Exposed (A Jenny Watkins Mystery Book 4) Read online

  Exposed

  Becky Durfee

  Book 4 of the Jenny Watkins Mystery Series

  Driven

  Betrayed

  Shattered

  Copyright 2014

  Dedication

  Where to even begin?

  As always, my first shout-out has to go to my family: Scott Durfee, Hannah Durfee, Seneca Durfee, Evan Fish and Julia Fish. Without the love and support of that crew, these books would never come to be.

  My list of proofreaders keeps growing every time I produce a new work. I hope I manage to do this without forgetting anyone. First I need to give a special thanks to my brother-in-law Bill Demarest, who takes his job as a proofreader very seriously. He does more research about these topics than I do. Next I need to thank (in no particular order) Felicia Underwood, Sam Travers, Sarah Demarest, Sue Durfee, Stacy Vicks, Jenn Groom, Andrew Clifford and Danielle Bon Tempo for their willingness to read my books and give their input. I certainly can’t forget Cheryl Groom and Becky Goche, who gave me some extra advice which meant the world to me. Thank you all so very much.

  My step-daughter Seneca Durfee was also my gracious cover photographer, and for that I am grateful. She sure takes a darn good picture.

  I’d also like to give my appreciation to Sam at Chiocca’s Salon, who can somehow take my baby-thin, poker-straight witch hair and give it layers and volume. She’s a minor miracle worker…my own personal Derrick. (That will make sense later.)

  Last but not least, I’d like to thank you for taking the time to read my books. The feedback I have received from my readers has been overwhelming, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Truly.

  Well, I hope you enjoy Exposed!

  Chapter 1

  “What’s going on here?” Jenny mumbled as she looked at the pack of pills in her hand. Every one of the slots was empty; she had taken every dose first thing in the morning, just as prescribed. So why was she three days late?

  She tapped her foot nervously as she considered the implications of what may have potentially been lying in front of her. She and Zack were still too new to commit long term—her divorce from Greg wasn’t even final yet, and it wouldn’t be for months. If she was pregnant her secret relationship with Zack would certainly not be a secret anymore. Everyone would know that she’d started something new before her marriage was officially over. In that regard, pregnancy would have been a nightmare.

  On the other hand, Jenny had desperately wanted to be a mother for years. This became especially true when she realized that she herself had been conceived out of wedlock and had inherited her psychic ability from her biological father. Since it ran in the family, perhaps her own children would be blessed with the gift. Was she carrying a baby who would keep that remarkable trait alive?

  “You’re putting the cart before the horse,” Jenny proclaimed, still not having conquered her habit of talking to herself. Reaching for her phone, she called her gynecologist’s office.

  “Doctor Patil and Associates,” the secretary said. She always sounded unbelievably happy.

  “Hi, my name is Jenny Watkins, and I just have a quick question for the nurse if she’s available.”

  “Sure, just one moment please.”

  Butterflies danced around Jenny’s stomach as the hold music blared through the phone. After what seemed like an eternity, another pleasant-sounding woman picked up. “This is Lisa, can I help you?”

  “Hi Lisa, this is Jenny Watkins. I’m on the birth control pill, and I was just wondering if there might be any reason why I wouldn’t get my period other than the obvious one.”

  “Did you forget to take any pills this month?”

  “No,” she replied. “I took every one.” At that moment the horrible cough that had been plaguing Jenny for the last month crept up on her. She shielded her mouth with the crook of her elbow in an attempt to mute it, but to no avail.

  “That’s a pretty bad cough you have,” Lisa noted. “You didn’t happen to take antibiotics for that, did you?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Lisa sighed before she spoke. “Did your doctor tell you to use back-up birth control while on those antibiotics?”

  Excitement, fear and shock hit Jenny all at once. “No, he didn’t.”

  “Well, unfortunately antibiotics can lessen the effectiveness of the pill. I’m sorry to tell you this, but what you’ll need to do is go out and get a pregnancy test. You should take it first thing in the morning since that’s when the test is most accurate. If it does come back positive, you’ll have to stop taking the pill and then figure out what you want to do from there.”

  Jenny rubbed her lower belly with disbelief. “Okay, thank you. I’ll do that.”

  “Give us a call if it’s positive. We’ll want to set up an appointment with you to make sure everything’s okay.”

  In a daze, Jenny replied, “Will do.”

  She hung up the phone and sat motionlessly on her couch. She had dreamed of this moment for a lifetime, but it wasn’t supposed to be like this. She was supposed to be gazing into the loving eyes of her husband, talking about how wonderful this planned and anticipated pregnancy would be. She wasn’t supposed to be upstairs while her boyfriend, who lived downstairs, was most likely taking a nap.

  And her husband lived in a separate house three hours away.

  “Cart before the horse,” she said again, resolving to take a pregnancy test in the morning. Although, she knew the wait was going to make the next twenty hours feel more like twenty days.

  Feeling the need to sidetrack herself, she knocked on the door to the in-law apartment downstairs. “Come on in,” she heard Zack say. Perhaps he wasn’t napping. That, at least, showed promise.

  She walked down the stairs to find him in the midst of unpacking. “Need any help?” she asked.

