Kelley Armstrong - Otherworld Chills

We parked next to his car, where I planned to intercept him post-workout. When a food truck pulled into the lot and set my stomach churning, we put the windows up and turned on the air.

“So, morning sickness …” Adam said. “I’m guessing the ‘morning’ part is false advertising?”

“It’s worse in the morning, but it definitely doesn’t vanish at the stroke of noon. I’m hoping it’s temporary. Well, if …”

“If you decide to continue the pregnancy.”

When I shrugged, he said, “You don’t need to tiptoe around it with me. Are you forgetting who came to Boston when you had a scare in college? There wasn’t any question of what you’d have done then, or any question of who’d drive you to the clinic to do it.”

“I know. Thank you. I’m just … struggling. I’m not in college anymore, so the decision is tougher. I have a great marriage. Lucas would make an amazing father. We have good jobs and enough money to easily support a family. There’s no reason not to go through with it.”

“Except for the fact that maybe you and Lucas don’t want to be parents. Which is kinda the most important reason of all.”

“I know. But we wouldn’t mind being parents, so even that makes it hard. On the other hand, saying we wouldn’t mind having a baby doesn’t seem good enough.”

“I think if you decide to continue, that’s a perfectly fine place to start. But if you decide not to, that’s fine, too.”

He eased back in his seat, looking out the window. “There’s also a third option. Savannah and I … Well, we talked, and …” He glanced over. “If you wanted to go through with the pregnancy but not keep the baby, we’d take it. Happily. We could do it however you guys wanted—keep it open and be honest from the start, or stay quiet until the kid’s older, or … whatever.”

“That’s …” My eyes filled again and I brushed my hand over them. “Sorry. Hormones, apparently. Which you know all about.”

“Oh, I do, though I sometimes suspect Savannah just likes the excuse.”

I managed a laugh. “Possibly. But … the offer … Thank you. Really. That’s … big. Huge.”

He shrugged. “Hey, one baby, two babies, doesn’t make much difference, right?”

“You might want to talk to Elena and Clay about that.”

“We’d survive. Anyway, we just wanted to put it out there. As a third option.”

I leaned over the seat and hugged him. “Thank you.”

We’d been in the parking lot almost three hours. That seemed excessive. Admittedly, my idea of exercise is an hour of Pilates twice a week, so I’m not exactly a gym rat. But even Adam declared this was longer than he and Savannah spent at the gym. We snuck in under cover of blur spells and split up to hunt. By this point, we figured Pearce would have retired to the sauna or the pool. The sauna was in the men’s room, so I got the pool.

I was heading toward my goal when I spotted Pearce in the bar. The juice bar, that is. He’d staked out a table in the corner and had his laptop set up to work, though a woman was making that difficult. He was very clearly trying to do work and she kept hitting on him.

I decided to help. I took out my cell phone, set the call to show up as a private number, and dialed Pearce’s phone from the number the nurse had been given. It rang. It continued ringing, and Pearce kept typing on his laptop as the woman chattered to him.

The number connected. A man’s voice said, “Cortez Corporation. John Pearce speaking …” as I watched Pearce, still typing, his phone on the table, untouched.

“The number I used is also the one I have for John.” I was on the speakerphone to Lucas as Adam drove us. “Which makes no sense. Sure, whoever was pretending to be him could reroute it, but he’d notice if he wasn’t getting any calls. So how …? Wait. Wasn’t there something about the Cabal phones about six months ago?”

“Yes, a security breach, which resulted in new phone numbers for a few dozen employees, primarily in the security department, which John technically is.”

“That means I have his old number. Which is the one someone gave the nurse, pretending to be him. We need to find out who took that number.”

From my office, I hacked into the telecommunications system. Easy enough. Something like the reallocation of a phone number isn’t considered worthy of the highest security measures. I just needed to be on the Cabal system to hack it, which I did, in about ten minutes.

“Ralph Daly has Pearce’s old number,” I said to Lucas, who was waiting quietly behind me. “The requisition order tracks back to him. He specifically requested it as an alternative number, which he asked be left off the main directory.”

Daly was a VP and a board member. Also, one of Lucas’s staunchest supporters.

“Any possibility it may have been requested in his name?” Lucas asked.

“The note says it was directly requested. Of course, it’s not inconceivable that—”

A rap sounded at the front door. When I opened the door, Benicio stood there.

“I saw the light on,” he said. “I hoped—Oh. Lucas. Hello.”

Lucas gave a stiff nod and stayed in his seat.

“May I come in?” Benicio asked.

I motioned him inside. As he closed the door, he said, “I would like to apologize. To both of you, of course, but mostly to Paige. When I made that suggestion the other night, I didn’t see the harm in it. Now I do. It was inexcusably offensive. You have made your decision. I respect that, and I apologize for asking you to change it.”

“I have heard,” Lucas said, “that the board pressured you to put forward the proposal. Strongly pressured you. Particularly some of those who support me.”

Benicio made a face. “Whatever pressure I’ve gotten, the decision to ask was ultimately mine. The mistake was mine.”

“Should I speak to anyone from the board myself?” Lucas said.

“My sources suggest Ralph Daly has been particularly vocal.”

“Ralph wants to see you take my place, and sometimes, in his zealousness to do so, he doesn’t consider the ramifications.” A wry smile. “Not unlike your father, it seems. I’ll have a word with him. You won’t hear any more about it. I understand your decision. And of course, if you change your mind, Paige herself is proof that, with a little magical help, there’s no reason you couldn’t have a child ten years from now—”

“Papá,” Lucas said, squeezing the bridge of his nose. “That is not dropping the subject.”

Benicio sighed. “Another apology, then. Is there any way I can entice you both to join me in a late dinner? If I promise that the subject is truly dropped?”

Lucas glanced at me. I nodded.

“Dinner would be fine, Papá. Thank you.”

The next morning, I was parked in our condo bathroom, Adam having carried a comfortable chair in there for me. He’d meant it as a joke. An hour later, I found myself in it, working on my laptop. It was just easier that way.

At ten, Lucas pinged my computer. I opened a video screen as he ushered Ralph Daly into his office.

Lucas greeted Daly, exchanging the prerequisite small talk along with apologies for disturbing his workday and Daly’s assurances that it was fine, just fine.

“I have a … sensitive matter to discuss,” Lucas said, moving to the chair behind his desk. “I have not yet mentioned it to my father, and I would like to ask you to do the same. Before you do, let me assure you it is personal, not business, and therefore I am not placing you in a difficult position.”

Daly quickly agreed to silence.

“Paige is pregnant,” Lucas said.

Daly lowered himself into the chair, his eyes glowing, the news clearly welcome even as he responded to Lucas with a more cautious, “Is that … good news?”