Always Watching (28 page)

“
Hmm-mmm,” he said. 
A moment later Velcro broke the silence.  “Your blood pressure
is excellent.  I would expect to find a little variance from
the norm if this is stress, or perhaps even a low pressure from all
of this vomiting Johnny says you’ve endured.  Let’s talk about
that a little more.”

He pulled a stool to the edge of the exam
table and perched on it.  “Is the nausea worse at any specific
time?  Smells trigger it, worse after you eat?  More
pronounced at a certain time of day?”

“
I’m not … ”  I
glanced at Johnny.  “I guess I haven’t really paid much
attention to when or why.  It’s… well, I hate that particular
symptom more than anything in the world, doctor.  It’s very
distressing for me.”

“
Johnny?  Any
observations you’d like to share?”

He cleared his throat and stared at the
floor for a few moments.  “Helen, I’d like to speak frankly,
but I don’t want you upset with me.”

“
Upset?”

Our eyes met.  “I love you, and I’m
worried.  Please don’t be angry when I tell Dr. Schwartz what
I’ve noticed.”

“
All right,” I said
softly.  Tightness enveloped my throat, burning hot and
strangling me with unease.  Exactly what had he
noticed?

“
It’s definitely worse in
the morning,” Johnny said.  He focused his attention on Dr.
Schwartz so completely, I might as well have been invisible. 
“But as worrisome as the nausea and vomiting have been, I’m more
concerned with the loss of appetite and mood swings, Dr.
Schwartz.  Helen is the toughest woman I know.  For her
to burst into tears at the drop of a hat is uncharacteristic. 
I blame myself for most of that.  Under orders from my boss, I
was forced to keep Helen in the dark about a case I’ve been working
for Joe.”

“
And you’re concern is
that Helen’s current symptoms are related to anxiety over your
job?”

“
Yes,” Johnny said
curtly.  “She suffered a bout of what I would term pretty
serious depression last fall after she was shot, and I’m afraid
–”

Schwartz held up one hand, effectively
silencing Johnny.  He turned his gaze on me and smiled
empathically.  “Helen, do you think you’re depressed?”

I hadn’t considered it.  I only used
the Prozac for a few weeks after my radiologist of all people
intervened to treat what my orthopedic surgeon ignored.  “I
don’t think I’m depressed.  I don’t feel like curling up in a
ball and sleeping my life away.”

“
Dear, when was your last
menstrual period?” Schwartz asked.

“
Before I was shot,” I
said.  “I’ve never been what you’d call… well…”

“
Predictable?”  He
smiled again.

“
For lack of a more
explicit definition, yes.  Do you think this is some kind of
early menopause?”

Schwartz chuckled.  “Helen, are you and
Johnny using birth control of any kind?  I see that you’ll be
thirty-nine in a few months.  That’s far from the age where
hormonal issues –”

“
I am
not
pregnant!” I gasped.

“
Then you do use something
to prevent pregnancy?”

“
Of course!”

“
All right, then lets
consider the efficacy of that method,” Schwartz said.  He
rolled his stool over to a cabinet beneath a small countertop and
opened the door.  A moment later, he pressed a urine
collection cup into my hand.  “What sort of contraception are
you using?  The pill at your age –”

“
Condoms,” Johnny
said.  “Except for once, about two months ago.”

Schwartz pointed toward a door opposite the
exit of the exam room.  “Then let’s get a urine sample right
away, Helen, and rule out the most obvious cause of this malady
before we start looking at more serious problems.”

At the moment, I couldn’t imagine a malady
worse that what he suggested.  I slipped into the tiny
bathroom praying for something – anything more benign that what he
suggested.

Terminal cancer came to mind.

Chapter 23

I stared malevolently at
the enormous bottle of prenatal vitamins in my hand – or maybe it
was in stunned disbelief.  Abject terror?  Johnny
insisted that I wait in the SUV while he ran inside Central and
snatched the files from Charlie Haverston. 
Ran
. 