  “Only if you’re willing to give it.”

  “I’m certainly willing to help,” she said as she walked into his living room. “The only problem is I don’t know where you’d want anything.”

  Zack stood up straight and wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. “I don’t know where I want anything either. Something tells me you’d be better at putting things in logical places than I would, though.”

  Jenny had been at an advantage when they’d moved in a few days earlier. She’d left her marriage with little more than the shirt on her back and a sizeable bank account from one of her earlier cases. She simply ordered furniture and had it all delivered to the main floor of the house, purchasing smaller items at the store a little at a time. Zack, on the other hand, had years’ worth of stuff packed haphazardly into boxes, and he had to unpack it in much less space than Jenny did. She scratched her head as she contemplated the inequity of the situation.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Jenny said. “I’ll put some of your stuff away, but I’ll try to think like a man while I do it.”

  “No, don’t do that,” Zack said, shaking his head. “If we both think like men, soon enough we’ll be calling it quits to watch sports and eat wings.”

  With a stifled laugh, Jenny looked at this uncomplicated yet charming man who may unknowingly be a father. Was he ready for that? Was she ready for that?

  Cart and horse, she thought as she started unpacking a box.

  “I appreciate this,” Zack added, flashing Jenny a sincere smile.

  “It’s the least I can do,” she said. “I had it so easy compared to you.”

  “Well, if I wasn’t such a packrat this would be a lot less painful.” He lifted a box and began to carry it toward the bedroom, stopping to give Jenny a kiss on the cheek as he walked by.

  Their relationship had progres
sed over the past several months without discussion, which Jenny found to be both wonderful and scary at the same time. She had always been such a planner, needing to know every detail about exactly where things stood to the point where she made herself crazy. This time she just allowed things to happen, and it felt remarkably good despite her forfeiture of control.

  From time to time the couple would exchange I love yous, and Zack was always quick to give her little kisses and affectionate pats in passing. The joy of those tokens was not lost on Jenny, who had struggled for acknowledgement in her previous, sub-par marriage. In that regard she was quite happy with Zack.

  But they were still so new. Would the affection last? And how on earth would he react to a baby? Nerves threatened to engulf her, so she busied herself with unpacking.

  The afternoon was largely uneventful; they made good progress emptying boxes, and Zack’s apartment became somewhat livable. For long stretches throughout the afternoon Jenny would find herself immersed in the move, completely forgetting about the potentially life-changing news she would receive in the morning. Other times the thought would come flooding back to her in an overwhelming wave, inducing a multitude of emotions. All the while, Zack continued to be Zack, which proved to be both comforting and alarming at the same time.

  With the pregnancy test situated safely on the bathroom sink, Jenny climbed alone into her bed. While she and Zack spent the night together on occasion, they didn’t always. Despite the unusual living arrangement, they were proving to be like any other new couple—enjoying time together while also maintaining their space. She wondered if this latest development would make that all change.

  Dog tired, she nestled into her pillow and let out a yawn. Soon enough she was dreaming, looking into the eyes of a terrifying and angry man who appeared to be in his late thirties. “I told you,” the man said through gritted teeth. “Stop checking up on me.”

  “I’m not,” Jenny said, her voice shaking. “I swear.”

  “Then why are you going through my shit?” The brown-haired man approached her, making Jenny cower in fear.

  “I am looking for the gas bill. I’m not sure where it went, and I need to pay it.”

  “That’s bullshit.”

  “It’s not bullshit. It’s the truth.” Jenny was telling the truth, and she desperately hoped this man believed her.

  Apparently he didn’t.

  He lunged at Jenny, gripping her throat in his hand and slamming her against the wall. “Then you need to do a better job keeping the bills straight, got it? I don’t want you rummaging through my stuff.” He loosened his grip for a second, only to tighten it and slam her against the wall again.

  Nodding feebly, Jenny remarked, “Uh-huh.” It was the only sound she could muster with his grip being as firm as it was.

  Looking into her eyes like a crazed man, he paused as if to consider what he was about to do next. Jenny silently prayed for mercy, hoping that he would be able to see the woman he once fell in love with as he looked at her. As if reading her mind he let go of her, flashing one last glare for good measure before silently storming out of the room.

  Jenny sat up in bed, unsure if what she’d just endured had been a dream or a vision. Either way she found herself shaken, gently caressing her own neck, grateful that she’d never experienced anything like that first-hand. Reaching for the notepad she kept by her bed, she wrote down all of the specifics she could remember, including a detailed description of what that horrible man had looked like.

  Once the entry was complete, she looked at the clock. Four a.m. Was it too soon to take a pregnancy test? She hoped not, because she was about to do it anyway.

  She felt as if she was having an out-of-body experience as she scurried into the bathroom. Her eyes took a moment to adjust to the light; then she began reading the directions from the sheet inside the package. She had never taken a pregnancy test before and was unsure what to do. After learning her options, she looked back and forth between the stick and the cup, deciding she’d probably have better luck with the cup. Hitting the stick with the stream seemed like too much of a challenge at that hour. A few moments later she laid the stick flat on the counter, walking away so she could count off the next one-hundred-eighty seconds.

