Vivian is still watching me. “Tammy,” she says, pulling me out of my reverie. “You’re our key witness, okay? I really need you to keep it together here.”
“I’m your key witness?” That doesn’t add up. I saw more of Kyle than anyone else on the ranch, but I didn’t see more of anything else.
“We’ve had a lot of former residents back out of testifying,” Vivian says. “Didn’t you notice that hardly any of your old community was at the hotel last night?”
“I mostly stayed in my room…” My head is spinning. “So what does that mean? Do we still have a case without them?”
“We do, but it’s not as strong as it was,” she says. “We’re really counting on you, Tammy, but try not to worry, okay? Just get up there and do it the way you’ve practiced over and over, and everything should be just fine.”
Easy for her to say. My stomach is suddenly in knots.
“You have about ten minutes before we need to be in the courtroom,” Vivian says. “Why don’t you go to the ladies’ room if you need to? Or there’s a drinking fountain in the hall just outside? Take a few minutes, and then we’ll meet back here and go over together.”
I nod and get to my feet. The sound of my shoes on the polished tile floor seems extra loud, like I’m walking through a tunnel.
I find the bathroom and step inside. The room is empty, and I’m glad—I need a minute. This is too much pressure. Too many unexpected variables. I thought I would get here and be one of a whole series of people telling basically the same story. I wasn’t expecting my testimony to actually matter. But the way Vivian describes it, it sounds like the prosecution’s whole case is going to fall apart without me.
My stomach turns over. Suddenly, I’m dashing for the nearest stall. I don’t even have time to lock the door behind me as I drop to my knees and vomit into the bowl. Oh my God, I think, heaving for breath. Please don’t let anybody come in here right now. This is so humiliating.
Finally, I’m able to collect myself. I’m still feeling nauseous and shaky, though, and when I try to get to my feet, my legs nearly give out under me. There’s no way I’m going to be able to take the stand.
The door bangs open. “Tammy?” It’s Vivian. “Are you in here? It’s time to get going.”
“I think I’m sick,” I croak.
Vivian appears in the stall door. “Tammy, you can’t let your nerves get the best of you. We need you in court.”
“This isn’t nerves,” I say. I struggle to sit up and then pitch over the toilet again, gagging. I have nothing left in me to throw up. I’m soaked with sweat and trembling, and my vision is blurring. “Something’s wrong.”
Vivian rests a hand on the back of my neck. “Okay. I’ll ask for a delay. Wait here. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
Chapter 18
Tammy
Thirty minutes later, I’m lying in a hospital bed, hooked up to a saline drip, eyes closed. The trial, Vivian says, has begun without me, but they are willing to rearrange the schedule and hear my testimony later in the afternoon, or possibly tomorrow. I just need to get back on my feet by then, which shouldn’t be a problem. I already feel much better. This saline is really doing its stuff.
I’m alone at the hospital. Vivian made it clear she needed to get back, to cross-examine the witnesses Xavier would try to provide. I told her not to worry, to absolutely go ahead and go. I’m fine here now, surrounded by doctors, and I don’t want the case to suffer in my absence.
The nurse comes in. “Do you think you could eat anything yet, dear?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I don’t want to push it.”
“Have you eaten anything so far today?”
“No.”
“I’m going to order you a meal and you’ll do your best with it. Yes?”
“Yes,” I agree. It’s nice to be bossed around just a little, to have someone telling me what I need to do to get better.
“Your blood tests are being fast-tracked through the lab,” the nurse says. “I understand you have an important trial to be getting back to.”
I’m a little embarrassed. “It’s not that important,” I say. Of course, it’s vitally important to me, but I don’t expect everyone I meet to be as invested as I am.
She smiles. “I’ll just go see if the results are back yet, okay?”
“Okay,” I agree.
The nurse disappears and I gaze out the window. Sacramento really is beautiful. I should probably call my mother and tell her what’s going on, I guess, but there’s the fact that she doesn’t even know I’m in Sacramento to consider. It would be kind of awful to call her and tell her that not only did I leave town without telling her, I actually ended up in the hospital. She would be in her car and speeding the whole way to get here. I can’t let that happen.
Besides, nothing is really wrong with me, and there’s no reason she ever needs to know about this. Probably just the nerves and low blood sugar or something.
The nurse comes back into the room holding a chart and wearing an expression I can’t place.
“What’s up?” I ask. “Is that the results of the blood test?”
“Yes,” she says, and hesitates. “Honey, do you have a husband, maybe, or a boyfriend you’d like to call?”
“I’m single,” I say slowly, starting now to worry. Does she think I’m going to need emotional support? Is the news that bad? “What is it? What does it say?”
“You’re pregnant,” she says.
My head spins again. “What?”
“Is this a surprise?” she asks gently.
“I…yes. Wait. I’m what?”
“You’re pregnant. It’s still early days, but we can do an ultrasound to try to learn more.”
I nod dumbly, even though I don’t need the ultrasound to tell me exactly what happened and when.
This is Kyle’s baby. He’s the only man I’ve been with in five years. Six weeks ago, we slept together and…God. How could I not have realized something was wrong?
