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Dread snakes its way through me at having to tell Allaire how badly I messed up.
I nudge the emotion aside and for now remain blissfully in the bubble. The bubble I would be in if circumstances were different. If the father of my baby weren’t a Wehrmacht officer and our countries weren’t at war.
56
Troy
August, Present Day
Maple Ridge
* * *
The next morning, Jess and I drive to Eugene to meet with Lucas’s college friend, Blake. Lucas called him last night and told him Jess and I need to talk to him about something important. Because Blake’s schedule is filled for the day, we had to leave before sunrise to meet him first thing.
“Early mornings should be against the law,” Jess grumbles. “Especially after you’ve had multiple orgasms the night before.”
I chuckle, guilty of waking her at 3 a.m., but not regretting it for a second. “We’ll grab some coffee first. Lucas figured that will go a long way with his caffeine-addicted friend.”
We pick up drinks for the three of us from Blake’s favorite coffee house and enter the law firm where he works. A woman with a puff of short white hair is sitting behind a computer. She looks up at us and smiles. “Good mornin’. Who do you have an appointment with?” Her words are infused with a slight Northern Irish brogue.
“Blake Wright. We’re Troy and Jessica.”
Her smile widens, wrinkles crinkling around her eyes. “I would ask if you’d like some coffee, but I see you’ve already visited the coffee gods and bought Blake a small sacrifice.” She buzzes him to let him know we’re here.
He steps out of his office a minute later. He and I man-hug.
“This is Jessica.” I avoid giving him her last name for now. I don’t know his receptionist enough to trust her.
He takes us into his office and shuts the door. “Have a seat and tell me what I can do for you two.” He sits in the chair behind the desk and takes a sip of the coffee we brought him.
“Just to be sure, nothing we tell you will be shared with anyone else?” I ask. Lucas hasn’t told him much about the situation. I thought it would be better for Blake to hear it from us.
Blake puts his coffee down and leans forward, folded arms on his desk. “Normally, that only applies to lawyer-client confidentiality. But I’m going to treat our discussion as though you’re my clients.”
We spend the next ten minutes filling him in on everything. Not a single detail is skipped. Jess does most of the talking. Blake asks the occasional question and jots notes on a legal pad.
“Your friend’s situation is tricky,” he says once we’re finished. “But I agree, she needs to get out of her current circumstances. She and her daughter need to get to a safe location. And the hospital or police would need to take photos of your injuries, Jessica, as well as your friend’s. To document them so they can be used at trial.”
“A friend of mine, who’s a doctor at Maple Ridge Hospital, took photos of Jess’s injuries when I took her there Sunday night.” Samuel only knew that she might eventually need the photos. He also knew we couldn’t tell him everything at that point.
“Do you think your friend will corroborate what happened Sunday night when her husband entered your house?” he asks Jess.
“I don’t know. She’s scared. She tried to escape him, but he found her. He won’t give up so easily. Men like him don’t want to lose their possessions. He would rather kill her than lose her.”
“That’s what I’m worried about. I can talk to the DA and see what she says.”
Jess’s face pales and her fingers clench and unclench against her skirt. “And what happens if it gets back to my friend’s husband? He’ll kill her. Or he’ll do a great job of making it look like she’s a danger to her child.”
She doesn’t say it, but we know from Wilson’s threat Sunday night he will frame Jess for Violet’s murder. She could end up in prison, once again, for a crime she didn’t commit.
“I’m guessing the odds aren’t great the cop who showed up at Jess’s house and allegedly filled in a false report will admit to it,” I say.
Blake leans back in his chair. “It depends on what grounds he filed the false report. If he was coerced into filing it, he might come clean. It’s impossible to say.”
“My friend told me the other cop has been stalking her when her husband is busy,” Jess explains. “He approached her at the park a few weeks ago when she was talking to me. She was scared of him.”
A slight frown pulls onto Blake’s face. “Unless there’s proof her husband has physically abused her, the husband can always claim the other cop was the one terrorizing your friend. Then it becomes a case of he said, she said. Her husband isn’t stupid. He probably has something that will pin this all on the other cop. Something the other cop may or may not know about.”
