Chapter 19 Jamie
The text arrives just past eight in the evening.
We know who the father is.
I'm standing in the kitchen, waiting for the kettle to boil, and for a moment the words don't make sense. Wrong number. Spam. Some kind of scam.
Then the second message arrives.
Nice apartment. Akari works late on Thursdays, doesn't she?
The kettle clicks off. I don't move to get it.
I make it to the bathroom just in time. My knees hit the tile hard enough to bruise as I vomit bile into the toilet, my body heaving even though there's nothing in my stomach. The baby kicks in protest, a sharp jab under my ribs.
"Sorry," I gasp. "Sorry, sorry."
My phone buzzes again. I left it on the kitchen counter. I don't want to look. I have to look.
I pull myself up using the sink, rinse my mouth, and walk back to the kitchen on legs that don't feel like mine.
48 hours to leave town. Or everyone finds out whose bastard you're carrying.
It’s the Cranes. It has to be. That means Carter knows.
I throw the phone across the room. It hits the wall and clatters to the floor, screen cracking, and I stand there with my arms wrapped around my belly and try to remember how to breathe.
Forty-eight hours.
That’s fine. I was already planning to run. It was going to be after the baby and I recovered.
But forty-eight hours means now. Forty-eight hours means today.
I look around the apartment. I have to tear it all down in two days.
I retrieve my phone. The screen is shattered but still functional. I delete the messages, then block the number, then stand in the middle of my bedroom and try to figure out where to start.
It doesn’t occur to me not to run. A year ago, I’d have screenshot the messages and posted them online. A year ago, I didn’t have another life to protect.
Clothes first.
I pull my duffel bag from under the bed and start emptying drawers.
Nothing fancy. Nothing that won't stretch over my belly.
I fold a week's worth of underwear, four t-shirts, three pairs of paternity leggings, one pair of jeans with the elastic panel that I hate but that are the only pants I can still button.
Socks. I always forget socks. I grab all of them, shove them in the side pocket.
Toiletries. I waddle to the bathroom and sweep everything into a plastic bag—toothbrush, toothpaste, prenatal vitamins, the industrial-size bottle of antacids I've been living on.
I catch my reflection in the mirror. Pale. Hollow-eyed. The swell of my belly straining against my sleep shirt.
Keep moving. Don't think.
Documents. I pull the fireproof lockbox from my closet and sort through it. Passport. Birth certificate. Social security card.
Cash. I have an envelope tucked behind my winter coats. Three thousand dollars, saved over years, emergency money I never thought I'd need. I count it twice, then stuff it in the inside pocket of my jacket.
The baby stuff is harder.
I've been collecting things slowly. A pack of newborn onesies, still in the plastic. A soft yellow blanket with ducks on it. A tiny hat shaped like a strawberry that I couldn't resist even though it's completely impractical.
I shove everything into a separate bag. It's not much. Her whole existence fits in one duffel with room to spare.
My laptop. My phone charger. The external hard drive with all my research backed up. I'm not leaving that for someone to find.
I'm trying to figure out what else I need when I hear the key in the lock.
Akari stops in the doorway. Takes in the chaos—clothes strewn across the bed, bags half-packed, my face probably showing every ounce of panic I'm trying to suppress.
"Jamie. What the hell?"
"I have to go." The words come out flat. Rehearsed. "Tonight. I can't explain—"
"Like hell you can't." She crosses the room in three strides, grabs my arm, and physically turns me to face her. "What happened?"
I show her my phone. Watch her face change as she reads the cracked screen.
"That motherfucker." Her voice is low and furious. "Jamie, we need to call the police."
"And tell them what? It doesn’t matter how we do this. I become the story." I pull away from her, turn back to my packing.
Akari is quiet for a long moment. Then she reaches past me and grabs a bag from my closet.
"What are you doing?"
"Packing." She's already pulling clothes from her own dresser—she keeps a few things here for when she sleeps over. "If you think I'm letting you run off alone, six months pregnant, with no plan and no backup, you're out of your mind."
"Akari, I can't ask you—"
"You're not asking. I'm telling." She shoves a handful of shirts into the bag. "We'll figure out where we're going in the car. I have a cousin upstate who won't ask questions. Or we could head south—"
She's still talking, but I've stopped listening.
Because there's someone banging at the door.
Akari stops mid-sentence. Her hand drifts toward the kitchen counter, toward the knife block.
"You expecting anyone?" she whispers.
I shake my head.
Another knock. Louder.
"Jamie." A voice, muffled through the door. "Jamie, I know you're in there."
My whole body goes cold.
I know that voice. I've spent six months trying to forget that voice. I hear it in my dreams, saying my name just like that, desperate and raw and wanting.
Carter.
"Jamie, please." He sounds wrecked. "I know about the baby. Please. Just let me in."
Akari has the knife in her hand now. She looks at me, eyebrows raised, waiting for direction.
I should tell her to stay quiet and wait for him to leave. But my feet are already carrying me toward the door.
"Jamie—" Akari hisses.
I look through the peephole.
Carter looks like hell. Rumpled shirt, wild hair, dark circles under his eyes.
"I know you're there." His voice cracks. "I know you probably hate me." He presses his forehead against the door. "I can't let anyone hurt you. Either of you. Please."
My hand is on the lock.
Akari moves up beside me. "Are you sure?"
No. I'm not sure of anything. I'm not sure I can look at him without falling apart. I'm not sure I can smell him without every wall I've built crumbling to dust.
But I'm also not sure I can keep running forever, and he's here, and he knows. It doesn’t matter whether I let Carter in or not.
I open the door.
His scent hits me first. That glorious winter stillness, six months of deprivation making it overwhelming, making my knees buckle and my heart slam against my ribs.
Then his eyes drop to my belly.
I watch it happen, the moment it becomes real for him. Me, standing in front of him, six months pregnant and terrified and so angry I could scream.
His face does something complicated, and for moment I see a hunger so naked it makes me look away.
"Jamie." My name sounds like it's being torn out of him. "I didn't know. I swear to God, I didn't know."
He's still staring at my belly. His hand twitches like he wants to reach for me, and I take a step back.
He flinches. "Jamie, you have to listen to me.
Warren showed me a picture of you. He threatened to destroy us both if I didn't fall in line.
I told him to go to hell, but that means he's going to move. Soon. Tonight, maybe."
"I know. He's already been in contact." I gesture vaguely toward my cracked phone. "Forty-eight hours to leave town or he tells everyone."
"Then we don't have much time."
"We?"
"Yes. We." He finally drags his gaze up from my belly to my face.
"I'm not leaving you alone with this. I'm not—" He swallows hard.
"You were right. About everything. My father admitted it.
The money laundering, the bribes, all of it.
Everything you wrote was true, and I defended him, and I called you a liar, and I'm so fucking sorry, Jamie. I'm so sorry."
The words hit me like a wave.
Behind me, Akari makes a small sound. I'd almost forgotten she was there.
I stand in the doorway, one hand on my belly, and stare at the man I've spent months trying to hate.
He looks back at me with eyes full of devastation and desperate hope.
I still don't know if I can trust him.
But I'm out of options, and Carter is here, and he said I was right.