Quarterback's Secret Baby(127)

Phoneless, I couldn't even send the outraged e-mail that was brewing in my head as I made my way to Heathrow. I was so enraged at that point that even if Darach had appeared before me apologizing it wouldn't have been good enough. It was too late. You don't treat people like that. You especially don't treat people like that if you've spent a series of nights and stolen afternoons making love to them and telling them how beautiful and wonderful they are.

What a coward. To just assume those things about me.

My mind ran a mile a minute to the extent that I didn't sleep at all before I was halfway across the Atlantic. All sorts of ideas to prove my innocence popped up - only to prove my innocence, mind, not to try and get my job back. That was over. Darach could afford a private investigation if the police weren't interested. I knew I'd never even seen any jewelry or pricey watches in Castle McLanald except the vintage Rolex Darach wore - and that was almost certainly on his wrist somewhere in Switzerland. So my fingerprints couldn't possibly be on any of the things I had supposedly 'stolen.' One of my friends at college was studying criminology and she'd talked to me about a class she took on pattern recognition in language - basically studying something someone has written and then being able to tell if they'd written other sentences based on the first sample. The mysterious e-mails I was accused of sending would show I couldn't possibly have written them.

This is how I thought from Scotland to that moment on the airplane when I looked out the window and down at the cold, blue Atlantic and finally let myself feel the truth: I was never going to see Darach or Cameron again. Not only was I never going to see them again, they were going to think of me as a dishonest thief unless I could somehow manage to convince them otherwise and the truth was, that looked doubtful. Darach obviously believed that I'd stolen from him - he wouldn't have had me sent away otherwise - what motivation did he have to hire people to look for fingerprints or study e-mails? Not much. I hunched over in my seat with my face in my hands, defeated and forlorn and wishing my grandmother was still alive to wrap her arms around me and reassure me it was going to be OK.

When the plane landed in New York I went straight to my friend Simone's apartment - there was nowhere else to go. Thankfully, she was home and all it took was one look at me to know something was very wrong.

"Simone. I've been traveling for over twenty four hours. Can I please just borrow your couch for a little while? I promise I'll tell you everything when I wake up."

So I put my bags on the floor and lay down on Simone's lumpy sofa with a hot, humid New York breeze blowing over me and went to sleep for fourteen hours.





Chapter 13


Simone agreed to let me stay with her until the fall semester started. I hated asking but there really was no choice - my salary was supposed to be paid at the end of my contract with Darach and I knew there was no way I was getting it now.

I waited a couple of days to login to my Gmail account and change the password. I didn't usually take the time to log out, which is what must have made it so easy for whoever it was to send e-mails from my account, probably to another account they'd created themselves. When I did login, I didn't have the heart to check the 'Sent Mail' folder. I backed everything up, just in case, but I couldn't read it. The depression was starting to descend again, unsurprisingly. I was out a job, a lover, my good reputation with a family I cared about and my salary, which was supposed to go towards next semester's college tuition. As soon as school started I planned to go straight to the student health services and talk to one of the mental health doctors - I was desperate to avoid sinking back into the unhappy grayness I'd been in for two years already - forget toughing it out this time.

Two days after I returned an e-mail from Darach appeared in my inbox. I saw the subject line: "READ THIS" and deleted it, unread. The next day two more arrived. One of them had a phone number in the subject line and another all caps message: "RING ME, PLEASE." They were all quickly deleted.

I wasn't going to call Darach. I wasn't going to do a single thing Darach McLanald wanted me to do. He didn't have the right to ask any favors of me. He was probably regretting what had happened, I knew that much. Probably missing me. I hardened my heart against the fact that I was missing him, too. You can't let people push you around. You can't let people treat you badly and then take their calls or their e-mails when they decide they don't want to be without you.

Simone came home one night a couple of days later with Chinese takeout for both of us. She knew I was ashamed of needing her help and she tried to reassure me.

"Jenny, chill, it's just food. I know you'd do the same for me, it's really not big deal - it's nice to have company!"