The painful irony doesn't escape me. I've spent twelve years hunting for the truth about Bianca's murder, and now the daughter of the man responsible was sleeping in my bed. Was she laughing at me the whole time? Did she get some sick pleasure from watching me fall for her?
"Find this Scarlett," I order, my voice turning cold. "Check hospital visitor logs for Michael Travis twelve years ago. Check funeral attendance records. Find anyone connected to both Travis and Zoe."
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Ijolt awake at 8 a.m, the familiar wave of nausea hitting before I can even open my eyes properly. I barely make it to Scarlett's bathroom, clutching the toilet bowl as my stomach empties itself for the third morning in a row.
"Again?" Scarlett stands in the doorway, concern etched across her face, offering a damp washcloth.
I take it with trembling fingers. "It's just stress."
But even as I say it, a cold realization creeps up my spine. Five days since we escaped from the Feretti mansion. Three mornings of sickness.
"Zoe..." Scarlett begins, but I silenceher with a look.
"Don't say it." I rinse my mouth at the sink, avoiding my reflection. "Just don't."
Back in the living room, Lucrezia sits cross-legged on the pullout couch that's been her bed, absently scrolling through Scarlett's tablet. She's adapted to our fugitive status with surprising ease, though I catch her staring out the windows sometimes with a faraway look that tells me she misses her home.
"Still sick?" she asks without looking up.
I collapse next to her. "It's nothing."
"If you say so." Her tone makes it clear she thinks otherwise.
Scarlett joins us, setting down a plate of toast I already know I won't touch. "Day five of our fabulous girls' retreat," she announces with forced cheerfulness.
None of us laugh. The first day, we'd been too terrified to do anything but hide behind drawn curtains. By day three, cabin fever had set in, but Lucrezia had been adamant:
"We need to let him stew," she'd insisted. "Show him he can't just treat us like his puppets."
Following Lucrezia's instructions, Scarlett had thrown away her phone the first night. "They have your phone, which means they can trace all your contacts," Lucrezia had explained. "It won't take them long to find me."
Scarlett had nodded solemnly and dropped her iPhone into a public trash can six blocks away. The next day, she called the hospital asking some days off. She had been working a lot and they gave her ten days in a row.
As nausea twists my stomach again, I press my forehead against the cool glass of Scarlett's living room window.
"Zoe, this isn't normal." Scarlett's voice is firmbehind me. "You're throwing up every morning, you're pale as a ghost, and you've barely eaten."
"I'm fine," I mutter automatically, but even I don't believe it anymore.
Lucrezia looks up from her tablet. "She's right, Zoe. You look like shit."
I shoot her a glare, but there's no heat behind it. Truth is, I feel like shit.
"It's just everything catching up with me," I insist. "Finding out about my father, Damiano, Byron's lies?—"
"Or you're pregnant," Scarlett says bluntly.
The word hangs in the air like a bomb.
"When's the last time you had your period?" Scarlett asks.
I try to remember, counting back weeks in my head. "Before the wedding, I think."
"We need to know for sure," Scarlett says, grabbing her nurse's bag from the closet. "I'm taking you to the hospital. Today."
"Are you insane?" I spin around. "They'll be watching every hospital in the city!"
