Ultimate Fear (Book 2 Ultimate CORE) (CORE Series) (49 page)

In several quick strides, she stood in front of the door with her hand wrapped around the door knob. She closed her eyes and pictured the room. Soft pink paint on the walls, the espresso colored crib and matching dressers. The stuffed animals, the glider she would sit on to nurse Sophia or read her one of her baby books. The scent of baby lotion and diaper cream.

Her stomach tightened with anxiety, but she quickly turned the knob, and gasped. The dying, evening sun didn’t kiss the pink walls or the crib or the glider and stuffed animals.

It revealed betrayal.

She rushed into the room, a sob tearing from her throat.

How could he? Her chest burned with outrage. How could he have changed her daughter’s room without telling her?

“I wasn’t sure when I should tell you.”

She spun around. “I—” Her breath caught and she covered her mouth with her hands and glanced at the twin bed, covered in a lilac and apple green comforter set. She dropped her hands. “Where’s the crib?”

“In the basement.”

She moved to the dresser that had matched Sophia’s crib and opened a drawer. Empty. Panicking, she frantically yanked on each drawer handle. Where were Sophia’s clothes? Where were her blankets, the crib sheets? She wanted to see them, touch them, smell them. She rushed to the closet and opened it. “Where are her things?” she demanded.

He set the glass he’d been holding on top of the dresser and began closing the drawers. “I didn’t get rid of anything.”

“Then what do you call this?” she shouted, and waved to the empty closet.

“It’s all boxed and in the basement. I can bring everything back up stairs. If you want, I’ll make the room look like it used to.”

“Don’t bother.” She slammed the closet door shut. “It won’t be the same.”

“Sure it will,” he said, his eyes full of apology. “All I have to do is—”

“I was so damned excited the day you finished painting the walls,” she said, not caring what he’d do to right this wrong. He’d stolen too many memories to even begin to make this right. “After you put together the crib, I couldn’t tell you how many times I stood in this room, staring at the crib and imagining Sophia lying in it.” She pressed a fist to her forehead and closed her eyes, took herself back in time, to when she’d been big and round, and filled with hope. “After the baby shower, I washed all of the clothes and blankets, then I sat on the glider and folded everything.” She opened her eyes and looked toward the window where the glider had once been. Dante had replaced it with an espresso colored, cube organizer he’d filled with lilac and apple green bins. “I looked at each of the outfits and pictured Sophia in them. I spent hours deciding which drawer to use. I spent days organizing and getting everything ready for her.”

She wiped her tear-soaked cheeks and moved backward toward the door. “You can put the room back the way it was, but you can’t replace those memories.” She sucked in a breath. “You can’t replace how nervous and excited and impatient I’d felt during those last weeks before she was born.”

Blinking the tears from her eyes, she gave the room a final glance. “She’s gone and this room was my last connection to her.”

“Bullshit.”

“If that’s your way of apologizing than you can shove it right—”

“I
am
sorry for changing the room. You know damn well I’d never do anything to intentionally hurt you, and this room isn’t your last connection to her. I am.”

Her human memento.

“Jess, please hear me out. There’s a reason I made these changes.”

“I don’t care.” She took another step back. “I really don’t. You had no right and should have talked to me about it first.”

“Really? When?” He shook his head. “You weren’t here. You barely spoke to me, and when you did, you treated me like shit.”

He made it sound as if they’d never had a civil conversation in the three and a half years they’d been separated. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? If you weren’t avoiding me or this house, you picked fights.”

“No, I didn’t. But once again, you’re—”

“Don’t go there and don’t you
dare
act like I’m making this about me. So I fucked up and changed the room without your permission. I did what I thought was best. And if you were so concerned about the room and the memories it represents to you, then you shouldn’t have moved out in the first place. That’s on you and was your choice. You left. You wanted nothing to do with the house, just like you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“I’m here now.”

“And I’m grateful you are, but things have changed since you’ve been gone. You couldn’t expect me to keep the house exactly the same as you’d left it when you made it clear you had no plans to come back.”

She reached the doorjamb. “All it would’ve taken was a simple phone call.” That was it. A call to say he’d been thinking about changing Sophia’s room.

“You wouldn’t answer my calls.”

“Then why didn’t you leave me a message? Or send me a text, or an email—if you really wanted to get in touch with me, you could’ve. Now you’re just giving me excuses.”

“I wasn’t about to leave a voice mail about this. And sorry if I got tired of having to text or email
my wife
. Bottom line, if you cared that much, you should’ve never left.”

Had this been his way of punishing her? “Funny, because as it stands, I’m trying to remember why I bothered to come back.”

Ignoring the shock and disappointment in his eyes, she stepped out of the room, then headed down the steps. Since she had nowhere else to go, she wouldn’t leave tonight. She
was
back and intended on sleeping in
her
bed. He could move the hell out.

She moved through the kitchen, then went into the basement. The basement was unfinished, but they’d always planned to turn it into a rec room, add a bathroom and another guest room. Right now, it was used for storage. While she’d been down here early in the week to find her paint supplies, she hadn’t bothered to look for any of Sophia’s things because they were
supposed
to be in her bedroom.

Her throat tightened with the threat of fresh tears. How could he have done this to her? She searched the boxes stacked along the far wall, but couldn’t find any labeled with her daughter’s name. With each box she checked, she grew more frantic and even more desperate for a glimpse into the past.

Then she saw the crib, partially wrapped in corrugated cardboard and leaning against the wall in the far corner. Within seconds, she stood in front of it and, with the tips of her fingers, skimmed the dust off the exposed wood.

