A Change of Heart by Sonali Dev Read Free Book Online Page B

past two years balled into rage in his heart. Pure hundred-proof rage. “They already got away with it. Even the bastards who are rotting in jail got away with it. They’re alive and she’s gone and she’s not coming back.” He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to feel another horrible surge of hope. The fucking thing kept leaping up inside him like giant waves, throwing him up then down like an ocean gone mad. Now it slammed him down. “Is she?”
    â€œI’m sorry.”
    He couldn’t believe he had asked the question. What was worse, if Jess had told him that Jen was coming back to talk to him, through her, through the fucking door behind her, he’d have believed that too. Talk about pathetic, gullible asshole.
    â€œThe men you put in jail don’t matter. They were just low-level hired guns paid to take the blame. Hired by the real criminals she was collecting evidence against.”
    He lost his center of gravity. The white deck spun under his feet. It’s what Rahul had tried to tell him two years ago, what Rahul was probably trying to tell him this morning. And just like those two times it shut his brain down. The burning ball of rage that kept growing inside him wiped out everything except the fact that Jen had lied to him. She had knowingly put herself in danger, knowingly put their baby in danger, and kept him out of a decision that affected her safety, their baby’s safety.
    They had promised never to lie to each other. It was the basis of their marriage.
    â€œThat’s not possible.” His voice sounded every bit as destroyed as he felt. “It was random. They came out of nowhere.” There was no way Jen could have gone walking down that alley if she knew. There was no way this was why she had tried to talk him out of visiting her. But he had needed to see her, needed to touch that tightness in her belly that had changed everything.
    He stared down at his hand where he could still feel that tightness, then looked at the stairs he should’ve taken when he still could and sank down onto the hammered metal step. “Did the cop tell you all that?”
    She sank down next to him.
    â€œNo. Actually, the police, they might be involved. This thing goes really high up. Jen didn’t trust anyone. We can’t either.”
    â€œWhy? If you know all this, you must know why she got involved.”
    â€œIt was an accident. One of her patients disappeared and she couldn’t let it go. She kept searching and they found the body with organs cut out. And then another one of her patients disappeared and then another and she realized that the patients who were disappearing had signed up to be on the organ donor registry she was compiling. After that first one the police couldn’t find bodies, but she couldn’t let it go. She kept digging and pushing the police to investigate. It started making the people who were behind it uncomfortable and they stopped her,” she said, as though killing anyone who stood in your way was just what people did.
    He pressed his eyes into his hands, but the visions crashing around in his head only got clearer. Jen had talked so excitedly about how fast the donor database had grown. She had been so proud of what the clinic could achieve with it. But she hadn’t said a word about the deaths or the investigation.
    â€œNot only did she document every disappearance, she was trying to track down transplant surgeries across the country without family donors to see where the organs were going. But most importantly she had information on the gang who threatened her.” Crimson stained her high cheeks. It was either the sun and the wind or some sort of emotion he couldn’t identify.
    â€œOkay, so where did she hide this evidence?”
    The color in her cheeks took on the angry redness of bruises, as though someone had slapped her and her skin was gathering up the proof of their violence.
    She