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The fear she’d been living with for the past twenty-four hours cranked up a couple of degrees, fueled by reality and bitterness over how Liz had treated her. Everything about what was happening totally sucked. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t even know what had happened, but here she was, having to deal with it.
She touched her belly and told herself she had to keep breathing and try to relax for the sake of the baby. Her credit card, if it kept working, would cover the huge medical insurance premium for at least two months. If she used part of her next paycheck to cover the minimum credit card payment, she could string that along for even longer. The rest of her paycheck should cover food and utilities. It wasn’t ideal, but it might be enough to make sure she and Jackson got by until Peter returned home to fix everything.
Allison went into the living room, where Jackson sat on the floor, happily playing with his farm playset. There was a barn, a farmer and several animals. Jackson loved opening and closing the plastic doors, putting the animals inside, then taking them out.
Knowing he was all right pushed away some of the fear. She continued into the kitchen, where she did a quick inventory of the food she had on hand. Jackson needed milk, along with fresh fruits and vegetables, and she had to worry about eating healthy for Bethany’s sake. Healthy didn’t come cheap. Still, she could supplement their diets with a lot of what was in the pantry. She had plenty of cereal, packages of rice and pasta, canned soups and beans. She’d always made a point to shop the sales—now she would put those skills to good use.
As she returned to sit with Jackson, she carefully avoided looking at the certified letter that had been delivered shortly after she’d gotten home from being thrown out of day care. She didn’t have to open it to know what was inside. Their landlord was once again reminding them to vacate in about ten weeks. She and Peter had started looking at places last weekend and were going to make their decision this weekend. In less than three months, she would have nowhere to live. Worse, she didn’t have any money for a security deposit or the move.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “Peter will be home soon and everything will be fine.”
She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and set it on the floor. Eventually Peter would call—he had to. He was the only one with answers.
It rang a few minutes before four. The same mechanical voice asked if she would accept a collect call.
“Yes,” she said, trying not to sound frantic so as not to upset Jackson. “Yes, I will.”
“Allison.”
Relief poured through her. She hung on to her phone. “Peter! Are you all right? What’s happening? How can you be in federal custody? Why are you suspected of money laundering and wire fraud? Peter, what’s going on? I’m so scared.”
“You know about the charges?”
“Summer told me.”
“You told her where I was?” His tone was accusing.
“I didn’t have a choice. She walked in while I was terrified and sobbing last night. I tried to pretend it was just pregnancy hormones, but she wouldn’t believe me. So yes, I told her.”
She felt her temper rising. “What your daughter knows and doesn’t know isn’t the point. Peter, you’ve been arrested. How is that possible?”
“It’s all a misunderstanding. You have to believe me. One of my clients is a criminal and they think I was involved with him, but I wasn’t. I only handled his legitimate businesses. I’m working on getting a lawyer who can help.”
She desperately wanted to believe him. “You didn’t do anything wrong?”
“Of course not.” His voice softened. “Allison, I love you and Jackson so much. You know that. I would never do anything to hurt you or put you at risk. I’m sick about this.”
“Me, too. So when can you come home?”
“I don’t know. Like I said, I’m working on getting a lawyer who can help.”
“But we don’t have any money!”
“There are ways around that. If we can pull together the retainer, they’ll usually wait for the rest of it.”
“I only have twenty-two dollars.”
“I know. It’s okay. I’ll figure it out. You know you can use your credit card, right? It’s with a different bank, so it shouldn’t be frozen.”
She nodded, even though he couldn’t see her. “If I pay the minimum payment, I can keep using it for a while. I was thinking I would put the medical insurance on it. We can’t lose that.” Not when she was going to have a baby in a couple of months.
“Don’t do anything for a week or so,” he told her. “Let’s see how things settle.”
Her breath caught as hope filled her. “You think you’ll be released in the next week?”
“No, not that. Just some other things.”
Hope died. “What does that mean?”
