Read Online Vile by Debra Webb - Free Book Online Page B

She’d forgotten how much fun this could be.

9
    UAB Women & Infant Center
    Tuesday, August 31, 10:32 a.m.
    Jess waited in the examining room for Dr. Fortune to return. The labs were out of the way and the exam was over. The requisite paper gown was properly disposed of and she felt comfortable again in her red suit. Her life was so out of control that it felt good to wear a power color. Especially today. There was no more pretending this wasn’t real.
    Her life was never going to be the same. She’d survived starting over in her career and moving back home after more than two decades. No reason she couldn’t handle parenthood.
    Moments from now the doctor would waltz in for the doctor-patient pep talk. Jess’s bag was full of pamphlets and a prescription for, as well as a sample pack of, prenatal vitamins. She was good to go.
    Except her head was spinning. She had flipped through the pamphlets for the first few minutes of her wait, one of which showed the stages of development in pregnancy. She shouldn’t have looked. If she’d been worried before about taking care of herself for the baby’s benefit, she was outright terrified now.
    Okay, moment of truth—how did anyone in her right mind do this? There was so much evil out there. So much uncertainty. Giving herself credit, it wasn’t as if she’d planned to get pregnant. One or two missed pills had set the stage.
    Forty-two and she’d made a sophomoric mistake. She was far too old to accidentally get pregnant. Jess closed her eyes and heaved a sigh. Her sister was going to be over the moon as soon as she had a nice long laugh over how Jess came to be with child. Children had not been on her ten-year-plan much less next year’s calendar. She wasn’t even married or engaged—well, not technically. Dan had made it clear he wanted to get married, but there hadn’t been a proposal or ring.
    Jess sighed. How had her life grown so complicated in a mere six weeks? Before returning to Birmingham, work had been her life. She hadn’t needed anything else to fulfill her. Who needed the white picket fence and kids? She’d had a stellar career with the Bureau—okay so maybe she’d blown her stellar record a week or two before coming home. She’d had the respect of every agent with whom she’d ever worked until that last week or two. Prior to that, she’d had nothing to worry about but catching the bad guy—the solitary goal had defined her.
    On some level, she couldn’t deny that coming home had made her see what she had given up… what she was missing. Whether by subconscious design or dumb mistake, here she was with diapers and childcare and doctor visits in her future. Her eyes went wide. They needed a new house. The apartment was fine for the two of them, but it wasn’t going to work after this child was born.
    Would Dan want to build in his old neighborhood? Jess would never in a million years fit in with the Brookies of Mountain Brook. She would always be the girl from the other side of the tracks. Well, she had made friends with Sylvia and Gina. It wasn’t that anyone else had the ability to make Jess feel inferior. Her accomplishments spoke for themselves. The problem was some people would always see her as an outsider as Katherine Burnett did. Would that change when she became a Burnett too?
    Jess sagged with the weight of it all. Friends and neighborhoods were the least of her concerns. Two women were missing, Rory Stinnett and Monica Atmore. Victims of the sociopath obsessed with Jess. Dan had become one of his primary targets. And she was his ultimate target no matter that, for now, Spears appeared to be content playing with her.
    How did she protect the child she carried? Or the people she loved?
    Thankfully, the doctor showed up at that moment. Good thing, otherwise Jess might have worried herself into a panic attack.
    Dr. Fortune smiled. “You’ve been reviewing the pamphlets.”
    Jess frowned. She’d already stuffed them all back into her bag.