Floated into the building was a more apt
description.  I don’t get it.  Yes, I freely admit it,
that the mysterious ways of men in love have me completely
baffled.

He had to notice that my
reaction to the news of our impending parenthood had me less than
thrilled.  I think my exact words were something in the
neighborhood of, “Like
hell
am I pregnant!”

His euphoria clearly plugged his ears to
anything he didn’t want to hear.  Either that, or Johnny
simply accepted the mood swings for what they were, or what they
would continue to be after Dr. Schwartz verbose dissertation on
pregnancy and every ugly potential side effect.

Johnny hadn’t stopped beaming.

I hadn’t stopped crying.

Delusion-boy probably forced himself to see
tears of joy.

I mourned the end of all good things. 
No more freedom.  No more options.  No more getting
sucked into dangerous investigations, even though a short two
months ago, I swore on the proverbial stack of bibles that I was
sick to death of chasing monsters. 

But pregnancy?

Give me Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy
and John Wayne Gacy all rolled into one.  They were heaven
compared to this latest development.

Still, the natural solution to the problem,
the one that my brain knew but dared not utter, was clearly not an
option.

Johnny.  Catholicism.  Stupid,
dastardly, soul-sucking, will-crumbling love.  As much as the
notion of diapers and nocturnal feedings and seven more months of
morning sickness and weight gain and stretch marks made my spirits
delve to the depths of hell, Johnny’s pain and disappointment in me
if I were to do something utterly stupid and selfish nixed any such
inclinations.

Unless nature intervened.

The universe hates you, Helen. 
Remember that Karmic debt you started tallying last year?

Not only do I hate my lack of viable
options, I despise the fact that my newly repaired conscience
doesn’t know when to shut up and stop needling me.  Internal
war seems to be my true forte in life.  Heart versus
brain.  Heart was winning.

Dammit.

The driver’s door swung open and Johnny
climbed inside the Expedition.  The goofy grin was replaced by
grim-set lips.  His jaw muscle ticked.

“
What’s wrong?”  My
head started praying. 
Please let him
have come to his senses.  Let him see what a bad idea this
pregnancy nonsense really is. 

“
Oh, it’s nothing really,”
he said.  “I don’t want you worrying –”

“
For God’s sake,
Johnny.  I’m pregnant, not brain dead.”  Not yet
anyway.  Wasn’t that one of the delightful experiences I had
to look forward too?  Difficulty concentrating.  Easy
distraction.  “Where are the files?”

“
Hmm?”

“
Don’t play dumb with
me.  Where are the files that Charlie pulled?  Is this
more sin to lay at Jerry Lowe’s feet?”

“
Not sure,” he
muttered.  “We’ll talk about it later.”

“
We will talk about it
now.  I’m not kidding, Johnny.  I will not allow you to
treat me like some fragile –”

“
Fine,” he rasped, “but
you have to give me your word that you won’t say anything to Crevan
until I figure out how to handle this information.”

“
Crevan?” the echo sort of
hung in the air between us, bouncing around the walls of the SUV,
slamming into molecules that couldn’t possibly absorb the
shock.  “What on earth does any of this have to do with
Crevan?”

“
Promise me
first.”

“
Fine,” I rolled my eyes
in a huff.  “I promise I won’t say one word about whatever it
is you’re not telling me to Crevan.”

“
That missing infant from
the early seventies?”

I nodded.  No way did I see where he
was going.  In retrospect, I would blame my blind stupidity on
pregnant brain cells.

“
The infant was a
twin.”

“
So?  What’s that got
to do with anything?”

“
The child’s last name was
Conall.”

The echo that would not be
absorbed slammed through me and stuck.  “Oh my God.  His
father said that his twin brother died, not that he was…
was…
stolen
!  What the hell is wrong with that man?”

Johnny shook his head.  “Apparently the
commandment about lying means very little to Aidan Conall.”

“
Jesus,
Johnny.”

“
That isn’t the half of
it, Helen.”

