Due Date_A Baby Contract Romance

by Emily Bishop

  “Original,” I reply, stepping aside. Buster releases a low growl, and I pat his head gently.

  I don’t want her to linger. The woman is a pain in the ass, that much is clear. I’m happy to let her go about her merry way but when I don’t see Scarlett, my curiosity gets the better of me.

  “Where’s Scarlett?” I ask.

  I’m assuming that Chantel dropped her off, that hopefully she had the good sense to go up to my apartment after the previous night’s episode—the bad part, not the sexy part. Well, maybe she’d have the good sense to do both, actually. But she doesn’t have access to my apartment. I never gave her a key, so that idea makes no sense.

  My whole life seems to make no sense these days.

  “What are you, her babysitter?” she asks, and I’m sorry I bothered speaking to her in the first place. I’m not wasting my time with this woman. I can find out Scarlett’s whereabouts without her bullshit attitude.

  Her lip curls as she passes by me, turning back from the sidewalk. “If you must know, she went to Gareth’s. You know Gareth, right? Her boyfriend?”

  That’s two strikes for Chantel. While I was walking and thinking about Gareth’s weird behavior, it struck me that he didn’t reach for Scarlett’s hidden key. Wouldn’t a boyfriend know something like that? Now Chantel’s story isn’t adding up either, and the fact that I can’t stand the woman isn’t impacting my judgement. She’s made it onto my list of people to keep an eye out for.

  “You must not have been good friends with Scarlett,” I muse. “Otherwise, you’d know better.”

  “I know plenty. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  She doesn’t finish that sentence, merely walking away from the building. I don’t bother watching her leave, instead entering the building and pressing in the slat with Scarlett’s spare key. When I still find it there, I make a mental note to tell her not to leave this out anymore. Her apartment isn’t safe when it is locked. It can’t make things much better to have a key readily available on the outside.

  I turn the key in her lock, pressing the door inward. The apartment looks as it did the night before, day-old popcorn scattered all over the floor. I think about cleaning up a bit, saving Scarlett the hassle, but then that will likely just freak her out more. I don’t want her to walk into an altered apartment for a second time.

  “Scarlett?” I ask, my voice echoing across the living room, dissolving into the walls.

  The place is empty. If Chantel wasn’t dropping Scarlett off, if she left their brunch date to go see Gareth, then what the hell was she doing here? Not finding Scarlett and not wanting to trespass without her permission, I leave her apartment as it is and close the door from the outside, locking it once more and replacing the key. I’m tempted to take it with me so no one else can use it but I think the better of it. That’s a discussion to have with Scarlett, not a decision to make on my own.

  I run up the stairs, opening my own apartment. Buster bursts through the door, pressing his nose into the air as he sniffs around, digging it into nooks and crannies. I’m staring at him like the weirdo he is when I notice a piece of paper sticking out from beneath my couch. Being a clean person, I tend to keep that area paper free, and I bend down to scoop it up, unfolding it to take a better look.

  The document is filled with code. As I read through it a couple of times, I’m able to puzzle some of it out, reading nicknames for government agencies, a message talking about a particular computer connected to the government.

  How the hell did this end up here?

  My mind instantly turns to Scarlett. This has her written all over it. Didn’t she leave her purse by the couch when she came in the night before? This had to have fallen out.

  “What the hell did you get into, Scarlett?” I mumble, staring at the document, thinking.

  This is a woman who had someone willing to burn a building down with her inside. An entire building, just to kill her and destroy the evidence, as it were. Someone who is able to destroy an entire warehouse with just one match, tap into a television set like it’s a personal computer. Actually, her computer is probably tapped, too, and her phone. Ransacked her place, a reporter with amnesia…

  Buster is still freaking out. Clearly there’s a scent around the place that he doesn’t recognize. I’ve seen this behavior in him before. My eyes narrow and I move to turn on every light in the house, even in the light of day. I start in my bedroom, peeling through the blinds, scanning my dresser and under the bed.

