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Panic bubbles at the surface of my brain. Okay, deep breath. It could be nothing more than stress… right? Bile rises in my throat. There's a hand gripping my heart. Gripping the muscle tightly. My chest hurts. Dear lord. What if… No, it's impossible.
Right away, I pull out my phone and go straight to Google. I type in ‘Can stress affect menstruation’ in the search bar. Yes, it's possible, and perhaps that's what I subconsciously chalked it up to. All the stress I've been under.
I wish that made me feel better and made me believe further that it’s not possible. However, any time you have sex, you’re putting yourself at risk of pregnancy. Still, the chances of it actually occurring has to be low, right? Even if I missed a pill, it’s only one. I’m sure it’s possible, but is it probable? With my luck, sure it is. All these years of being careful, it would be like me to accidentally get pregnant at the worst possible time in my life.
That might not even be the problem—something else could be wrong with me. Maybe I’m not pregnant at all, maybe I’m just sick. There I go again, freaking myself out until I can hardly breathe. The easiest way to know is to make an appointment with a doctor as soon as possible. Otherwise, I’m going to go crazy searching the web for information until I convince myself that I have a brain tumor.
Forcing steady, even breaths into my lungs I settle back against the pillows. It’s probably nothing, anyway, plus I won't get anywhere on a Sunday afternoon. Not unless I want to go to the ER, and that’s not worth the money or explanation. I try to focus on the documentary, yet no amount of trying gets the thoughts to go away. My brain is like a tilt-a-whirl, spinning around and around. How can I have a hundred different scenarios running through my head all at once?
And some of them—such as what my dad would do if he found out I was pregnant with Callum's baby—are way uglier than anything I've seen so far. Even worse, yes, Callum and I have discussed having a baby. I know he wants a child with me, but talking about having a baby and having one are two different things. With everything hanging in the balance, I’m not sure our already fragile relationship can take the weight of something that big. Moreover, I’m not sure I can take the weight of something that big.
CALLUM
Bianca is here. Safe. Secure. It amazes me how that knowledge makes me feel. Being aware of her presence calms me. It allows me to think clearly, focus. All because I don't have to worry about where she is, what she's doing, or if she’s safe.
And if I want to see her, I can find her.
All the more reason to keep her here permanently.
One thing at a time. One step after another. Soon I’m going to make this a reality for both of us. I just have to get through a few things first.
“What took you so long to get back?” I ask Romero once he returns to my office. “You were supposed to be getting coffee.” And here he is, with empty hands.
Hands which he looks down at before shrugging. “Right. Sheryl sent me on an errand to grab some tea for your daughter as soon as I walked into the kitchen.”
“Is she sick?”
“In a manner of speaking.” When I raise my brows, he waves a hand. “Womanly stuff. She’ll be fine. Sorry, I was distracted.”
“It doesn't matter.” I rotate my laptop to show him what I've been looking at. “The report you brought me is the sanitized version Charlie was talking about.”
“That's what they gave me. I asked for all the information they had on the autopsy. All of it.”
I’m almost disappointed in whoever was behind this. “They weren't even smart about covering things up, were they?”
“What do you mean?”
“Read over the report. Carefully. Tell me, what did they miss?” I sit back in my chair, watching his eyes scan the screen. He's typically good at picking up on the minor details. Then again, he may not have read over the report before giving it to me.
In my mind, I can’t help but wonder how they get away with this. It's obviously a cover-up—a copy-and-paste version. Which tells me the people Charlie went to about this either didn't care to check out the woman's autopsy report, figuring they were dealing with a grieving husband trying to come up with someone to blame, or they knew exactly what they would find and were more interested in convincing him to let it go.
“The wounds to her head.” His eyes meet mine, his brows drawing together. “They didn't change the diagram.”
“Exactly.” The report mentions a pair of small wounds to the back and front of her head and a crushing blow to the chest, like she hit the steering wheel too hard when she crashed. Cause of death: blunt force trauma.
