“He’s so excited about the baby,” Shelly’s cheerful voice broke into his dismal thoughts.
“When exactly is the baby due?” Jenna asked.
“Um, December seventeenth.”
Funny, she’d told him December twenty-seventh. An alarm went off in his head, making him listen more carefully to the exchange.
“Just before Christmas. What a nice gift,” Jenna added.
“I told Cameron the same thing.”
“I can’t believe Marti fell while trying to push you. It must have been horrible to see her fall face first down the stairs.”
“It was terrible. She pushed me, I moved, and she fell forward.”
“Wow. I’m surprised she didn’t break an arm or something.”
“Cameron said she hurt her leg. She deserves a lot worse for trying to hurt me and the baby.”
“Well, no wonder Emma’s been so upset. Seeing Marti attack you must have been awful. I’ll bet you must have been a big help in consoling her.”
Cameron sat straight up in his chair and leaned forward on his elbows. “Emma wasn’t there. She was in her room.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Jenna replied.
Well, this was news to him. After what happened, he’d tried to talk to Emma, but she froze up and refused to speak about it. Now he knew why. “Emma, sweetheart, did you see what happened?”
Emma crawled up on her Uncle Sam’s lap and hid her face in his chest.
“It’s all right, baby girl. No one is upset with you. You don’t have to talk about it.” Sam put his arms around Emma and held her tight. “Your dad thinks he knows everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cameron had enough of everyone telling him what he did and didn’t know. The problem was, he didn’t know what he knew. Everything was mixed up and the only thing that mattered was he’d lost his baby with Marti. He’d lost her too.
“You already know what happened. Shelly told you, so that’s it, right? I mean, you marched right into Marti’s hospital room and told her what went down. It must be true,” Sam finished.
Jack got in on the act now. “That’s right. I’ve never seen anyone sum up what happened so succinctly without ever asking for both sides of the story. It’s too bad Sam and Tyler can’t lock up every suspect by simply having someone say, ‘He did it.’ All that evidence and finding out the truth is highly overrated. It’s better to accuse people and find them guilty without determining the facts.”
“What the hell are you all talking about?” Angry and even more confused, Cameron tried to read between the lines, but came up with nothing as usual. Emma still hid her face in Sam’s chest. She wouldn’t even look at him.
“Did you ever find out her last name?” Elizabeth asked.
Cameron squirmed. One simple question. It haunted him because he still didn’t know.
“No. Why? Did you?”
“Yes. After you left her uncle came to visit her. It was quite enlightening. We found out all kinds of wonderful things about her.”
“So, what’s her last name? What did you find out?”
Jenna joined back in on the fun. “You know what’s the most interesting thing about finding out who she is? The fact that she never actually hid it. It was right there for all of us to see, especially you, Cameron. It was right there in front of you the whole time, and you missed it every time she showed you who she is.”
Cameron remained confused and angry. He worried about Emma.
Jack got back in the fun at his expense. “She told us she never actually came out with her last name because if she did, we’d only know her because of it. Once we knew, she was right, in a way. It’s really impressive and hard to get past the name and everything you know about the name in order to get down to the person she really is. I, for one, am glad I got to know her as Marti. Imagine all we would have missed if we’d gotten caught up in her name.”
“What is her last name?” Shelly asked, but everyone ignored her again.
“You know, her uncle calls her eccentric because she works three jobs and hardly ever goes into an office. She likes her freedom and can work wherever she is. It’s amazing the amount of work she’s accomplished in such a short amount of time. Hell, she got Emma’s room done in two days.”
“Emma’s room is amazing. She must have had a dozen people in there getting it done.” Cameron thought of Marti every time he went into Emma’s