  That’s when I find the first one. It’s so tiny I almost miss it, the silver reflective of the area it sits on. The bug is a little square chip, small enough to pinch between the index finger and the thumb. I crush it. I can’t help myself. If they were listening in to what we did last night…

  A wave of rage washes over me, and I have to sit on the ground and calm myself. I won’t be able to find the rest of them if I’m seeing red. I meticulously pour through the rest of my bedroom, finding one more there. This one I leave intact, setting it down on my bedside table as I comb through the bathroom next.

  There are three in there. One behind my showerhead –what, did they want to hear my beautiful voice? – one on the sink pipe inside my cabinet, and another behind the toilet. I don’t know what kind of information these assholes are looking for but they sure as shit won’t find it in my shitter.

  They must be intimately acquainted with the regularity of my bowels by now. Fascinating intel, really.

  I’m scanning the hallway walls next, finding two more in the top corners of the ceiling. At this point, it feels like I’m in a stadium, center stage. My anger is burning beneath the surface but it’s like being on the job, and I’m not letting emotion take over when it will impede my ability to discover all of these pieces of garbage.

  The living room is the largest space, short of the kitchen, and I’m grateful in this moment for having a fairly sparsely decorated space. There are four bugs in my living room, hidden strategically in places a normal person would never look under the couch, behind—the TV, more tucked in the ceiling corners, where a camera would go on some reality show.

  Is that what I’ve been to them? Some kind of fucking sideshow to Scarlett’s main character? I finish up with the kitchen, finding three more. I comb the apartment two more times before I’m satisfied that I have found all the little fuckers. My ears have been perked up this entire time, waiting. On my last sweep, the front door to the apartment building opens, and I take three breaths, not wanting to ambush her.

  But she has to know.

  I pile up all of my bugs, the cool metal burning my palm as I itch to crush them, to destroy every last one of them. Before I do, I have to show Scarlett. I hold a finger to my lips, shushing Buster as he stares at me with large amber eyes. He lets out the smallest whimper but obeys. My steps are silent, which is saying something for someone of my size and given the age of the wood beneath my feet. This is not my first rodeo, though admittedly it is my first bugging.

  I’m not a fan.

  Scarlett is at her door, the key in the lock, but she isn’t moving. I imagine she isn’t too thrilled to reenter her apartment with the knowledge that her TV could turn right back on, showcasing her tormenter’s power all over again. I allow the floor to creak beneath me when I reach the bottom step, and she turns.

  Before she can talk, I press a finger to her lips, luscious and round as they are. Her eyes are red. She’s been crying. We’ll get to that in a moment. If I have to beat the shit out of Gareth, it will be a real pleasure. I show her my closed fist, holding it out to her as I move my finger from her lips and open my palm.

  Her eyes dart down to my fistful of bugs, her eyebrows narrowing as she concentrates on them. She’s blinking furiously, giving her head a shake before I close my hand around them again, and then squeeze.

  They crush in my hand, the metal of each one combining into a ball of miniscule parts. I open the front door and toss them outside into the wind.

  I turn back t
o Scarlett, pissed. “Found these just now. It appears that whoever is after you knows that we’ve got a connection now.”

  Scarlett releases a breath and leans back against her door. I can’t help myself. I may be pissed but her eyes are sad and confused, and I can’t leave her like that.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, stepping forward.

  The way she bolted out of here this morning, I’m not sure where we stand. I want to hold her and feel her heartbeat slow against me, like it did last night. I want to show her that I can protect her, that I can make things right. I’m not sure if that’s what she wants from me, so instead I hang back a bit, waiting for her to make any kind of move.

  “Yes,” she breathes, still leaning back against the door. She’s not looking at me. She’s staring into space, her eyes darting from side to side as she stays silent.

  Now that I know she’s fine, I step forward, and her blue eyes finally look into mine. My whole body reacts to that connection, one I’ve been thinking about while pacing the entire fucking neighborhood all morning.

