Unseen (Will Trent / Atlanta Series)

antsy. Lena had always been a cop. She couldn’t lose that part of her identity. Lately, it seemed like she wasn’t going to have a choice. She was too tired to sleep, too sleepy to concentrate. She had to pee all the time. She was cold. She was hot. She was cold again. If this was what pregnancy was like, Lena wasn’t sure shecould handle it. And the nausea was unrelenting. Why did they call it morning sickness when it was more like all-day sickness?
    Lena sat on a bench in front of the Target. She had to unzip her jacket because she’d started sweating at some point during the easy walk across the parking lot. She found a tissue in the pocket and blew her nose. She wasn’t sure why her nose ran all the time now. Jared said she was making snot for two.
    Lena checked the time on her phone. Sid Waller wasn’t due for another forty minutes. She’d rest for a little while, then go back to the van. That is, if she didn’t fall asleep first. Her eyelids felt heavy as she looked around the parking lot.
    Lena found herself wondering if the world had always been filled with so many kids or if she was just seeing them now because she was pregnant. A toddler screamed as his mother pulled him toward the store. A child ran screeching around a minivan as his harried mom chased after him. Just outside the entrance to the store, another poor woman was bouncing a wailing baby on her hip.
    Topping off this happy tableau was an extremely pregnant woman who was loading bags into the trunk of her car. Her belly was the size of a beachball. Sweat glued her hair to her head. She was parked in one of those expectant-mother parking spaces that Lena had always resented but now completely understood. The woman deserved to be closer to the door. She looked miserable. She dug her fist into her back as she unloaded the last bag from the cart. Her dress was way too tight. Even from a distance, Lena could see the thong sticking like dental floss between her ass cheeks.
    “Jesus,” Lena whispered. She felt like a cow glimpsing behind the counter at the butcher’s shop.
    Lena shivered. Her hands were cold. That’s how it usually started. The change in temperature worked its way from the edges. She stuck her hands into her jacket pockets. Her fingers curled around the photo. Lena guessed the ultrasound could be called aphotograph. At the very least, it was a snapshot of what was going on inside of her.
    Over the years, Lena had looked at her share of X-rays and medical reports. She’d seen ultrasound pictures taped on refrigerators, shown on TV screens, and even presented as evidence in court cases where the mother had been murdered.
    Lena had never been particularly moved by the images. To her, they were just black and white blobs. She assumed that the ability to ooh and ahh over the tiny splotches and weird folds was lost on her. Also, there was something disturbing about looking at a person’s interior workings. Maybe Lena was a prude, but she couldn’t be the only one thinking that showing an ultrasound was tantamount to showing the world irrefutable proof that you’d had sex.
    But that was before Lena had seen an ultrasound of her own baby. Everything had changed two days ago. She couldn’t understand it. How had that tiny, pulsing little bean opened up such a large space in her heart?
    And how had it made Lena love Jared so much? She couldn’t explain the shift. Loving Jared was nothing new, but the sudden depth of her feeling was terrifying. Lena had never felt this way about a man before. She was completely out of control, incapable of hiding her vulnerabilities. At night, she clung to him. During the day, she couldn’t stop touching him. At first, Jared had been mildly annoyed. He generally wasn’t up for touching unless it led to something, but he’d become more receptive over the last few weeks. There had to be some hormone Lena was giving off. Even the guys at work were looking at her differently.
    Work.
    Lena couldn’t think about what would happen when she started to show. Not that she wasn’t already. They probably just thought she was getting fat—which she was. Her pants cut into her waist. She spilled out of her bra. Jared was ecstatic about this particular development. All Lena could think was that there was no way she could chase after some thug with her breasts floppingaround. In a few months, she’d probably end up stuck behind a desk. She’d be doing paperwork and following up on witness statements