Echoes in the Bayou (42 page)

She'd
tried putting the phone to her ear as she stared at th
e back of the young attendant in front of her; he was trying his best
to prevent Steve from getting any closer to her.

He
roughly pushed the young man aside as he approached her.

"It's
okay I know who you're talking to, tell him goodbye and then hang up the
phone." The tone of his voice was one that she had never heard before, and
it was unnerving
.

"
I said, tell him goodbye Ava!" This time he
shouted and got so close she could see the dried blood that had caked just
underneath his nostrils. He forced the phone to her ear. "Now say goodbye."

 
She fought hard to find her voice. "Goodbye."

"Now
say I love you
."

"I
love you.
"

"Jesus,
you've got to say it with more feeling than that," he grabbed the phone
from her
.

"Hey
Magnus, say how do you like Vermont so far?"

"Steve,
let her go and we'll forget this ever happened.
"

"No can
do buddy she ruined my plans, she ruined our plans, we were supposed to climb
to the top together. I mean shit, I was about to get you locked into the
network for four movies Magnus, four! Do you know what that would have done for
your career? For my career? I'll tell you what it would have done; it would
have opened a hell of a lot more doors. But you let it all go, and for what?
For a woman? For love? Oh that's bullshit man, these women don’t want love,
they want money. Money talks and bullshit walks my friend but your old
fashioned aren’t you? You always did believe in that love bullshit."

Ava felt
the contraction while Steve was using her phone. The pain was something she'd
never experienced before and she hoped that it would subside and quickly. She
looked at the attendant and swallowed back tears. In a soothing voice he said,
"Everything is going to be alright, trust me."

"Looks
like somebody might be going into labor," Steve sai
d, a devilish grin crept across his face.

"Let
me talk to Ava Steve, I'm beggin
g you.
Please!" He shouted into the phone.

"You've
got ten seconds.
"

"Ava?"

"Magnus,
I think I'm in labor," she said her voice shaky. She was fighting back
tears.

"Magnus,
if I don’t make it…"

"And
she won't!" Steve shouted from the background.

"Ava
li
sten to me, try and keep him calm. I'm coming
for you. Ava I …"

"Time's
up buddy goodbye.
"

Magnus
screamed into the phone but it was no use. He called 911 the moment Steve
disconnected the call. He remembered the Gas and Go station but his memory drew
a blank when he tried to recall its exact location.  "Goddamnit why
can't I remember?" He cursed and punched the steering wheel. As he started
to drive in the general vicinity of the gas station, his conscience
interjected.
Listen for the sirens,
it advised
.
And when he heard them, the sound was like music to
his ear's, he got behind them as they sped by.

"Now
I want you over here and you over there." Steve waved the gun at them.

"Why
are you doing this?" She cried.
At first it
only felt like bad cramps, but now the pain was getting more and more intense.

"Did
you not hear me when I was on the phon
e talking
with Magnus?" Steve roared.

She was
staring at him now, sweat was pouring down his face and his nose had started
to bleed.

"Steve
I know you're hurting but please, you can't do this. I'm in labor for god's
sake!" She screamed at him.
  She was
getting agitated with him and needed him to go away.

 
The harder she tried pleading with him the angrier he
got. It wasn’t until the attendant drew Steve's attention away from her and
towards himself that she was able to hear the sirens.

"Listen
budd
y you don’t want to do this," the
attendant said his voice incredibly calm.

"Oh
no? And why not?
"

"Because
I won't l
et you. You see, Ava here has helped me
and my wife out of quite a bind and I owe it to her to save her life. So if
anybody is going to die tonight I'm afraid it will be you and only you. But
it's definitely not going to be Ava or her baby."

 
Ava was in such pain that she could barely make out
what the attendant was saying. She held her stomach and doubled over in pain.
Her back felt like spears of flames were being shot at her and she had begun to
sweat. All she wanted to do was lie down and push. A loud and powerful scream
escaped her mouth as she gritted her teeth and tried to breathe through the
excruciating pain.

"This
woman needs to go to the hospital, she's having a baby and the police will be
here any second," he said.
  His voice
still calm.

The hand
that held the gun had started to shake, and Steve wondered what the attendant
had meant when he said that he owed Ava his life
.

Magnus
followed the line of police cars and as the headlights of the cruisers shined
through the gas station wind
ow, he couldn’t help
but notice that now, the place looked completely run down and abandoned. This
cannot be the one that he'd stopped at when he first arrived in town. And it
looked nothing like the place that Ava was describing to him over the phone
less than twenty minutes ago.
What the
hell is going on
? He asked himself. But
there was no time to worry about the circumstances that led her to being there,
because Steve was still inside and was refusing to let her go.

Several
more police had arrived and this time the lights
shining through the window were blinding. "I told you that the police were
on the way.

"Fuck
you!"
Steve shouted at the clerk.

"Put
down
your weapon!" An officer shouted from
outside, but Steve was not listening. He raised his weapon and aimed it at the attendant.
The one shot was enough to shatter the plate glass window and hit him in the
arm with such force that the gun was knocked out of his hand. As he went down,
several officers rushed in and subdued him.

