A Course of Passion

36: Reality Lies

"Ugh, this last stretch has been the worst." She says more to herself then to me. I give her a glare, as if I didn't need to hear that and she mumbles, "sorry" before returning back to her screen.

Later that afternoon the entire Baker family comes in. Olivia puts Sonny in charge of watching over the kids and I watch him through the glass. Amanda must catch me and grabs my attention, "Sonny's gonna be a great dad."

"Yeah, he is." I reiterate back, keeping my eyes on my boyfriend as he puts his jacket over the baby, "I just hope I'll be a good mother."

"You will be." She says to me, "you're a very maternal person, I've seen you with victims." She goes to compliment me, "you guys are very lucky."

At this, she gets my attention and I see her face look down a bit with a frown formed on her lips, "hey, you are too Amanda. You know you're not alone in this right?"

"I know," she returns, "but it's a different situation."

I shake my head, "Sonny and I will always be there for you and your little girl. Always. And you have to know Fin and Olivia will be too. We're a family here, you don't need your mother to help you, we'll help you." I affirm to her, standing up to go sit next to her.

Her frown turns into a slight smile and she says, "thanks, it means a lot to hear that. We're gonna have quiet the day care here. Aren't we?" She jokes.

"Poor Fin, he probably thought he was done with having babies around." I chuckle back.

Another 30 or minutes go by when Olivia sits Mrs. Baker at Amanda's desk for us to talk to, "your husbands don't mind you working with all these men?" She questions, looking around.

"It's not an issue." Amanda says back to her, looking at me.

"My boyfriend works here as well." I say with a smile.

Although she's probably not pleased with my wording or that I am pregnant out of wedlock she keeps a smile on her face. She asks Amanda, "how far along are you, 8 1/2 months?"

"Yep. I guess you'd know." Amanda returns.

Mrs. Baker notes, "you're not wearing your wedding ring." She tells her, "that can happen with the swelling." Amanda just nods and I leave them to talk.

Sonny and Fin are quickly told to find Pete, their camera man and take him in for questioning. I work with Amanda to get the warrant to them as fast as possible. As evening rolls around, Olivia calls me in to talk to Mrs. Baker, sending Amanda home for the night. Once we are all seated, I calmly explain the situation, "Mrs. Baker, we would like to do an amnio on Lane."

She sits up a bit startled, "an amnio? I'm sorry, no."

"It could prove that Pete is guilty of rape." Olivia tells her, "your daughter is very young. You don't want to put her through a trial."

Mrs. Baker agrees but continues to protest the amnio, "of course I don't."

"So if we can prove the paternity, right, that's statutory rape by definition. He'll do time, and then your daughter is spared what can be a very traumatic experience." I elaborate further why we need to do this.

"You don't understand" she shakes her head, "an amnio can threaten the life of the unborn child."

"It's a very small risk. I mean, there are other simple blood tests that can help determine..." Olivia goes to explain.

She's interrupted though, "No, no. Nothing invasive. We don't believe in any of that."

Olivia looks at me then back to her, "well, Mrs. Baker, we could wait six months until the baby's born, but we can't hold Pete. So that gives him plenty of time to disappear, and he could get away with this."

"You have to find another way." She quickly stammers out, getting more upset, "why don't you get him to confess?"

I say to her, "well, you have other daughters. Have they said anything to you about him?" I question the idea "if he did assault Lane, this may not be the first time he's done this."

"You mean." She pauses for only a moment, "Tymber or Summer?" She questions, biting her nails and staring at us with worry.

The rest of us watch as Sonny and Finn interrogate Pete a bit later on. He decides to show us certain clips from his recordings to try and take us off his radar and onto someone else's, "so now this guy's trying to pin this on someone else." I call out into the room.

"Yeah, he is a creep, but maybe he's the type who looks but doesn't touch." Mike offers the thought.

"Well, Lane wrote his name down, and she's not backing off." I state.

Olivia says, "but I was in there. I was trying to get more details. She gave nothing else. Not when. Not where."

"Okay, maybe the creep is right, and Lane is covering for somebody, like her father. I mean, they were in New York together." Mike says, throwing out more ideas.

Sonny and Fin come out of the room with laptop in hand, "it's not the father. It's the brother." Fin says.

"Yeah, based on the footage Pete just showed us, the older brother, Graham, well, he's got some issues." Sonny puts the laptop down and we all gather around to watch, "this is Summer with the piano teacher."

We all watch as Graham comes into the screen and gropes the piano teachers' breasts. The girls fight him off, but it's clear it wasn't consensual, "and so this was three years ago?" Mike asks.

"That would explain why the piano teacher dropped out midway through that season. So did Graham." Mike says to everyone.

"Yeah, that's what Pete was telling us. He said the parents knew about this." Sonny tells us all, "so did the town judge. He sent Graham away."

"Sent him away where?" I ask the obvious.

"Pete thinks it's called camp righteous path. It's some sort of Evangelical reform camp for bad boys up in Canada." Sonny tells us.

"So did they tell Lane to say it was the cameraman, or did she come up with that herself?" I question out loud to everyone.

"There's no way they're gonna blame their own son." Sonny says.

Olivia gives direction, "okay, Dodds and Grey, tell the bakers to stay close in case Pete confesses. You two," She looks at Sonny and Fin take a drive up to Allanville."