“
There’s more?”

He nodded.  “The similarities in that
missing infant were remarkably close to those of Sofia
Datello.  Only the nurse they suspected of stealing Crevan’s
twin disappeared along with the baby.”

My lips rolled inward.  “Anything
else?”

“
The nurse’s name was
Martha.  Martha Henderson.”

“
Is that name supposed to
mean something to me?”

“
Of course not,” Johnny
said.  “And why should it?  It was the one aspect of this
case that the police solved.”

“
So who is she?  What
did she do with the baby?”

“
They learned that the
name was an alias.  Obviously the child was never
recovered.  Martha Henderson or whoever she was, was never
apprehended, never seen or heard from again.”

“
All right.”

“
Helen, Crevan’s twin
wasn’t a brother.”

My eyes widened.  “Why would his father
lie about something like that?”

“
I have no idea, but
believe me, I intend to find out.”

“
Wait,” I said.  “I
know what you’re thinking, Johnny.  Confronting Aidan Conall
isn’t going to do any good right now.  Unless you suspect that
he had something to do with the disappearance of his child, he
won’t be able to give you any answers that will advance this
investigation.”

“
I don’t think he had
anything to do with it.”  Johnny’s clenched fist hammered the
steering wheel rhythmically.  “What I demand to know is why he
lied about this to Crevan for all these years.  What was the
point of that, Doc?  And why tell Crevan his twin was
stillborn?”

“
I’m sure his answers
would be fascinating, but probably more lies,” I said.  “And
again, a pointless avenue.  Other than the nurse’s
disappearance along with the baby, are there other similarities to
our infant abduction?”

Johnny shook his head.  “I don’t
know.  I haven’t been able to get past the part that Crevan
has a twin sister that might well have been abducted and sold into
slavery floating around out there somewhere.”

My heart quickened.  This was good
news.  At last, we had a new avenue of exploration in our
human trafficking case.  More important, something had
stripped that hopeful and utterly sappy expression out of Johnny’s
gaze.

Denial is an easy friend, always there when
you need her most.  I shoved the prenatal vitamins in my purse
as discreetly as possible.  “I think we should take the files
home and dissect them thoroughly, Johnny.  Before we can be
sure that either one of them is related to the Datello infant’s
kidnapping, we’ve got to have more than a couple of circumstantial
similarities.”

“
Agreed,” he said
grimly.  Daddy-to-be made a brief reappearance.  Johnny’s
gaze softened.  His fingers splayed over my belly with a
tenderness that might’ve made me weep if not for denial.  “Are
you sure you’re up to this right now, Helen?  I know you’re
still absorbing the shock of what Dr. Schwartz –”

“
I absolutely need this
right now, Johnny.  Please don’t be hurt by this, but I cannot
think about what Schwartz said to us this afternoon.  I know
you’re thrilled.  Please promise me that we’ll keep this
little development private for the time being.”

He cleared his throat and stared hard at the
dashboard.  “Well, that’s the thing, Helen.  A few people
already suspected it.”

“
Who?” I
demanded.

“
Maya. 
Crevan.”

“
Then we’ll tell them
they’re wrong.  And by we, I mean you.”

“
Why?”  A tiny
measure of hurt crept into his voice.

“
Haven’t you claimed from
day one how well you know me?  For heaven’s sake,
Johnny.  I’m not even ready to discuss this with you
yet.”

Slowly, his head turned.  Eyes impaled
me.  And there it was.  That heart-wrenching,
guilt-evoking hurt in his eyes.  It shamed me, broke my will,
sapped my strength, stole my ability to lie and make everything
better.  “We will talk eventually.  I’ll get over the
shock.”

“
Is that why can’t you
talk to me about our baby yet?”

Fetus.  It’s a fetus!

I sucked in a slow, deep breath.  “I
have to process the shock before I can talk about it, Johnny. 
Right now, I’m having a hard time believing that I won’t wake up in
a couple of hours with heartburn and a hangover.”