“Did you see a doctor’s note?”
“She showed me the test. Two pink lines.”
“Robert.” I kept my voice calm. “Home pregnancy tests can be faked. You can buy fake ones online for twenty dollars.”
“Why would she?”
“Because she’s desperate. Because you lost your job and I evicted you and she knows the walls are closing in.”
I leaned forward.
“When’s the last time she let you go to a doctor’s appointment with her?”
He was quiet.
“Robert. When?”
“She said she wanted privacy. That it was her body. Her choice about who’s in the room.”
“Of course she did.”
I pulled out my phone and called Mr. Brennan. He answered on the second ring.
“I need a private investigator today. Someone who can verify a pregnancy.”
“I know someone. Give me two hours.”
I hung up and looked at Robert.
“You’re going to ask Vanessa to take a blood test at a real clinic today.”
“She won’t.”
“Then you have your answer.”
The investigator’s name was Nicole Chen.
She met us at a Labcorp in Yonkers at four o’clock.
Robert had called Vanessa and told her they needed a blood test for insurance purposes for the new apartment I was supposedly helping them get. She either believed it, or she was confident enough to think she could bluff her way through.
