by Reid, Angela
“Are you all right, honey?” she asked, looking worried.
“I will be.” I looked up at Cade. “We need to talk about this more before I decide what to do.”
“Yes, we do,” he said his jaw set in a serious pose.
“Do you understand that I’m not sure if I can love this baby if it’s not yours? Would either of you think less of me for that?”
Cade and my mother both said, “No,” at the same time.
“Ellia,” she began. “No one would ever hold that against you. Just remember that abortion is not your only answer. You can give the child up for adoption. So many couples want a child to love.”
Adoption had not crossed my mind, but she was right, it was another choice. “Can we table this for now? I want to spend some normal time with you, Mom, without having to stress about this. I have weeks to think about it.”
Cade left her and I alone with the lunch we’d never finished, stating he had work to do, but I believed he needed a break to sort his feelings. My mom and I spent the rest of the afternoon talking about safe subjects, ones that didn’t provoke sadness or pain. After she went home, I waited patiently for Cade to return. When he arrived, it was well after dark.
“Where have you been?” I asked, as he came into the room looking fresh from a shower.
“At work,” he said, seeming distant as he set his bag down on the floor. “How was your visit with your mom?”
“It was good. Thank you for being there for her so much. She appreciates all the time you took to talk to her.”
“No problem.” He sat at the table and stretched his legs. “Hannah said you can go home tomorrow.”
“That’s great news.” I missed my home in Petoskey. It dawned on me Cade’s job was in Detroit. “Are we going to my house up north?”
“If that’s where you want to go, we will.”
“What about your job?” I asked, worried he’d give up everything just to be with me out of a sense of duty. I never wanted him to do that again. If he wanted to leave the Bureau that was fine, but I didn’t want him to feel he had to for me.
“The work I am doing now requires nothing more than a computer and an internet connection. It’s no big deal.” He sounded disappointed. Massaging his own neck, he seemed agitated.
“What’s wrong? Are you still mad at me?” I asked.
“I was never mad at you. It’s just been a long day. I’m tired.” He yawned as if to drive home the point. “I think I am going to crash.” He got up and removed his shirt and shoes before laying down on his cot. I found it odd since he’d been sharing the twin bed with me up until then.
“You don’t want to sleep up here?” His rejection left me wounded.
“I do, but my neck is killing me. Tonight, I need to stretch out on my back. Do you mind?” He was already prone with his arm over his eyes. Something was bothering him, it was clear, but I would give him space if he needed it.
“Okay, rest well.” He didn’t respond and seemed to be sleeping.
Chapter 16
The next morning we checked out of the respite home and headed to my house on Lake Michigan. Cade remained distracted. He held my hand in the car but had little to say beyond the clip answers he gave in response to my attempts at conversation. He glimpsed in the rear view more than seemed necessary, and he appeared edgy.
“Will you please talk to me,” I said, tired of trying to deduce the reason for his mood.
He glanced at me and squeezed my hand. “It’s not you, El. I have a lot on my mind.”
“The baby? Work? What’s bothering you? You don’t have to protect my mental state. I am here for you.”
He exhaled and appeared defeated again. “It’s all those things, I guess. The prosecuting attorney’s office doesn’t want to file charges without eye witness testimony. I’m worried they’ll subpoena you to testify, and I don’t want you to do so. It’s nothing we have to deal with right away because the investigation is still ongoing, but I am concerned it may come to that. I’ve already hired a security company to install a top of the line system in your house this morning.” He looked over again and gauged my expression before pulling off the road into a gas station where he took my hands and continued. “Try not to be scared, but we need to stay on top of the situation, just in case.”
“This will never end, will it?” I asked as the tears filled my eyes.
Cade pulled me into his arms. “God, I hope so. I want this to be over as much as you do—for us and the baby.”
I leaned away from him. “There may not be a baby. I haven’t decided what to do yet.”