The nurse is watching me closely. “Do you want to call somebody?”
Slowly, I shake my head. Who could I possibly call? Not Kyle. For all I know, he might be on the stand giving testimony at this very moment. I’ve already damaged the case enough by landing myself in the hospital when I was supposed to be testifying against Xavier, and Vivian scared me with her talk of the case starting to fall apart as more and more people pulled out. If I call Kyle and tell him what’s going on, the best I can hope for is that he’ll run to my side, and that would ruin the case completely.
I could call my mother, but I’m honestly not sure I could deal with that right now. I’m having enough trouble not panicking on my own. If I try to tell her about this, I’ll have to explain not only the trial and the fact that I’m in Sacramento, but also the fact that I’ve been intimate with a man. She’s not ready for that information.
“No,” I say, looking up at the nurse. I’m surprised to hear how steady my voice is. “No, I don’t need to call anyone.”
“Shall we go ahead with the ultrasound, then?”
I nod.
She rolls in a cart laden with equipment and pushes the little TV monitor over so I can see it. I lie back and stare at the ceiling.
I can’t really be pregnant, right? This ultrasound is going to reveal that it’s all a mistake. I know there’s such a thing as a false positive in this field, and I can’t be pregnant. I’m just barely starting to get my life back together after what happened at the ranch. I’ve got my job and my apartment under control. I pay my bills. Things are going okay.
But I’m not prepared to be a mother.
No. It’s a mistake. I can’t be pregnant.
And then I hear a rushing, washing machine type of sound I’ve heard on TV before, and the nurse says, “That’s your baby’s heartbeat.”
And as the panic swells up in me again, another emotion—one I can’t quite identify—grows alongside it. I’m excited. I’m fascinated. I’m spellbound
.
A baby. A little baby, and it’s mine. It’s part of me.
“Oh,” the nurse says, her eyebrows shooting up. “This is interesting.”
“What? What’s interesting? Is everything okay?”
Ten minutes into this and I’m already a helicopter mom, panicking over the wellbeing of my unborn baby. I can’t stand the thought that he or she might have something wrong. Please be okay.
“Everything’s fine,” the nurse says. “Tammy, honey, do you happen to know if multiple births run in your family?”
“Multiple births?” I think back over the family tree, all my aunts and uncles. “Not that I’m aware of. Why do you ask?”
She smiles at me. “Because it looks like you’re expecting twins. Congratulations!”
I fall back onto my pillow, stunned.
Chapter 19
Tammy
The next morning, I lie in my bed in the hotel room, trying to talk myself into getting up. It feels like an impossible task. Being here was hard enough when all it meant was facing Xavier again and having to socialize with the people I knew back at Pyrite. Just the thought of running into Miriam on the steps of the courthouse and being forced to make small talk is enough to make me want to pull the covers back over my head and go to sleep for a week.
Even as I think this, a clap of thunder sounds from outside. Great. That’s a bad sign, if anything is. When it’s raining this hard, nobody should ever have to get out of bed. It’s the kind of thought I’ve had before, of course, on days when the weather was particularly bad and I had to go to work anyway. Thunderstorms make me want to curl up with a book, but that’s not an option right now. If I were home, I would have to put on my scrubs and go in to work. And here in Sacramento, I have to put on my suit and go to court.
It wasn’t like that on the ranch, I remember suddenly. It’s a detail I had put out of my mind, but it suddenly comes back to me. When the weather was bad on the ranch, nonessential work was cancelled and we were allowed to stay in the dorms. The other women and I would spend the day playing cards, working on knitting projects, or just chatting. Those were nice days. Quiet, but social, and with very few worries.
There were nice moments on the ranch, and I miss those times. It’s a strange thing to admit, on the morning I’m going to testify against Xavier, but it’s the truth. There were things I liked about ranch life, and I can’t deny it.
I get up and move automatically toward the coffee machine, but I check myself mid-step. Am I allowed coffee? My hand moves to my midsection. I don’t know what the rules are for pregnant women. The doctor at the hospital yesterday gave me a speech and a handful of pamphlets, but I was in too much shock to really take any of it in. Maybe it’s best if I don’t have any caffeine today. Too bad. I was counting on that chemical hit before I took the stand.
Denied my usual method of waking myself up, I step into the shower instead. Here’s a thing we didn’t have on the ranch—hot showers. The water was always cold, and we often opted for sponge baths instead because we just couldn’t take it. Now, I let the warm water relax me, waking me up slowly, and I force myself to focus on this simple pleasure and how Xavier denied me it. It made sense when we thought the ranch was self-sustaining, but now I know he had bunkers with fluorescent lighting underground. He was taking hot showers himself all those years. It was only the members—the victims—who had to do without.
I get out of the shower and stand before the mirror, regarding my reflection. I’m not sure I’m ready to take the stand today. I was so sure I was prepared, that I would be able to handle this, but now that the day has come, I’m feeling shaky and intimidated.
I wish I didn’t know that the prosecution was resting so much of its case on me. That’s so much pressure. It’s more than I want to be responsible for. I’m no more central to this story than anybody else at the ranch was, and I wish we were all here together, facing down Xavier as a group. It’s not fair that I should have to bear the lion’s share of it alone.
