When she'd received the call from Tom Koehler, Emily had never thought she'd be here...about to stare down Ian Doyle for a third time and give away all the secrets she'd sacrificed everything to have. She knew she had to do this – for Declan – but that didn't mean she wasn't a nervous wreck over it.
The fingernails she'd worked so hard to grow out over the last seven months had already been chewed to shreds and she was dangerously close to losing her meagre breakfast. She did her best not to let on exactly how tremulous her emotional state was just then, but had a feeling it was no secret. (She was grateful, at least, that no one felt the need to voice her obvious anxiety.)
For what felt like an eternity as she stepped into the interrogation room, she and Ian just stared at each other because she was dead...and yet.
"Of course," Doyle said eventually, eyes still locked on hers, like he wasn't the least bit surprised.
"Which one is Declan's mom?" she asked, refusing to be kowtowed by his intense stare.
He didn't answer right away, watching her, the hand fixed to her belly almost as if to protect her child from him. "Well, you certainly didn't waste any time..." he remarked drily.
She didn't respond, pointing to the pictures again.
"You always said you weren't the maternal sort..."
"I said a lot of things to you – that doesn't mean it was true," she countered. "It was all a fantasy, Ian. I was never going to marry you, be the perfect little wife you wanted, raise your 'warriors'."
"See, I don't think it was..." he insisted. When she raised a brow in question, he continued, "I don't think it was all a lie. I think you felt something for me. No matter how much you might try to deny it to your friends, to yourself...you know that it wasn't just an act. No one is that good an actress..."
"Who is Declan's mom?" she repeated, rather than argue the point. It didn't matter whether he was right or not – all that mattered was that Declan was missing and the longer she spent trying to convince him the only thing she felt for him was hatred, the less likely it became that they'd recover Declan alive.
Finally, he pointed to one of the photographs. "Chloe Donaghy," he answered. "But she had nothing to do with this."
"How do you know?" she retorted, "Did you kill her too?" She attempted to resist the urge to make a sarcastic remark about hoping he'd done a better job than he had killing her...
"Because she tried to kill Declan before he was ever born."
She opened her mouth to respond, but couldn't find the words, mouth just hanging open slightly in stunned silence. And, before she could formulate any kind of response, a little foot pressed sharply against her ribs, making her wince, rub the sore spot.
Ian, of course, missed nothing, watching her with an intense stare. "Boy or girl?" he asked with uncharacteristic softness in his face.
"I don't know," she answered, not sure why she was telling him the truth, let alone answering him at all. "We're waiting to find out." She winced, having given away the fact that there was a we, expecting him to jump on the slip and interrogate her endlessly.
Instead, his gaze distant and far away, he murmured, "I always imagined us having a daughter – a little one who took after her mother in every way."
"Ian..." she started.
Seeming not to hear her, he continued, "Aisling Emma Doyle has a nice ring to it..."
"Ian!" she said louder, slamming her palms down on the table. "This isn't about us – it's about Declan. If you care about him at all, you'll tell me what happened to Chloe."
His face darkened at the mention of her name. "Was I supposed to just let her kill my baby?" he asked, though it was obviously intended to be rhetorical. "I made sure she couldn't hurt him or herself until she safely delivered."
"How?" Emily pressed.
"I chained her to her bed," he answered with all the dryness of a dark joke.
For several moments, she stood there, once again stunned to silence.
"What would you have done?" he asked earnestly.
"Ian, I..." she started, stopped, shook her head.
"Would you have had my baby?" he pressed.
"It would never have happened," she answered firmly. But, in her heart, she knew that if, in spite of the extreme care she took with her birth control, if it had failed...after what had happened in Rome, she would never be able to do that again. No matter who the father was, she couldn't have been able to abort a second child. But she couldn't say any of that, so she pressed forth in the interrogation, "Who are her contacts in the States?"
If he suspected there was more to the story than she was letting on, he didn't say so. "Whoever they are, they're as good as dead. She works with people, sucks them dry, then moves on." He paused, thought for a moment, then questioned, "She never wanted Declan – why would she take him?"
"This is about you, Ian. You just told me you kept her a prisoner for nine months!"
"Seven," he corrected.
"Seven," she repeated sarcastically. "Did Louise help deliver Declan?"
"Yes."
She slammed a new picture down on the table in front of him. "That's called revenge, Ian! Chloe didn't just forget about what you put her through..."
Seemingly not understanding the problem, he repeated, "She would rather have been dead than to have my baby – what was I supposed to do?"
"Chaining her to a bed wasn't the answer!"
"She received a lot of money for her troubles," he replied simply.
"That was torture, Ian. And you don't think she spent years figuring out how to do the same to you? She took the only thing you love..."
