In Death 10 - Witness in Death

Kenneth Stiles aware that you carried and gave birth to Richard Draco's child?"
    Anja's head snapped back, as if struck by Eve's fist rather than her words. She gave a shaky laugh. Then, composing herself, she walked back to sit. "I see you're very thorough. Yes, Kenneth knew. He helped me through a very difficult situation."
    "Is he aware Carly Landsdowne is that child?"
    "He would not have the name the child's parents gave her. The files were sealed. I told no one but the attorney who drew up the documents where the child was placed and with whom. That is the point of sealed files, Lieutenant. What does this child -- no, she would be a young woman now -- have to do with this matter?"
    "You've had no contact with Carly Landsdowne?"
    "Why would I? Ah, you think I'm a liar or coldblooded."
    Anja topped off her cup of chocolate. But she didn't drink. Her only outward sign of distress was the restless fingers at her throat.
    "I think I'm neither," she said after a moment. "I discovered myself pregnant. I was very young, very much in love, or what I perceived as love. I gave myself to Richard Draco. He was my first. He enjoyed being the first. I was not as careful with conception control as I should have been."
    She gave a little shrug of the shoulder, settled back. "Being young and in love, when I learned I carried Richard's child, I was thrilled, swept away with the romantic notion that we would marry. He soon turned that thrill into despair. There was no anger, no passionate quarrel, and certainly there were none of the tender words and promises I had so happily scripted for him to say to me. Instead, he looked at me with disinterest, a faint annoyance."
    Her eyes hardened, her hand dropped once more into her lap. "I will never forget how he looked at me. He told me it was my problem, and that if I expected him to pay for a termination of the pregnancy, I should think again. I wept, of course, and pleaded. He called me a few vile names, claimed that my sexual skills had been mediocre at best, and that he was bored with me. He left me where I was, on my knees. Weeping."
    She sipped her chocolate again with no apparent distress. "You can understand, I hope, why I don't mourn his death. He was quite the most detestable man I've ever known. Unfortunately, at that point in my life, I didn't see that so clearly. I knew he was flawed," she continued. "But with that blind and beautiful optimism of youth, I'd believed, until that moment when he turned from me, that I could change him."
    "Then you stopped believing it."
    "Oh yes. I stopped believing I could change Richard Draco. But I thought I couldn't possibly live without him. I was also very frightened. Barely eighteen, pregnant, alone. I had dreams of becoming a great actress, and these were dashed. How could I go on?"
    She paused for a moment, as if looking back. "We're so dramatic at eighteen. Do you remember when you were eighteen, Lieutenant Dallas, how you believed, somehow, everything was acute, vital, and the world, of course, revolved around you? Ah well."
    She shrugged again. "I tried to end my life. I fumbled that, thank God, though I might have gotten it right if Kenneth hadn't come. If he hadn't stopped me, gotten me help."
    "Yet you didn't terminate the pregnancy."
    "No. I had time to think, to calm. I hadn't thought of the child when I took the razor to my wrists. Only of myself. It seemed to me that I'd been given another chance, and the only way to survive now was to do what was right for the life I'd started inside me. I might not have gotten through that without Kenneth."
    She shifted her eyes, eloquent eyes, to Eve's. "He saved my life and the life of the child. He helped me find the clinic in Switzerland and the child placement attorney. He lent me money and a supporting arm."
    "He's in love with you."
    "Yes." Her agreement was simple, and sad. "My deepest regret is that I couldn't, and can't love him back, in the way he deserves. His attack on Richard all those years ago was an aberration, and one that cost Kenneth dearly."
    "And after you placed the child?"
    "I got back to my life. I never picked up that dream of becoming an actress again. I didn't have the heart for it any longer."
    "As birth mother, you have the right to make regular inquiries about the child you placed."
    "I never executed them. I had done what was best for her, best for myself. She was no longer mine. What interest could we have in each other?"
    "She had an interest in Richard