My response elicited an abrupt change in his demeanor, and he released me, getting back on the highway, closing up the communication again. He clenched his jaw as firmly as his hands clutched the steering wheel.
“You said you would respect my decision and not hold it against me, so why are you mad?” I asked.
His voice was shaky as if holding tears at bay. “I will respect it, and I won’t hold it against you, but that doesn’t mean I will be happy about it. If the baby is mine …” He stopped short and rubbed his forehead as if I was causing him a migraine. “Even if it’s not … shit,” he said, biting down on his lip. “This child’s conception is irrelevant in terms of the life it created. It’s not his or her fault. This is a human being inside of you.”
In that moment, I realized how much this child meant to him, creating confliction in me. Meeting him in the middle seemed the fair thing to do. If this was his baby, he should have a say in my decision. I reached over and grabbed his hand. “Cade, for you, I will carry to term, but if it’s not yours, then I want to give it up for adoption. I can’t love a product of my rape. Can you understand that? Is this concession enough for you?”
“Yes,” he said, looking relieved. “Thank you.”
***
A few months passed as Cade and I played house. He worked long hours on his computer and his phone, doing consultation work, and we had settled into a routine driven existence. The FBI let him keep his job, and Agent Rodriquez came by at least once a month. He and Cade would sit behind the French doors of the office and talk for extended periods, all the while checking on me through the glass. We stayed in most nights and kept close to home, the fear of Camerson ever present. Cade was on edge all the time, over-reacting to every noise or oddity in neighborhood habits. He slept little, and I worried about him every day. He was obsessive about keeping loaded weapons hidden all over the house, and I developed a concern there was more going on than he had told me.
My belly grew each month, and I started to show as my twenty-fourth week of pregnancy neared. The first time I felt the baby kick, I ran outside where Cade was mowing the lawn and flagged him down to stop the mower. He put his hand on my abdomen, but the baby had stopped by then. He seemed pleased by my excitement, even though the kicking stilled by the time I got to him.
I ate my prenatal vitamins daily, and according the OB doctor, the baby was doing well. Cade teared up during the ultra sound, watching the small fetus on the black-and-white screen, and I knew he wanted that little boy to be his, more than just about anything. Despite his rough beginning in my tattered body, my son was progressing as expected.
I still wouldn’t let Cade turn the spare room into a nursery, fearing that I wouldn’t be able to keep the baby if he wasn’t his. I wanted to get an amniocentesis to test DNA, but he begged me not to, worried it would cause unnecessary risk.
Even though we’d made a deal, Cade was going to have a difficult time letting this baby go up for adoption. He talked to my tummy everyday about our future as a family and all the things we’d do and see together. He was so excited about being a father, watching his devastation as I handed the child over to new parents, would be excruciating to bear. All I could do was pray for the right outcome of the paternity.
Although we slept curled up as one every night, we had yet to resume any intimacy. He still stirred sexual feelings in me, just like he always
had, but he seemed disinterested and always preoccupied. If he wasn’t with me all day, every day, I would think he was having an affair. Whenever I tried to engage him, he made up an excuse not to make love. I’d developed a nagging insecurity he was rejecting me because of the rape, or my ever growing stomach. He was attentive in every other way, but he didn’t seem the least bit attracted to me anymore. As much as I wanted to know the truth, I feared it, so I never came out and asked him.
I was sipping lemonade on the back deck, one afternoon, with Cade watching me through the office window. He didn’t like it when I went outside alone, but he relented after we had a major fight. I told him I needed space, and I wanted him to seek help for his extreme paranoia. When I heard a knock on the front door, I got up and went inside, but he cut me off in my path and put his eye to the peep hole. We had no friends, and Rodriquez had been there the day prior. He opened the door to Agent Mendiola, surprising me. It had been a long time since I’d seen her. She remained the one agent I never liked, even a little.
“Hi Ellia,” she said, friendly enough, though I sensed an undertone as the agent took in my pregnant body. She seemed distressed by the sight of me.