  “This isn’t just your problem anymore, Scarlett. They’ve come after me. They don’t know that they’ve awoken the bear. I’m not going to stop until we figure out who is behind this, and when we do, they are going to be sorrier than they can imagine. We’re in this together now.”

  I hold out the piece of paper with the code on it, and she stares at it, taking it with shaky fingers.

  “It’s time for us to solve this fucking thing.”

  And I mean it. This time, child’s play is over.

  12

  Scarlett

  Isaac’s eyes are filled with concern for me as I stare at the piece of paper before tossing it on the ground.

  “What…?” he begins to ask but I can’t be bothered to answer the question hiding behind that one word. For the first time in my post-coma life, I have something to hold onto!

  “Those bugs you showed me… they triggered something. I remember something.”

  My voice is intense as I start pacing the room, my mind going a mile a minute, desperately clinging to the facts that are pouring in. The bugs are familiar but they’re not something from within my amnesia. I had an old Engineering professor who taught us all about these.”

  I turn to look at Isaac, and he looks endearingly concerned. He probably should be. I’m sure I look like a mad woman.

  “He was an ex-CIA agent. Taught us how they operate, how they use bugs to monitor suspects. The bugs he showed me looked exactly like the ones in your hand.”

  “Can you remember any more then, while we’re currently in the dark ages?”

  I wrack my brain, trying to glean every detail I can remember. I stop then, closing my eyes and pressing my fingers against my temples. A headache threatens the back of my skull but I don’t care. Let my head explode, if it means I get an answer before it does.

  “Wallace. That was his name. Professor Wallace. He’s probably not at the university anymore. He could barely hold onto that job… He was crazy paranoid.”

  “Paranoid? Gee, I can’t possibly imagine why,” Isaac says, and I almost chuckle.

  Really this whole thing would be insanely funny if it wasn’t the worst thing to ever happen to me in my entire life. I nod, my lip twitching just a fraction.

  “Yes, well. The class was a huge hit. I begged Preston, my editor, to let me write a piece on Wallace. I did all the research for it but in the end, he said Gareth held rank with more experience and he gave the byline to him.”

  “You don’t write your own stuff? I thought you were a journalist.”

  My cheeks color at that comment, and I can’t help the bit of spite that leaks out with my answer. “I am a journalist. I just haven’t earned my own byline yet. I’ve been researching in the trenches, which is a big part of why Gareth and I spent so much time together. I checked the research; he wrote the stories. I’ve written my own piece here and there but I’ve wanted a regular spot in the paper for ages. I was on my way to earning it before the accident.”

  Isaac stares at me, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. I don’t have time to dwell on it. We need answers, and I bet Juice is the one to get them for us.

  “If we can find him, we might be able to track down who bugged your apartment. Did you destroy every last one of them?”

  Isaac shrugs. “I’m sure even if I did, your place is just crawling with more.”

  I nod, picking up the coded paper and taking a step toward the front door. “We have to find Wallace. He’s the only person I know of who can help us find a lead to the person who did this.”

  “Okay, great. Where is he?”

  I was dreading that question. My shoulders slump.

  “I don’t know. They guy’s a paranoid ex-CIA agent, remember? He could be anywhere. He might not even go by the name Wallace anymore.”

  We stand in silence, hit with our first dead end before I snap my fingers.

  “But I know where information about him is stored. This story didn’t come out that long ago. Chances are he could have the same information, if we can find it. There’s a file back at the Tribune.”

  Isaac nods, seeing where I’m going. “To the Tribune we go then?”

  I nod. “Great. I’m driving.”

  He disappears, and his footsteps are loud and clear as he pounds back up the stairs, opening his door and quickly closing it again. How did I not hear him coming up behind me before? The man is monolithic. As he reaches the bottom floor, I notice he’s not even winded from the trip, his truck keys in hand.

  “Shall we?” he asks, stepping toward the door and opening it for me.

