it out and that she wanted to be there for him as well, he let go, and
together they mourned the loss of their child.

Dominique knew there was no sense
in reliving the past, she didn’t have the strength to continue mourning the
deaths of Stephen, Teddy and the baby, she had felt the familiar emptiness for
so long and she didn’t know if she could do it again.

She thanked god that Adam was being
so very strong for her. The following day they had chosen to have a small
memorial in the hospital chapel to say goodbye. Dominique had told the small
group of friends and family that she hoped that Stephen and Teddy were there to
watch over her and keep her. That was all that she could say before her eyes
flooded with tears. Once the small service was over, Dominique wanted to get
out of the hospital. She wanted to go, she no longer wanted to be stuck in the
hospital where their baby died,
she
wanted to distance
herself as far away as she could.

“Mrs. Caruso, you still need to
recover, you've had a tremendous loss, not only to your body but to your mind
as well, I’m going to discharge you but I highly recommend counseling for both
you and your husband,” he said looking at the both of them.

“Thank you doctor, but we'll be
just fine,” Dominique said as she held Adam’s hand.

Adam had booked them a flight back
to Boston, it was much quicker than the ferry and they had nothing left back at
the house. He would hire someone to pick up his car and return with it on the
ferry once he got a hold of the replacement keys that were being sent to him by
the dealer. In the meantime, he'd rent or buy a new one if he had to. Getting
Dominique home safely was his only priority right now.

When Brandon got on the morning
ferry, he made sure to blend in with the other passengers and got himself a cup
of coffee and the local newspaper.  He tried to conceal the smile on his
face as he read the headline:
Hours after private wedding, one of
Nantucket's oldest homes goes up in flames.

But how come there was nothing
about the deaths? He wondered to himself as leaned back and began to read the
entire article. It wasn’t until he had gotten towards the end when he read
,
the two occupants inside, Mr. and Mrs. Adam Caruso escaped unharmed but Mrs.
Caruso who was five months pregnant was taken to the hospital where she lost
the baby. Unsure of whether or not foul play is suspected, police say it’s too
early to tell as they are still investigating the cause of the fire.

Brandon forgot where he was and
cursed out loud. “Son of a bitch!”

Several passengers turned and
looked at him but only for a moment as he made up an excuse.

“Yeah, sorry about that, it's a
shame about that old house that burned,” he lied, as he held up the newspaper.

Some passengers nodded, but most of
them turned away and went back to doing whatever it was that they were doing.

“This bitch is unbreakable,” he
muttered to himself before crumpling up the newspaper and throwing it into a
garbage can.

When DiNunzio found out that
Brandon had not only burned down the entire house, but locked Dominique and
Adam inside of it, he was livid. He had not known that Dominique was pregnant
and if there was one thing DiNunzio couldn’t tolerate, it was causing harm to a
woman who was pregnant.