Chapter 7
For three seconds, I could not hear anything.
Not the camera hum.
Not Detective Morales.
Not Olivia’s breathing.
Pregnant.
Mine.
The word tried to split the room in two.
Then I turned around.
Olivia watched me like she expected my face to soften.
It did not.
“How far along?” Morales asked.
Olivia did not look at her.
“Eight weeks.”
I counted backward.
My stomach turned.
It was possible.
Barely.
Olivia smiled.
“You won’t let your child grow up in prison visits, will you?”
I walked back to the table.
Slowly.
Carefully.
“You kidnapped a child yesterday.”
“That was panic.”
“You pushed my mother.”
“She threatened me.”
“You tried to steal from my son.”
“I made mistakes.”
“You helped kill Rachel.”
Her eyes hardened.
“That has not been proven.”
I leaned down.
“If there is a baby, that child will be protected from you too.”
Her smile vanished.
“You would take my baby?”
“No,” I said. “I would protect a baby from a woman who uses children as shields.”
She lunged against the cuffs.
Morales stood.
“Interview over.”
Olivia screamed as they removed her.
“You can’t erase me, Daniel. You picked me. You brought me into that house. You made this family!”
Her words followed me into the hall.
Because some of them were true.
I had brought her in.
I had opened the door.
That did not make me guilty of her crimes.
But it made me responsible for what I did next.
A paternity test was ordered.
Olivia fought it.
Then demanded it.
Then cried in court when the judge approved it.
The media got hold of the pregnancy within hours.
The headlines were cruel.
MURDER SUSPECT WIFE CLAIMS VICTIM’S HUSBAND FATHERED UNBORN CHILD.
My phone rang until I turned it off.
Ethan saw one headline on Michael’s tablet before we could stop him.
He went quiet for the rest of the day.
That night, I found him sitting in the closet with Rachel’s photo.
“Buddy?”
He did not look up.
“If Olivia has a baby, will you love it more?”
My heart broke cleanly.
“No.”
“You don’t know. Babies are little.”
I sat on the floor outside the closet.
“I loved you when you were little. I love you now. Love doesn’t move from one child to another.”
“She said I was in the way.”
“She lied.”
“What if the baby is yours?”
“Then the baby will be safe. And you will be safe. Both can be true.”
He hugged Rachel’s photo tighter.
“I don’t want her baby in our house.”
I swallowed.
“I understand.”
“Is that mean?”
“No. It’s honest.”
He looked at me then.
“Do you hate me for telling?”
I crawled into the closet and pulled him into my arms.
“No. You saved Grandma. You saved me. You saved yourself.”
He cried into my shirt.
I cried too.
Two days later, the test results came back.
I sat in Margaret Shaw’s office with Michael, my mother, and Morales.
The envelope lay on the table.
I could not open it.
So Margaret did.
Her face changed.
“What?” I asked.
“The fetus is not yours.”
I exhaled so hard my whole body shook.
My mother closed her eyes.
Michael whispered, “Thank God.”
But Margaret kept reading.
Then she went very still.
“Daniel.”
“What?”
“The probable father is Charles Benton.”
The room froze.
Benton.
Olivia’s attorney.
Her accomplice.
Her lover.
Another betrayal, sharp but strangely clean.
It cut the last emotional thread I had been afraid still existed.
Olivia had not loved me badly.
She had never loved me at all.
She had entered my life like a thief enters a dark house.
Quiet.
Prepared.
Looking for what could be carried away.
Morales took the report.
“This gives us motive against Benton too.”
“And custody?” I asked.
Margaret nodded.
“If the child is born, child services will be involved immediately. You have no legal obligation.”
No legal obligation.
But something troubled me.
An innocent baby.
Born into wreckage.
My mother saw my face.
“Daniel, compassion does not mean surrender.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I looked at Ethan’s drawing on my phone.
Our family.
Grandma in a chair.
Uncle Michael.
Me.
Rachel in the sky.
No Olivia.
No new baby.
“I’m learning.”
That evening, Olivia called from jail.
I almost ignored it.
Then I answered with Morales recording.
“You lied,” I said.
She was silent.
“Benton is the father.”
Her voice turned cold.
“You needed to believe it long enough to hesitate.”
I closed my eyes.
“Goodbye, Olivia.”
“If I fall, Benton talks. If Benton talks, you lose the company.”
I opened my eyes.
“What does that mean?”
May you like
She laughed softly.
“Ask your father-in-law why Rachel’s trust was worth killing for.”