  I nod, and this time I can’t repress a smile as I look up at him. I compare him to Gareth again, and find Gareth sorely lacking. There’s something about Isaac that just works. He’s a man I want to be around, and I determine not to run out of his bed the next time I’m in it.

  Until then, it’s time to get to work.

  Isaac opens my car door for me, and I don’t protest. Frankly, it feels nice to be cared for. I buckle my seatbelt as he slides into the driver’s seat, turning on the engine and driving us toward the Tribune, with some direction from me. As the truck pulls up to the curb, I brace myself for the possibility of running into Gareth again. We didn’t exactly end things on the best note.

  I step out before Isaac can open the door again. A man sits in a car across the street, a few cars down. I could swear that it’s Gareth but I think I’m just paranoid. At some point, we’re going to have to reconcile, and I’m sure we will.

  We were good enough friends to get through this. I know we will be again once he’s over whatever’s going on with him. I don’t believe he can love me like that, when our friendship is so worth saving. I simply refuse to believe it.

  When we reach the glass doorway to the building, Isaac pulls it open and I breeze in, the door closing behind me as he follows. He is a towering presence, and I revel in his energy. No harm will come to me so long as Isaac is by my side, and I am beyond grateful for this fact.

  He is my savior, after all.

  I lead Isaac to my desk in the bullpen, the walls of my cube that lovely shade of depressing soul-sucking gray. I sit at my desk, my hands hovering over my keyboard as I contemplate turning the machine on. At my hesitation, Isaac kneels down, reaching me at eye level. He is that tall.

  “What’s wrong?” he asks.

  I take a breath, releasing it as I stare at the black screen of my work desktop, half expecting it to flash on with an image of me and Isaac, staring at our own reflections.

  “What if they’ve hacked this one, too? It makes sense. This is where I got a lot of work done.”

  “Is it? I thought you did a lot of that work with Gareth.”

  I nod. “I did but I kept a lot of my research here. They could have easily hacked it.”

  “If they know that about you. As far as we know, they’ve only been keeping an eye on your home. Anyway, what have we got to lose by looking?
We can’t get the information anywhere else.”

  He’s right. There is no other way to access the data that I need, so I hold my breath as I press the button to turn on the machine.

  Isaac’s hand slides over mine. I squeeze it, grateful for him all over again. The login screen appears, and I type in my credentials. The desktop pops up as it normally would. I did check a few emails the last time I was here before I was sent away to go “recover.” Like that could ever happen. I’ll go on a weeklong vacation to Aruba when all of this is over, but until then, I can’t stop.

  I open the folder where I hold my contact information for cases, and I scan through each file, searching for the one I had listed for Juice. I scan it another time, and then another.

  “It’s not here,” I say, my voice laced with disappointment.

  “You think they got to it?” he asks, and I shrug.

  “I don’t know. Probably. I know it was here but that’s the only thing missing from this file. Maybe I’m missing something. Just because I have some memories back doesn’t mean I have all of them.”

  “Is there anyone we can trust to ask about it?”

  I wrack my brain, thinking. There’s a chance that there might be something available in Preston’s office. I just have to convince the man to give it to me.

  “I think so,” I say. “Come on.”

  I lead Isaac to Preston’s office. The door is closed, as it so often is, and I knock twice, hard.

  “What?”

  His voice sounds like sandpaper, and I open the door, accepting that as welcome enough. Preston’s window is open and he is waving at the air around it, the room saturated with cigarette smoke. He glares at me as I walk in before he closes the window.

  “That was not a welcome, and you’re not invited back to write for us yet, Scarlett. I might consider allowing you onto the research team again, provided you can promise not to get killed.”

  I’m about to retort when his eyes widen, gaze directed above and behind me. Isaac has straightened to his full height. One glance back at him tells me that he’s crossed his arms, and he looks intimidating as hell. I want to smile but I don’t. I don’t want to give Preston the fuel to turn us away.