Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

She should get rid of it. Throw it in the computer’s trash.
    “Ma’am?” the woman said. “Hello?”
    “Yes.” Lena turned away from the computer. She made herself listen to the call.
    The woman was saying, “… from Dr. Benedict’s office? You saw me yesterday?”
    Lena couldn’t stand people who raised their voices at the end of every sentence. “Are you calling about the bill? We haven’t gotten it yet.”
    “Oh, no, of course not.” She sounded offended. “I just wanted to check on you? Your husband said you were back at work?”
    Lena rubbed her eyes with her fingers. Jared had slept on the couch last night. He was gone this morning when Lena woke up. She’d checked the duty roster when she got in. He’d changed shifts so he didn’t have to see her.
    “Ma’am?”
    Lena dropped her hand. “Is there something you wanted?”
    “Dr. Benedict asked me to check on you, see if the cramping’s subsided?”
    Lena put her hand to her stomach. “It’s better,” she said, not knowing whether or not this was the truth. Every time she thought about it, she could feel it happening all over again. The excruciating pain that woke her from a deep sleep. The panic as she tried to dress herself. The fear as they raced to the hospital. The agony as they heard the doctor’s words. The screaming argument she’d gotten into with Jared when they got home.
    He wouldn’t let Lena throw away the bloody sheets. He said she was trying to pretend it hadn’t happened. That she was unfeeling. Incapable of grieving. That throwing away the sheets was her way of getting rid of the evidence.
    As if Lena needed a visual reminder to understand what she had lost.
    They
had lost.
    “Ma’am?”
    Lena shook her head, trying to get rid of the thoughts. “Yes?”
    “I asked, no excessive bleeding?”
    Lena didn’t know what “excessive” meant. She had no point of reference.
    “Mrs. Long?” The woman’s voice filled with a warmth that was ten times worse than her stupid interrogatory tone. “I can have Dr. Benedict write you a note for work. You shouldn’t be back so soon. Most women take a few weeks, sometimes a month or even two if they can get off that long.”
    “Well, I can’t do that,” Lena said. Yesterday was bad enough. They’d gotten home from the hospital around ten in the morning. Lena had slept away the afternoon, then stayed up arguing with Jared well into the night. The thought of being trapped at home again with nothing to do but wait for Jared to walk through the door was unbearable. Besides, no one at work even knew she was pregnant.
    Had been pregnant.
    Lena told the woman, “I have work to do.”
    “I’m sure you do, Mrs. Long, but people will understand. What you lost—”
    “I’m fine,” Lena interrupted. She wanted to correct her, to tell the woman that her last name was Adams, that Jared had told her to keep it because Lena Long sounded like something you’d buy off an infomercial.
    Instead, Lena said, “I don’t need a note. Thank you.”
    “Oh, darlin’, please don’t hang up.” She was obviously concerned. “You should go home. Be with your husband. Trust me, he might not be showing it, but he’s hurting just as much as you.”
    Lena pressed her fingers into her eyes again. Jared was showing it. Lena was the problem. According to her husband, she was some kind of machine. She wasn’t the woman he’d married. He wasn’t sure she was the woman he wanted to stay married to.
    Lena looked at the clock. She had a briefing in five minutes. Her team was waiting for her. She should end the call. She should shut up. But the words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I wondered—”
    Instead of pushing Lena, or making an inane statement with her voice raised at the end, the woman was silent. The trick was a good one. Lena used it in interrogations. People naturally wanted to fill silences, especially when they felt guilty about something.
    Lena said, “I had an abortion.”
    Still the woman was silent.
    “Six years ago.” Lena put her hand to her face. Her skin felt hot to the touch. “I wondered—”
    “No. That has nothing to do with what happened the other night.” The answer had a certain finality to it. “If that were the case, I wouldn’t have my two little ones.”
    Lena felt some of the tension leave her chest. She opened her mouth for air. For just a moment, she could breathe again.
    The woman said, “Give yourself time to grieve. You and