  A million thoughts raced through her head as the seconds ticked by. How would she feel if it was positive? How would she feel if it was negative? She wiped her hands down her face, wishing she could fast forward the few minutes it would take for her to know her answer.

  After the longest three minutes of her life, she returned to the bathroom. She closed her eyes at first, let out a quick exhale, and then looked down at the stick.

  Positive.

  Chapter 2

  Jenny felt markedly different as she ate her breakfast. There was a baby in her belly. She was pregnant. Simultaneously delighted and horrified, she reached for her phone so she could break the news.

  Her mother, Isabelle, picked up after three rings. “Hi, honey. Is everything okay?”

  The worry of the mother, Jenny thought. An oddly-timed phone call immediately spelled trouble in a mother’s mind; soon she would know that for herself.

  “Yeah, everything’s okay.” Jenny paused longer than she should have, unsure of what to say next.

  “It doesn’t sound like it.” Mothers seemed to have radar, too.

  With a defeated chuckle, Jenny gathered her strength and said, “I’m just pregnant, that’s all.”

  Her mother returned the long silence. Eventually she replied, “Are you sure?”

  “Well, there’s a pregnancy test with a big fat plus sign in my bathroom. That’s about as sure as I can be at this point.”

  Isabelle paused once more. “Is it Zack’s baby?”

  Jenny bit her lip; what a horrible question to have to hear. “Yes, ma, it’s Zack’s baby.”

  “I just wasn’t sure under the circumstances.”

  “Considering it’s March and I haven’t even seen Greg since Christmas, I think it’s safe to assume it isn’t his.” Jenny decided against mentioning she hadn’t slept with Greg for the last six months of their marriage; that information would have been overkill.

  “So what did Zack say when you told him?”

  Jenny sipped her coffee. Should she have been drinking coffee? She set the cup back down. “I haven’t told him yet.”

  “You haven’t?”

  Jenny shook her head, even though her mother couldn’t see that. “No. You’re the first person I’m telling. Aren’t you honored?”

  Jenny was waiting for her mother to say something to indicate how she felt about the news, although Jenny acknowledged it must have been difficult to know how to react when someone just announced they’d conceived a baby out of wedlock.

  “I suppose I am,” Isabelle said. “But why haven’t you told Zack?”

  “I just found out, and I want to wait for the right moment.”

  “Are you worried about how he’ll react?”

  “Of course I am,” Jenny replied. “But right now I’m more curious to hear your reaction.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know how I feel about it,” Isabelle countered. “The way I feel will depend largely upon how you feel.” She paused before adding, “Are you happy about this?”

  Jenny thought for a moment before replying with a smile, “Yeah. I think I am.”

  Isabelle’s tone softened. “Then I’m happy, too.”

  A flood of relief washed over Jenny, who somehow still looked for her mother’s approval even though she was twenty-seven years old. “I mean, I’m well aware that there will be some logistics to work out, but we’ll have time to figure all of that out.”

  “Nine months, to be precise,” Isabelle noted. “So how are you feeling, honey?”

  “Fine,” Jenny replied. “Weird, but fine.”

  “Weird?”

  “Just knowing there’s a baby inside of me…that’s…weird.”

  “Just you wait until it gets bigger and starts mo
ving around in there. Now that’s weird. It’s like having an alien inside of you.”

  The two women laughed and carried on their conversation. Once Jenny hung up, she decided to head downstairs and fill Zack in on the vision she’d had the night before. She resolved to hold off on the baby conversation for a bit; the timing needed to be right, and she wanted some time to rehearse what she was going to say first.

  Coffee cup in hand, she knocked on the door to the downstairs apartment. She didn’t hear an answer, but Zack had given her his blessing to walk right in if a vision was involved. She quietly opened the door and tiptoed into the apartment and down the short hall into the bedroom, finding Zack sprawled out on his bed sound asleep.

  She looked at him lovingly for a moment before she woke him. All in all, he was a good man. He certainly had his faults, but he would never do anything even remotely close to what she’d endured in her dream. He simply didn’t have it in him.

  She sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his shoulder softly.

  “Hey,” he whispered sleepily. “What’s up?” He rolled over onto his back and greeted her with a smile.

  “Well, first of all, I brought you some coffee,” Jenny declared, holding up her cup before setting it on his nightstand. If she couldn’t drink it, there was no sense in letting it go to waste.

  “You are my hero.” Zack rubbed his eye with his knuckle. “Where’s yours?”

  Jenny shrugged one shoulder. “I’m good.” Afraid that notion seemed suspicious, she quickly changed the subject. “I may or may not have had a vision last night. It was either a vision or a bad dream, I can’t tell.”

  Zack patted the bed next to him. “Why don’t you climb on in and tell me about it?”

  Grateful for the invitation, Jenny slid under the covers and nestled into his shoulder. If she was going to be honest with herself, this was the real reason she came downstairs. The vision alone wasn’t telling enough to justify waking Zack for it. Rather, she merely wanted to enjoy the sensation of Zack’s arm around her so she could feel that maybe, just maybe, everything would turn out alright.