“Hello, Agent Mendiola, what brings you by?” I inquired.
“Not official business; so please just call me Willow.”
“Willow?” I repeated and looked at Cade. “Agent Mendiola is Willow—your Willow?” I asked him, knowing it had to be. Willow was not a common name. It was a slap in the face. She was Cade’s ex. All that time I was in the safe house with Agent Mendiola, I’d never known her forename or what she meant to Cade. I glared at him with my hands balled into fists like a toddler preparing for a tantrum. He seemed confused when he saw the anger consume me.
“Um … I just stopped by to see how you both were. You look great, Ellia. Cade told me pregnancy agrees with you,” she said.
You’ve been talking to her, you son-of-a-bitch? Maybe you are cheating on me, just not physically. Are all these long nights on your phone or your laptop spent with her? Are you biding time with me until the baby is born? My mind went into its classic state of jealous overload, and I was fuming. I needed to get away from them.
“I am not feeling so well, so I am going to go lay down for a bit. Have a nice visit,” I said; storming to the bedroom, shutting the door behind me with force He was right on my heels, though.
“What’s wrong? You look ready to punch me.” He reached out and touched my arm, but I yanked myself away from him.
“That woman is the one you were in love with, Cade?” I asked again, trying to keep my voice in a hushed tone.
“Yes, Ellia, I assumed you already knew that. Why in the hell are you so pissed? There is nothing going on between us anymore and there hasn’t been for years. We are just friends and coworkers. Shit, I’m sorry, I thought you realized,” he said. “I thought you based your anger partly on the fact you didn’t like her.”
“Why does this always happen? There’s always a bomb waiting to drop on me. How often do you talk to her, Cade?” I asked.
“We talked a lot when you were first in the hospital because I had no one else to converse with, and she’s my friend. I was alone and scared to death I’d lost you forever. Now, she calls me from time to time, or we chat online, but usually we discuss work. There’s nothing going on between us, Ellia, not like you are imagining.” He reached out, but I flinched away again. He sighed and scratched his head. We’d been here many times over the course of our relationship. “I thought we were past this juvenile bullshit. We are here together every single day when do you think I am out fooling around on you?”
“There’s more than one way to cheat, Cade.” The tears fell, and I brushed them away.
“I would never do that to you. Willow knows who owns my heart, I just wish to God you did. After everything we’ve been though, you can’t possibly accuse me of an affair—not in any sense.”
He had proved his devotion in countless ways and had in no way wavered. I was being ridiculous. “I’m sorry, but you’ve been distant … different, since we’ve been here. You are hiding something from me, I am sure of it.”
He sat down next to me and took my hand. “I apologize, El, there’s issues at work that are bothering me, but I’m not at odds about us. I’m sorry I didn’t expressly tell you I was still talking to Willow, and that we’ve remained friends. Stuff like this just seems so unimportant in the greater scheme of our lives, I don’t think to share the information. I didn’t mean to hurt you again,” he said. I put my face up to meet his and we kissed, long and slow. Such a sensual exchange would’ve had us tangled in the sheets before the rape and pregnancy. Something had changed for us, and he broke the moment. “She’s still here, we better go out there.”
He disappointed me. His eagerness to get back to Willow filled me with angst, and I fought the urge to cry again. Logically, I understood how silly it sounded since she sat in our kitchen waiting, but it somehow felt like he had chosen her over me.
Willow stayed for dinner, and I remained polite. She no longer spoke in a monotonic tone, and she faked friendliness towards me--all for Cade’s sake. Something about her bothered me, but I chalked it up to my jealous nature. In those days cooped up with Agent Mendiola, she had always been cold, but it almost went beyond that. Even now, her sideways glances seemed menacing. Paranoia spooned with jealousy and the visit was torture for me. Throughout the meal, she hung on Cade’s every word, often interrupting me when I tried to join the conversation. As if I could not live up to her intellectual caliber, she talked down to me with condescension, and I wanted her to leave.
