“I don’t know yet. Maybe it’ll just go away,” Mindy said in a hopeful tone but Julianna shook her head. As far as she knew pregnancies didn’t go away on their own.
“You need to tell your parents. This isn’t going to go away,” Julianna told her friend, concerned at how Mindy had paled. She reached across and grasped her hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there for you. Maybe it won’t be that bad.”
Mindy graced Julianna with a look that said, yeah right, have you met my parents? and Julianna knew it was going to be a rough conversation.
But as it’d turned out, Mindy hadn’t had that conversation with her parents. Maybe if she had…Julianna closed her eyes, shutting out the memory of how her best friend’s blood had covered the bathroom floor, spreading like a crimson tide, covering the white tile of Mindy’s downstairs bathroom in a wash of red, and her chest tightened with the cries that felt on lock-down since that day. People have babies everyday and they don’t die, she told herself.
But sometimes there are complications, a voice whispered.
Yeah, that’s the part that scared her. Julianna squeezed her eyes shut and tried to calm her fluttering heartrate. She needed to see a doctor. Immediately. Was she going to go through the pregnancy or terminate? Her hand strayed to her belly, trembling as what felt like the biggest life decision she’d ever made, weighed on her shoulders. She wished she had someone to talk to, to help her weigh the pros and cons of her situation but she had no one. Signing on the dotted line had assured her financial security but it had isolated her as well. At this point, she was fairly certain she’d breached her contract but she didn’t care. She was feeling wildly reckless — something she probably should temper before she did something terribly stupid — but she couldn’t bring herself to stop.
One way or the other, her life was about to change…forever.
#
“I don’t understand…how can she just disappear like that?” Boston queried, his tone sharp and unyielding. “It’s been a month and nothing? Not a single peep? Not a single blip on the radar? Either I’ve hired a complete incompetent or Julianna has the skills of a ninja. Somehow I doubt it’s the latter.”
“She’s using cash. Apparently, she had enough in her bank account to move around freely.” Hank Voltsch, the private investigator Boston had hired the moment Julianna had split, shrugged with a cold smile. “Though it’s hard to understand how a waitress managed to amass enough money to disappear like that.”
Boston shot Hank a quelling look. “I didn’t hire you to discern those details. I hired you to find her and thus far, you have failed. Tell me why I shouldn’t have you thrown out of my office?”
“I didn’t say I was completely empty-handed. She accessed an ATM in St. John and took the maximum amount available, which means she’s getting low on disposable cash.”
“St. John? Isn’t that in the Caribbean?”
“Yep. One of the American territories, a ferry ride away from St. Thomas.”
Boston stared. His little bird had flown somewhere warm and beachy. Ironic that he’d been planning to take her somewhere similar when all hell had broken loose. He picked up his cell and texted Richard to buy him a plane ticket to the Caribbean. “Anything else?” he asked Hank.
“That’s all I could uncover. Should I keep a look out for credit or debit card transactions?”
“Yes,” he said. “If she so much as buys a smoothie with her card, I want to know about it.”
“These services are costly…”
Boston waved away Hank’s next statement with a hard look. “You will be paid commiserate with what you provide. As I said previously, thus far, your services have much to be desired. Understand?” Hank didn’t appear happy to be shut down like that but he knew better than to press when he clearly didn’t have an advantage. Boston flicked his wrist, dismissing the man. “That will be all. Call when you have word.”
A frisson of excitement jangled his nerves at having something to go on, even if it was a small tip that could ultimately leave him searching for a needle in a haystack. When he found her he was going to make her pay for daring to leave him the way she had. Even if she weren’t carrying his child, there would be hell to pay but now that the stakes were higher? A part of him wanted to crush her. But then that murderous rage warred with the side of him that just wanted to hold her close and pamper her with a lifestyle only he could provide her.