An
officer held Magnus back as his shouts for Ava went unanswered. The room began
to spin and the attendant dove to catch her so she wouldn’t hit the hard floor.
She could feel him gently cradling her. "You're going to be alright
beautiful lady," she heard him whisper right before a funnel of darkness
encased her.

Chapter
Thirty

"Ava,
we're prepping you for surgery. You're going to have to have a C-section."

"Magnus?"
She groaned in pain.

"I'm
right here," he said and held her hand. He was dressed in a pair of scrubs
and his eyes were tearful.

"What's
wrong? What's happening
?" Panic set in as
she watched the nurses moving frantically around.

"You
and the baby are going to be fine," her doc
tor
reassured her. "The baby is in distress Ava so we’ve got to get to work
now. We're going to numb you from the chest down and you won't feel a thing,
but you and Magnus will be able to see and hear everything alright? Now just
relax, take some deep breaths and watch the birth of your baby."

Magnus
leaned down and kissed her on the lips. "I love you," he said before
holding onto her hand. Tears rolled down her face as she watched them make the
incision. Magnus held her head up during the process and tears of joy ran down
their faces as they watched their baby girl being born. Magnus stepped away so
that he could cut the umbilical cord and when he carried the baby over to her,
Ava once again burst into glorious tears. She kissed her little baby and
welcomed her into the world before the nurses took her to the nursery.

"Are
we still going with Nina Celeste?" He smiled and inquired about the baby's
name. "Yes we are," she smiled weakly. They were sewing her up and
she was anxious to hold little Nina. "I love you and I'm so very proud of
you," he said and kissed her once again. 

"I
love you too," she sai
d.

An hour
and a half later, both she and Magnus were able to kiss and hold their new baby
girl.

"Nina
Celeste DuPonte, has a nice
ring to it doesn't
it?" He smiled warmly as he cradled her in his arms.

"Are
you daddy's little girl?" He cooed
.

It was a
sight that Ava had dreamt about during her entire pregnancy. She hoped that
Magnus would come back into her life, and want to share in the joy of being a
parent. And here he was, on cloud nine enjoying every minute. She frowned for a
moment when her thoughts took her back to the night at the gas station. She'd
almost lost the baby and had it not been for the brave clerk, she had no doubt
that things wouldn’t have gone so smoothly. Steve had been out of his mind with
anger and she believed that had the clerk not been able to stall for time, both
she and the baby might not have survived.

Because
she did have a caesarean, she had no choice but to stay in the hospital for a
couple more days.  It wasn’t until her second day there that the police
had come to speak with her; they needed to ask her some questions about the
night Steve held her at gunpoint. He was still in custody they told her and
that local authorities were working with the state of Louisiana. They wanted to
have him extradited; It seemed that he was in trouble there too. He had forged
several contracts and had misappropriated royalty funds from several of his
clients.

Ava only
shook her head when they told her that no matter where Steve ended up, he
wouldn’t be seeing the light of day for a very long time. But it was more than
likely that he would be extradited
back to New
Orleans to serve out his sentence. Magnus was glad that he'd severed all ties
when Steve when he did. The fact that his contract had not been renewed brought
him great peace of mind. He held his daughter and sat close to Ava while the
police questioned her.
 
"Miss
Montgomery, would you mind telling us again how it came to be that you ended up
at that Gas and Go?" The detective asked her.

"Sure,"
she said barely being able to take her eyes off her newborn daughter. A warm
smile stayed on her face as she told the detectiv
es
her story.

"Well
the convenient mart was closed so I drove around looking for someplace else
that was nearby and I happened to see a sign for the Gas and Go."

"And
then what happened?
"

"I
pulled into the parking lot; the attendant came out, knocked on the window and
asked if I wanted him to fill up my tank and after a bit of small talk I went
inside.
"

The
detectives looked at one another briefly before asking her to continue. And by
the time she'd finished telling them the rest of what happened that night, the
two men sat dumbfounded. "Oh my god I completely forgot to ask about the
clerk, is he alright?" Ava asked. She was concerned about him, and wished
she'd asked about him sooner, but in all the confusion, she'd momentarily
forgotten about him.

"Detective,
forgive me but I think we've told you all there is to know about Steve and that
night. Now how come neither one of
you know the
whereabouts of this clerk? I mean the man saved their lives and I'd like the
opportunity to thank him," Magnus said.

The
younger detective said to his partner, "You want to be the one to tell
them?"

"Tell
us what?" Magnus said and softly cooed as little
Nina yawned sleepily in his arms.

"Sir,
ma'am that Gas and go has been abandoned for over 45 years."

Ava
sucked in a deep breath. "What?" She struggled to sit up and the
detective helped her
.

"That's
what's got us so confused.
You say there was a man
there that helped you? An attendant. But there hasn’t been anyone employed
there for like I said, over 45 years."

 
"That's impossible," Magnus said. "When
I first arrived in town I stopped there and spoke to a young man who told me
exactly where to find her," he said looking at Ava.