***
Jennifer looked positively contrite when I arrived at her house an hour later.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know I was out of line.”
I wanted to laugh in her face.
Of course she was out of line. That was what she did.
She was so out of line, so often that I wouldn’t be surprised if my friends called her Out Of Line Jennifer.
“I have some questions for you,” I said tersely, looking at all the shit she had laying around.
It was as if she’d given up cleaning all together when I left, and by the looks of all the take out menus, scattered around, she stopped cooking, too.
“I have to go to a doctor appointment, do you…are you still going with me?” She asked softly.
I shrugged. “Yeah. That’s fine.”
The conversation I wanted to have probably shouldn’t be discussed at a doctor’s office, but I thought that just maybe it’d keep her from throwing a huge fit.
We drove the hospital in my truck that I hadn’t moved from under the carport since I’d left.
As I parked and got out to walk, I wasn’t immune to the looks Jennifer and I got.
Jennifer was beautiful and pregnant, she was stunning.
People looked at us like we were the perfect couple.
Oh, if they only knew!
I hurried to take a seat, and Jennifer didn’t take the one next to me, instead sitting a few seats over.
We sat in silence for five minutes until a nurse called her back.
“You must be so excited. You only have a few more weeks to go!” The nurse said happily. Then, she turned her eyes to me. “I’ve been wondering when you’d show! She always telling us how proud she is of you.”
I gave Jennifer a look that clearly said everything I was feeling, and she looked away with embarrassment.
We waited for the nurse to get done taking Jennifer’s blood pressure, checking the baby’s heartbeat and asking if Jennifer had any concerns.
“I’ve been having what I think are Braxton hicks, but my back’s been hurting for going on a week now,” she said.
That was news to me.
I may not like her very much, but I didn’t want anything to happen to her.
Which reminded me that I needed to get to the point of why I was here with her in the first place.
“Okay, I’ll let the doctor know. He may or may not want to check you,” she said.
I was hoping for not.
I wanted to talk to her, and if he had to check her, I’d have to leave.
“Thank you,” Jennifer said formally.
The nurse smiled and patted her arm, and I wanted to scream at the nurse about how manipulative Jennifer was.
She could make anyone like her.
Anyone.
Well, except me.
I didn’t like her.
Then again, neither did my brothers.
The moment I was left alone with Jennifer, I pulled out a note and handed it to Jennifer to read.
Her eyes widened, and her head hung like I’d gutted her where she sat.
“This man approached me, offered me two hundred thousand dollars to sleep with you. To get some information out of you. I got him your number. Your address off your driver’s license. Little things like that.” Jennifer’s lip trembled, and I never wanted anything more but to put her in her place.
I kept my cool. Barely. She was pregnant with my child after all, and I would never actually hurt her…at least not physically.
“Go on,” I said shortly.
“At first, he just wanted me to sleep with you so he could get pictures of us to blackmail you with should they ever get busted.” Jennifer whispered brokenly. “But when I got pregnant, he decided it would be better to have access to you anytime they wanted it. They planned to use our child to make that happen.”
White hot rage boiled underneath the surface of my carefully calm exterior.
“And that was okay with you?” I asked carefully.
Her eyes met mine, and she looked grief stricken.
“I took every possible precaution when it came to you. I put on a condom for you. I had an IUD. I never intended for this to happen. I just wanted to take care of my…problem, to make it go away,” she cried. “I just wanted to get off of drugs.”
I crossed my arms over my chest.
“And how’d that work out?” I asked.
She shook her head.
“I kicked the drugs in rehab, right before I realized that I was pregnant. So, in a roundabout way, my original problem is gone, but, well, new ones have since emerged,” she admitted.
Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth.
“Why tell me now?” I asked, staring at her stomach.
Oh, how I wished this would’ve happened with Annie.
I wanted Annie to be the woman carrying my child, and not this deceptive bitch in front of me.
“I should be having the baby any day now…and I wanted you to know…in case Liam tries something,” she whispered.
I looked away from her to the wall beyond her head.
“You’re going to sign the paper relinquishing all parental rights to this child and giving sole custody to me. You will leave and never look back. You’ll never try to contact us again, ever. And by us, I mean me, the baby, Annie, my friends. Anyone in my life at all. I’ll get you out. I have a plan in motion through some contacts who can and will make you disappear. You’ll do everything they tell you to do, exactly as they instruct you to do it, and you’ll be able to live your life with a clean slate and a fresh start,” I said slowly, succinctly, making myself clear and leaving no room for negotiation.
Jennifer started to sob.
“But I-I-I want m-my baby. She s-saved my life,” she cried.
I just stared at her.
“I am a law enforcement officer, Jennifer. You actively colluded with a drug dealer to drug me with the intent of raping me in order to get photographs for this dealer to use in an attempt to blackmail me. Despite your precautions, you became pregnant as a result of your role in these crimes against me. Now you have a drug dealer on your back who will not hesitate to use the baby to get to me directly and to keep you in line to get to me indirectly. There is no way that you can safely participate in the baby’s life without putting either of you in danger. To avoid either becoming the dealer’s puppet for life or the possibility of prosecution for your crimes, your only real option is to run, to never look back and to start over. Don’t you agree?” I asked carefully.
She shook her head vehemently. “No, you’re r-right. I’ll do it, I’ll go. And, Mig, I… I’m sorry. If that’s even worth anything to you now.”
I shrugged. “Maybe some day it’ll mean something. But right now, everything you told me is just too fresh and new. You raped me. I just don’t understand how doing that to me—to anyone—was a fair price to pay so you could get drug money. Most likely, I’ll never understand.”
She cried harder.
The doctor came in, and he looked at Jennifer with sympathy.
“Hormones make a lot of women cry uncontrollably,” the doctor said, misunderstanding the situation.
I didn’t correct him, because, honestly, I had no idea how to tell the doctor that the minute the baby was born, I intended to take her as far away from Jennifer as I could get her.
He’d wonder why, and then I’d have to lie, because no matter what, I would never make Jennifer out to be the devil.
“The nurse tells me that you’re having a back ache?” The doctor asked.
Jennifer nodded.
“Yeah, it’s been like this for the past week,” she replied.
And as I left the doctor’s office with a still sobbing Jennifer twenty minutes later, I was seriously regretting the decision not to tell the doctor just how much I disliked Jennifer and why.