Sophia had spent the first two months in a bassinette in their bedroom. Her baby had been so small, she’d hated to put her in that big crib and leave her in the room all by herself. But once she had, once she’d realized her and Dante needed their time, she’d made sure to keep the baby monitor well stocked with batteries. That first night Sophia had slept in her crib, she’d been restless and worried. But Dante had kept assuring her—between hot, open-mouthed kisses along her neck and chest—that Sophia was just down the hall. They’d made love that night. The memory of it was bittersweet because she did love him, but she hated that he’d tossed their daughter’s things in the basement, along with the other long forgotten items they’d stored away years ago.

Next to the crib were several plastic bins. Sophia’s name was scrawled along the side of them with black marker. She lifted the lid off one of the bins. On the top was a pink dress that Dante had bought for Sophia when she’d been about six months old. She picked it up and fluffed up the taffeta tutu at the bottom of the dress. Sophia had looked adorable when she’d worn it, especially with the matching, stretchy hairband he’d bought to go with the dress.

Fresh tears streamed down her face as she remembered Dante’s proud smile and the love shining in his eyes after she’d presented their daughter to him in that dress. He’d taken their baby from her arms, then planted a big, smacking kiss on Sophia’s cheek, which had elicited a giggle from their daughter.

They’d been so happy.

They’d been a family.

Why would he have taken everything that was so important to them and stowed it in the basement? She knew he loved Sophia and missed her as much as she did. Had this been his way of coping?

She didn’t know. Call her selfish or inconsiderate, but she didn’t care. Not right now. Tonight she’d gathered her nerve to walk into her daughter’s room. After what she’d witnessed today, she’d needed to reconnect with Sophia. And she resented him for taking that away from her.

The floorboards above creaked. She placed the dress on her lap, then closed the bin. With exhaustion settling deep within her bones, she carried the dress from the basement. When she didn’t see Dante in the kitchen, she bypassed the living room and went upstairs. The door to the guest bedroom stood open and Dante hovered at the threshold.

“Jess,” he said, his voice raw.

“Don’t.” She clutched the dress to her chest. “Please. Not now.”

When he shifted his gaze to the dress, the haunted look in his eyes had her choking back a sob. “I never meant to hurt you. I love—” He cleared his throat. “You and Sophia were my girls.”

A quick flash of him coming home with a big smile on his face, and saying, “There’re my beautiful girls,” had her ready to fall to pieces. He’d been a wonderful father and husband. Unfortunately, he’d made a callous choice.

She glanced to Sophia’s room. He’d closed the door, but she now knew what waited inside. Not her daughter. And not the memories of her.

She edged closer to their bedroom. “I just…can’t right now.”

“Can’t what?”

“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. Forgive? Forget? She wasn’t sure. There were too many unnamed emotions tearing her apart.

Emotionally drained and too tired to talk with him, she moved toward the bedroom.

“Jess,” he murmured, his tone hoarse.

She stopped. “Good night,” she said, then closed the door behind her.

Once she was in the room, she crawled into the bed and curled up with Sophia’s dress—a link to her daughter, a link to Dante.

A link to the past and the present.

She closed her eyes. Instead of picturing Sophia, the horrifying images of Jane Doe filtered through her mind. That girl had been robbed of her child, just as she had been. She clutched Sophia’s dress closer and wept.

She didn’t know if she’d ever have the opportunity to hold Sophia again, but she’d do everything possible to help Jane Doe find her child.

No one should have to suffer that kind of loss.

*

Heather cried as she finished changing Elton’s dirty diaper. Careful of avoiding the gauze covering his belly button, she touched the soft, blotchy skin along his stomach. When she’d changed him earlier, his skin had been slightly mottled but had grown worse as the hours ticked by. So had his breathing. She didn’t know if the skin discoloration, the rapid breathing and sweating had anything to do with the way Elton exerted himself with all of his crying, or if it was due to the withdrawal from the drug Chloe had used during the pregnancy. All she knew was that his health was becoming worse. He’d refused his last bottle and had spit up most of what he’d taken into his body after his prior feeding.

While she dressed him in the onesie that was too big, she sobbed. Wayne was right. Elton needed a doctor. She couldn’t take care of him at home and give him the proper medical care he needed. Wiping the tears from her cheeks, she tried to catch her breath, but only cried harder when she recalled the seizure, which had been terrifying and something she didn’t want to witness again. Seeing his little body convulse—she’d never felt more powerless.

She’d never felt more alone.

Wayne had been in the room, but the disgust and accusation in his eyes had put miles between them. As for God—she didn’t know what to think anymore. She loved God and had spent her entire life serving Him. In return, He’d given her a life to carry in her womb, only to destroy it. He’d given her Missy Schneider’s baby. Only He’d taken the child before he’d entered the world. He’d given her a pregnant, drug-addicted whore. He’d tested her faith and she’d stood strong, knowing in her heart that being a mother was God’s design, that He would take care of her and her newborn son.

Now He was forcing her to sacrifice her son. She could no longer care for him, and because Elton was her gift she couldn’t trust him in the care of any other family. No one could ever love him the way she did, and because she loved him so much she would set him free of this world and end his pain.

Her hands trembled as she swaddled her crying baby. Tears trailed down her cheeks and her shoulders shook as she wept. Conflict raged through her. She didn’t want to give up her baby. He might not have been born from her body, but in her heart he belonged to her. He’d touched her soul and had given her so much hope.

She caressed Elton’s red cheek and wondered if maybe God had forsaken her. No. She picked up Elton and kissed his head. God wouldn’t do that to her. Why He was testing her, she didn’t know or understand. But what she did know was that she couldn’t lose faith. Not now. Not when she needed His strength to help her sacrifice her baby.

Holding Elton close, she left the bedroom. With her legs weighed down by dread and hopelessness, she moved slowly. Every step brought her closer to the inevitable. Her stomach ached and her chest burned with anguish and deep-seated sorrow.