In dire need of some Tylenol and a glass of water, she stumbled on shaky legs to the bathroom. It was then she noticed the blood trickling down the inside of her thighs, and she tried valiantly not to panic. There was way too much blood, even for the heavy periods she suffered from, and the way it was seeping out in a steady flow made her realize she needed to get to a doctor right away.

Struggling not to pass out, she managed to clean herself up as best she could, forcing back alarm when she saturated a sanitary pad within minutes. She called Ian first, even though he was in Las Vegas, because she desperately needed to hear his calm, steady voice telling her what to do next. She shouldn’t have been surprised when the call went to voice mail, and chose not to leave a message. Simon had the day off today, though she knew he would have come for her anyway, but in the end she called Julia.

“Hey,” trilled Julia happily. “Working up an appetite for that cheesecake?”

“Julia.” Tessa’s voice was whisper soft. “I - no, I can’t make lunch. I’m - sick, something’s wrong.”

Julia was instantly on alert. “What is it, honey? The flu? God, you sound awful.”

“Not the flu. Thought it was my period but - oh, God, the cramps - so painful. And too much blood.” Tessa was fighting off the urge to retch with every breath she took.

“I’m coming over. Right now. Are you calling from your bedroom? Can you get downstairs to open the door for me?”

Tessa was desperately grateful to learn her friend was on the way. “Think so. I’ll find a way. I’m sorry.”

“Stop it. Nothing to be sorry for. Damn it, Nathan’s already on his way to Napa, and I don’t have my car here with me today. I know, I’ll get Travis to drive me, he’s a crazy man behind the wheel so we’ll get there in record time. Tessa - if this gets any worse before we arrive, call 911 immediately, okay? I’m walking out of my office now to get Travis, and I’ll have my phone in hand if you have to call. Just hang on, okay?”

“Okay. See you soon.” Tessa slumped to the bathroom floor, just the effort of talking sapping the little energy she had left.

She half stumbled, half crawled into the walk-in closet to find a pair of slip-on shoes and then grabbed her purse from the bedroom. Somehow she managed to get herself downstairs, largely by sitting and sliding down on her butt one stair at a time. Try as she might, she couldn’t summon the energy to get up off the bottom step, her head swimming nauseatingly and the pain in her abdomen so severe she was sobbing.

While she waited for Julia and Travis to arrive, her fevered brain vaguely recalled that she still needed to call Ian. Once again the call went to voice mail, but this time she left him a short, succinct message.

“Hey, it’s me. Sorry to bother you and please don’t worry because it’s probably nothing. Julia is going to drive me to the doctor’s office just to get checked out. I’ll call you when I know more, okay? Love you.”

Another vicious, stabbing pain ripped through her belly as she ended the call, and she cried out in agony, wrapping her arms around her midsection. She gasped as she felt a fresh gush of blood seep down her thighs, and this time she did panic when she saw the spreading stain on her sweatpants. Tessa had no idea what was happening to her, but she knew this was far more serious than just a heavy period.

The effort it took to crawl to the front door and open it when the doorbell rang depleted what was left of her strength. Tessa wasn’t even aware when she slumped to the ground in a dead faint, and most certainly didn’t hear the alarmed voices of Julia and Travis.

***

Doctors, nurses, and whoever else might have been walking through the hallways at University Medical Center were quick to move out of the way of the tall, dark haired man in the gray pinstriped suit. The look on his face was deadly serious, and passers-by glanced away hastily when they glimpsed the fire in his eyes and the tight set to his mouth. No one would have dared to think of approaching him as he strode purposefully down the hall.

Ian was fighting to suppress the rising panic he felt with each step that brought him ever closer to the visitor waiting room where Julia would be meeting him. The last few hours had been nothing less than nightmarish, and his brain was a jumble of thoughts and emotions, none of which made the least bit of sense right now. He was terrified at not knowing what was going on with Tessa, trying to remain positive and not assume the worst, but also about two breaths shy of a full blown anxiety attack. He was furious at himself for having waited so long to check his bloody voice mail, a full three hours after Tessa had left that last message, her voice barely audible. And he was cursing the casino manager for his treachery that had required Ian’s presence in Las Vegas these past three days. If he hadn’t had to fly out there to clean up the mess, he would have been here with Tessa, able to look after her properly.

Ian had alternately scolded and teased Tessa about the so-called premonitions she felt at times, particularly on Wednesdays, which she still insisted were cursed somehow. But he himself had woken very early on this particular Wednesday, before dawn in fact, and the unsettled feeling he’d had then continued to nag at him all morning. He’d done a full hour of swimming laps in the hotel pool, hoping it would both ease his stress and dispel these odd feelings he kept having. Not wanting to wake Tessa too early, he’d sent her a text before heading off to resume the grueling round of meetings about the increasingly complex money laundering operation. He’d excused himself at various intervals to call her, growing more and more concerned when she didn’t answer her phone or reply to his messages. Then, finally, there had been that brief text apologizing for having overslept, and assuring him she’d call soon.

He’d felt instant relief at that point, assured that all was well, and had returned to the meeting. Things had begun to develop at a rapid pace at that point, and before he knew it the morning had all but disappeared and it was already noon.

In between bites of a hastily consumed lunch, Ian had fielded three rather urgent phone calls from the San Francisco office before he’d finally pulled out his personal phone to check for messages.

The voice mail from Tessa had put him on instant alert, for he could immediately sense the fear in her voice that she had so unsuccessfully tried to mask. But it was the next three messages, all placed from Tessa’s phone but left by Julia, that had sent him into a full blown panic.