While listening quietly as the two discussed his future with the FBI, I cringed each time she reached out and touched his arm or his hand. Distrust ate my guts like a caustic acid, and her smirks in my directions made it worse. She wanted Cade to return to work as her partner, and I wanted to claw her dark eyes out of her head. My mind kept picturing him making love to this despicable creature. Even though their romantic relationship had ended years earlier, I could never handle him working with her again.
“You need not go undercover anymore, that’s not what I’m asking. Don’t leave the Bureau, Cade; you are good at what you do. You’ve worked too hard to be where you are, don’t throw it away because your girlfriend is pregnant and needy,” she said.
Not giving him a chance to respond, I asked, “You are considering quitting, Cade?” He hadn’t talked about leaving the Bureau with me since we fled to Tennessee, and the revelation surprised me.
He patted my hand. “I’ve just been tossing around ideas, El, nothing to worry about at the moment.”
My anger got the best of me, and I could no longer sit there like a clueless trophy. “I’m going to bed. Good night.” I pushed in my chair and walked down the hall but didn’t slam the door this time, not wanting to give Willow the pleasure of my fury. I could hear the murmur of their voices in the living room as I shook with rage. To drown out the sound of them together, I took a shower.
When I emerged, Cade sat on the bed waiting for me. “We need to talk,” he said.
“Oh, do we? Well, that would be a first, wouldn’t it?” I angrily tossed my wet towel in the hamper as my blonde hair tumbled down my back. As I stood naked in front of him, his eyes traveled my body, but the smolder I usually saw in his eyes remained absent. He made no attempt to touch me. Shaking my head in disappointment, I smirked at him. “Wow,” I said, moving away from him and yanking on my pajamas. Hot tears rolled down my cheeks.
“Ellia, please sit down and listen.” His stern tone caused the hair to stand up on my neck. Fear replaced anger as I prepared for a devastating blow.
I walked over and glared at him, but I didn’t obey his request to sit. “You want to be with her, don’t you?”
He looked up at me with an incredulous expression? “What?” He stood up and gaped at me. “No, I told you I don’t want to be with her. I love you.”
“Then what the hell is goi
ng on with you? You don’t talk to me about anything important, but you tell her everything. Why didn’t you tell me you might quit?”
“It’s complicated,” he said, while pacing the room. “I’ve kept information from you, even though I promised I wouldn’t. I didn’t want you to be anxious. The baby needs you to stay calm and stress free.”
“Tell me,” I demanded as my hands trembled.
“The day you gave your statement to Rodriquez and Fattel, we discovered something very important. You told us that Camerson’s man cut off your dad’s fingertips. The coroner’s report mentioned nothing about his hand. The person who we found hanging in that room matched your dad’s physical build, but he’d been beat beyond recognition. The agents located his ID and his badge inside the wallet in his back pocket. Everyone assumed your dad killed himself. After your account, we ran DNA. The body carried out in that bag belonged to Lukas Bietek, not Bradley Meyers. Your father and another man, named Basti Lischka, are believed to be alive. We figure your dad promised Lischka money, or something, and Lischka helped him escape. According to reports, they are traveling together, and they are not currently in the country. This man meets the description you gave of the monster who beat and raped you.” He pulled up his phone and flashed a picture of Salt-and-pepper at me. “Is that him?” Next, he produced a shot of a different man from a passport photo. “The second photo is Lucas Bietek. Is he the other one who assaulted you?”
My hand flew to my mouth as the tears kept coming. I backed away from Cade until my back hit the wall. “It’s them,” I whispered. Cade wrapped me in his arms and held me tight. When I got composure, I wiggled out of his embrace. “Why didn’t you tell me? No, never mind, I know why. Because you always think you know what’s fucking best for me. The real question is why are you telling me now?”
