“Yet. Or you can if you want to, we can report it at any time.”
“But we can’t prove the case. And he’s right, Jaime’s injuries were all minor, even if there were a lot of them. I guess we have to do what he said. Watch and wait.” The prospect was even more painful now, because being with Zoe was becoming intolerable. He felt as though aliens had stolen the woman he’d fallen in love with and left someone else in her place. She had seemed so sweet and pure and earnest when they’d met. Her extreme anxiety and neurotic behavior had only surfaced after Jaime was born. And their relationship had never been the same again.
He didn’t feel the way about her he had before, but they lived under the same roof every day, and shared a bed. He didn’t know how he was going to pull it off, but he knew he had to for Jaime’s sake. It was all for Jaime now. He was determined to give her a good life and keep her safe. He owed her at least that. He wished he could take Fiona into his confidence, ask her to watch Jaime more closely, but he couldn’t tell anyone, except his mother, who had seen it first. She was a smart woman, and his ally. Zoe no longer was. Overnight, she had become his enemy. She was trying to hurt his child, their child, in silent sneaky ways. It was like a poison gas that had filled their home when he wasn’t looking.
He thanked Cathy before he hung up, and then sat thinking about his daughter. She deserved a better life than this, a mother who was trying to kill her, or might do so by accident if she went too far in her bid for attention as the star mother of a sick or injured child. He wondered if it was Zoe’s unconscious revenge for all that she had suffered, or if she was too broken inside to care about their daughter and protect her.
He put his head down on his desk and cried, as he thought about it. He had to be strong for Jaime. He was all she could rely on.
He thought about his wife as he got up to go to a meeting. He thought about how much he had loved her, and now it was all slipping away on a tidal wave of fear for his daughter and an overwhelming sense of loss. And then he suddenly realized he hadn’t lost Zoe. He couldn’t. He had never known her.
Chapter 15
Austin did everything he could to maintain a sense of normalcy at home, after Cathy had told him what Paul Anders had said. He tried to be hypervigilant and anticipate any possible accident Jaime could have, while appearing not to. He was warm and friendly with Zoe. It took every ounce of energy to seem relaxed when he wasn’t and not let her see the anger and fear boiling inside him, knowing that Jaime was at risk anytime she was with her mother, or her safety could be manipulated at a distance, if Zoe set up some dangerous situation for Jaime at home while she was at work. Anything was possible. He realized that now. He spoke to his mother about it, and no one else. He didn’t want to burden Cathy with their situation, but he knew that she would warn him if Zoe showed up with some medical situation she created. It was all he could do for now. And nothing untoward had happened since he’d realized what was going on. The lack of incident almost lulled him into thinking that they were wrong, but that was exactly what Zoe wanted, his mother reminded him, for Austin to let down his guard. Maybe she sensed that he was watching her or Jaime. In essence he had to outsmart her, which was no small task.
Her father and Pam came to town for one of their visits, and they had them to dinner at the apartment. Brad had come up with a new line of children’s books that were more modern and high tech than Ollie, and they were doing well. He had a magic touch in the world of children’s books. Pam was thinking about retiring. They wanted to travel now that their children had grown up. Zoe never saw her half-siblings, and scarcely knew them. She preferred it that way.