But then I think of what Kyle told me about the victims of cult leaders, and how many of them find it hard to work their way back into mainstream society. I haven’t always had an easy time—far from it—but at the very least, I’ve found myself capable of dealing with the things that have happened to me. I’ve found a way to live a normal life again. I’m stronger than I ever thought I was, and maybe I’m stronger than some of the other people who fell victim to Xavier’s machinations.
And if that’s the case, maybe I owe it to them to stand up for all of us. If I’m the one who can do it best, then I should be grateful for my own strength. I should do what I can.
I try not to think about the courtroom full of people who will be watching me explain the ways I was hoodwinked. I try not to think about Xavier’s defense attorney, who I know will be doing everything he or she can to poke holes in my story and make it look as though what happened to me only happened because I was stupid, or worse yet, complicit in Xavier’s scheme.
The purpose of the trial is to judge Xavier for his crimes, and I know that. But there’s no escaping the fact that everyone will be judging me, too.
I have to do my best not to think about it. I put on my suit. It’s not as nice as the one I wore yesterday—the day I was supposed to testify—and I assumed I would just be wearing this one to sit in court and watch. It’s going to have to do, though, because it’s all I have left to wear now. I compensate by taking extra time with my hair, spraying and pinning it into a smart updo that I hope communicates I’m a normal person, a person who takes care with her appearance but still likes fun. The last thing I want is to seem unrelatable to the judge and jury today.
I don’t know what I’ll do if Xavier is not convicted. I have to prepare for every outcome, and I understand that. I have to be ready to accept that at the end of the day, he might be acquitted. He might be found guilty, but receive a sentence that I think is absurdly mild. Maybe he’ll only have to do some community service or pay a fine. After all, it’s not as if he killed anybody.
It feels strange to want so badly for someone to spend the rest of their life in prison. It’s a vindictive, uncomfortable feeling. I don’t like having it. And that’s Xavier’s fault, too. It’s his fault I feel this way. It’s his fault I harbor this anger and resentment, and I haven’t been able to really put it behind me. By all accounts, I’m doing better than most of the other victims of Pyrite.
God, I think as I clasp a bracelet around my wrist. Please let them find him guilty. Please let them put him away for a long, long time. That’s the outcome we all need, and it’s what we all deserve. That will allow everyone to finally get some closure.
I examine my reflection in the mirror. I look pulled together. I don’t look like a member of a cult. I remember the first time I saw myself in a mirror after leaving Pyrite—how shocked I was at the unkempt state of my hair and the unpolished look of my face without makeup or proper soap.
I look totally different now. My hair is shorter, and shiny thanks to the use of conditioner. My face is scrubbed clean, and I’ve applied just enough makeup to ensure that I look like I made an effort without looking overdone. No one will look at me and think I’m a crazy fanatic. No one will see me as a freak. I’m totally normal. I look totally normal.
God, I wish I had someone by my side for this. Maybe I should have told my mother what was going on. Maybe I should have asked her to come with me. Managing her paranoia would have been difficult, but walking into that courtroom by myself just might be harder.
But I can do it. I’m almost positive. I think I have to.
My stomach lurches, and my nerves skyrocket. Is this just anxiety, or is it more morning sickness? I don’t want to get sick again today.
I take a few deep, steadying breaths, focusing on the oxygen I’m drawing into my body. I haven’t eaten anything today. I go to the hotel refrigerator, pull out an apple, and drop it into my purse, thinking maybe it will settle my stomach. I’m not ready to try eatin
g yet, but maybe in a little while. Instead, I take a bottle of water, screw off the cap, and sip it slowly. The hydration seems to help. The nausea abates.
God, I hope I don’t get another wave of symptoms in court today. I can just picture myself sitting on the stand, suddenly overcome with nausea, forced to sprint down the aisle and out the door to the restroom. Is such a thing enough to get a person cited for contempt of court? I know, from the prep sessions with my attorney, that you’re not supposed to leave the stand until instructed to do so. What happens if you have to run to the bathroom to throw up, though? Would they make an exception?
Even worse, what if I throw up in court? God, that would be awful. I’m already going to be embarrassing myself by talking about the stupidest decisions of my life in front of a judge and a bunch of people I don’t know. Imagine then turning and puking in front of them, too. If they’re not convinced already that I’m a total mess who can’t handle herself, that would definitely do it.
My only hope is that it would help my case, perhaps by getting people to feel sorry for me. But there’s every possibility it would actually be more help to Xavier. The jury could use my symptoms to cast me as an out of control, hysterical fool whose account of events couldn’t be trusted.
For half a second, I actually ponder the question of whether I should tell them I’m pregnant. Can I give the judge that information, ask him to share it with the jury? Can I warn the room in advance that I might get sick and have to flee for the toilet?
No. I’m struck with the fact that I can’t. I can’t let anybody know what’s going on. Not the judge. Not the jury. Not even Vivian, in case she decides it would help the case to announce it publicly and betrays my secret.
Because it has to stay a secret.
In Deep - A Secret Twins Romance (Once a SEAL, Always a SEAL Book 6) Page 13