All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [46]
She picked up her cell phone and dialed Baldwin’s number. As soon as she hit Send, she hit End and put the phone down on the desk in front of her.
The tears started to come, and she felt even worse. As a woman in her mid-thirties, she should be thrilled at the mere thought of a healthy child. Nearly everyone she knew had at least one child in the stable. The ones who didn’t were desperately trying—innocuous prescription bottles of Clomid suddenly appearing on the bathroom vanity, the fervent prayers that the little stick would turn pink and the bleeding wouldn’t begin. Then that heart-stopping moment when it did. The shots of Ovidrel, once daily, the woman bent in half in front of the mirror making sure her man is sticking her right. The prayers again that the maturation of the follicle would kick out that magic egg. The basal thermometers, the ovulation kits, tired husbands jacking off into plastic cups, their despair and embarrassment nearly as bad as their wives’ desire for offspring. The in vitro fertilization, the bank accounts dwindling, all in that desperate search for something permanent of themselves to be left on this earth. Most of these women had spent years trying not to get pregnant; suddenly finding themselves unable to fulfill that one promise of womanhood was more than they could take.
The level of guilt Taylor felt rose appreciably. She wasn’t trying to get pregnant. She didn’t want to be pregnant. Hell, she and Baldwin were just finding each other. How would that fragile union support another life? They had never spoken of children. Their lives didn’t seem to have room for that kind of future right now.
A knock on her door startled her. She quickly wiped away the tears, cleared her throat, mussed her hair and said, “Come in.”
The door opened and ADA Julia Page stepped into the room. Glancing over her shoulder, she shut the door behind her, then leaned back against it. She looked Taylor up and down.
“Bad time?”
“No, not at all. I was just…” Taylor shrugged as her voice trailed off. No need to explain herself. Julia wouldn’t be interested in the details.
Julia Page was one of the assistant district attorneys representing Davidson County. Smart as a whip and about as tall as a dandelion, she looked more like a Pomeranian fluffed out for Westminster than the cutthroat attorney that she was. Her light brown curls framed her face, making her seem innocent and pure, a tactic that had snowed many a criminal. They got on the stand and saw her sweet blue eyes and cupid-bow lips and just knew that this sweet young thing was no threat. How wrong they were.
“Good, because we need to talk.” Page stayed standing, keeping her eye level with Taylor’s sitting form. “I think we have a problem.”
Taylor groaned. If ADA Page was visiting with a “problem,” it must be a doozy. A headache began to take hold behind her right eye. She reached into her top drawer and drew out a bottle of Excedrin, popped the top, then shook three out into her hand. She put them in her mouth and chased them with a swig of tepid Diet Coke. A thought hit her hard as she swallowed—caffeine. She probably shouldn’t be having either the pills or the soda. She shook the thought off.
“What’s wrong then, Page?”
Page took a deep breath and practically spit out the words. “Terrence Norton.”
“What did the little turd do now?”
“He just walked out of Judge Hamilton’s court a free man.”
That caught Taylor’s attention. “What do you mean, a free man? We have him dead to rights on murder one.”
“Had,” Page corrected. “Had him dead to rights. Jury acquitted him in forty-five fucking minutes. Forty-five fucking minutes, Taylor. All the evidence, the testimony, hell, the witnesses, none of that seemed to matter. We lost this trial, and it’s a huge mess. You heard about the projects shooting a few days ago?”
Taylor nodded. “East Homicide caught it, they had the shooter in custody by the end of the night.”
“Well, the vic was going to be a witness against Terrence in this trial. A few weeks ago, he changed his mind and his testimony,