“The Navy guy?” Dan asked.
“Yeah.” She opened a cabinet and filled a glass at the sink.
“You said you thought it was him.”
She washed down two Advil with water, then said, “The video made it pretty clear.”
“You have a headache?” Dan asked, leaning against the door frame.
“No, my shoulder is acting up.” She’d hurt her shoulder just over two years ago when a stalker who’d made his way into her home in West Seattle tackled her from behind. The orthopedist said she’d partially torn the rotator cuff. If PT didn’t solve the problem, she was looking at surgery and a six-month recovery. Or she could be like Kins and eat ibuprofen daily until the pain became unbearable.
“What did he say when you showed him the video?”
“He wanted to make a phone call.” She retreated into their bedroom and sat on the bed, struggling to remove her boots.
“I assume that call was to a lawyer?” Dan grabbed each leg separately and helped pull off her boots.
“JAG officer from Bremerton,” she said, shimmying out of her jeans.
“Really?” He sounded surprised.
“Yeah, why?” She stepped to the closet and hung her pants on a hook.
“JAGs don’t normally get involved this quickly, especially defense attorneys. They usually have to run it up the chain of command first to determine if they’re even going to take jurisdiction. Are they?”
“I don’t know. I asked. She didn’t know.” She removed her shirt and bra and slipped on one of Dan’s T-shirts embossed with a photo of Rex and Sherlock. It read: “We’re not stubborn. Our way is just better.” “But a JAG came to the jail to talk to him after he was processed.”
“Sounds like they’ll assert jurisdiction. If they don’t, he’ll plead. You have the video; what’s he going to say?”
“At the moment, he isn’t saying anything, not even about the video. I thought he’d try to explain it. Maybe he can’t. I don’t know.” She brushed her teeth at the sink in the bathroom, then went back into the bedroom.
“You hungry? Want me to make you something to eat?” Dan asked.
“Thanks, but I grabbed a salad earlier and ate at my desk.” Kins had also been sold on a salad, right up until he opened the takeout menu and ordered a pastrami sandwich. “Just tired.”
Dan leaned against the bedroom door frame. “You okay?”
“Yeah, why?” She pulled back the down comforter.
“Dr. Kramer called the house phone to find out how you’re feeling. There’s a message for you.”
Tracy stopped folding back the sheet.
“You’re on Clomid?” he asked.
Tracy had not told Dan about the drug. She’d told him that Dr. Kramer had suggested that they just keep trying. She’d hoped that by taking the drug, she’d get pregnant, and she wouldn’t have to admit to Dan that she was too old—that she was the problem.
“Is this one of your cross-examination techniques? Get the witness talking, then hit her with the question you’re really interested in?”
“Don’t do that,” he said, his voice all business, his eyes fixed on her. “We talked about this; we talked about making a decision together.”
“Yes, we did.”
“But you excluded me anyway?”
Tracy sighed. “My chances of getting pregnant are very slim, Dan. It was either fertility drugs or a donor egg.”
“What does that have to do with excluding me from the process?”
“I shouldn’t have. Okay? I’m sorry.” She started to climb onto her side of the bed.
“Then why did you?”
“Can we talk about this later?”
“No. You hid it from me. I think I have a right to know.”
“I didn’t hide it.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“I need to be at work early to prepare for the probable cause hearing,” she said, flipping the pillows she didn’t use onto the floor.
“I have a deposition to take.”
“So let’s go to bed and discuss it later.”
Dan pushed away from the door frame. “Clomid has side effects; we talked about that.”
“What, are you going to say my mood has been the shits?”
“I wasn’t, but I could now.”
“Very clever.” She grabbed a pillow and stepped past him, deciding that she’d sleep on the couch in the living room.
“Hey, don’t act like this is my fault. You should have included me. This is my child also.”
She knew he was right, but she’d inherited her father’s stubborn streak. “Yeah, well, it doesn’t look like you’re going to have to worry about that anytime soon.” She grabbed a blanket from the reading chair and moved toward the couch.
“What does that mean?”
She turned and stopped. “It means I can’t get pregnant,” she said. “Okay? It means I’m the problem.”
For a moment Dan didn’t say anything, leaving Tracy to wonder what he was really thinking. Had he had his heart set on kids? Was he rethinking his decision to marry her?
Dan softened his tone. “I don’t care about the baby. I care about you. I care about your health.”
She sighed. “The doctor said the side effects are minimal. Mood swings and hot flashes. I’m fine. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I should have.”
Dan took a deep breath. When he spoke again, he was calm. He was always calm. Sometimes she wished he’d yell and throw things just so she could get angry at him. “Just tell me why you didn’t.”
She shook her head.
“What?”
She knew what she was about to say was juvenile and that too bothered her. But she’d wanted to have their baby, together. “You came back from the doctor all excited that day, pumping your fists and . . . I didn’t want to disappoint you. I didn’t want to be the reason we couldn’t make a baby.”
Dan let out a burst of air and moved toward her. He removed the pillow she’d been holding and put his hands on her shoulders. “I was excited because I thought you wanted a child.”
“You don’t?”
“Of course I do. But not if it means your health will be adversely affected. You’re the most important thing to me, Tracy, not some child I don’t even know. I’m sorry if I overreacted about the vasectomy. I was just playing up the situation. I thought it would make you happy if I showed a little more enthusiasm.” He smiled, but she couldn’t. “Hey, come on. We’re physiologically different, Tracy. Hell, Mick Jagger just had baby number eight at seventy-three years of age.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
“What exactly did the doctor say?”
“I’m on Clomid for fourteen days. If that doesn’t work, we’re looking at a donor egg. Or adopting.”
“Okay, so—”
She pulled away from him. “I don’t want someone else’s child, Dan. I want our child. I want our baby.” She was whining and she knew it.