“Here’s your new ID.” I slid the warm laminated card under the window at my Pass & ID station. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No, thank you.” The woman—an Air Force wife who’d misplaced her ID—smiled, then got up and left, and I called out the next number in the queue.

After a week, I pretty much knew the routine. Working in Pass & ID was boring and repetitive, but at least it kept me away from Stanton. His office was back at the precinct on White Beach, while I was a good forty-five minutes away behind a desk on Kadena Air Base.

That in itself pissed me off. He’d raped me. He’d made this whole thing happen. He was the one who’d done something wrong, but I was the one who had to be pulled off the streets and stuck in the Navy’s version of the DMV.

Of course, it had been somewhat inevitable. I was pregnant. Light duty was part of the game. And, hell, I’d take any physical distance I could get from Stanton.

The clerk beside me called out, “Number thirty-six.”

While I processed yet another dependent who’d lost her ID card, I glanced past her at the people waiting. A woman sitting at the end of a row of chairs looked at her number. Then she leaned over to another woman and held up her ticket. As I watched, they traded numbers.

“Number thirty-seven, please.”

The other woman got up and headed over to the window. That was . . . weird.

As the other clerks and I continued to process people, the woman continued swapping her ticket with people sitting around her. What the hell? Was she really that hard up for daytime entertainment that she needed to wait an extra forty minutes just so she could watch the end of Maury on the communal television?

I finished processing the lost ID card, and after that person had gone, I called out, “Number forty-one, please.”

The woman who’d been trading numbers with everyone stood and made her way to the chair in front of my window.

My chest tightened. What the hell was going on? I didn’t recognize her, so I didn’t think she was someone coming back to have me fix something I’d screwed up.

She sat down and folded her hands on top of the Coach bag in her lap.

I gulped. “How may I help you?”

“You’re MA3 Lockhoff, yes?”

As if she couldn’t read my name tape and the chevrons on my collar, but I nodded anyway.

She sat up straighter, her cheeks tensing as she clenched her teeth. “I need to talk to you.”

“Um, okay?”

She looked me right in the eye. “My name is Susan Stanton.”

My stomach flipped. I should’ve known she was an officer’s wife. They had a certain air about them that the enlisted wives didn’t usually have.

“Um. I see.” I swallowed. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Stanton?”

“I’m assuming you’re familiar with my husband.”

A bit too familiar.“Yes.”

“And you may or may not know he has two years left before he retires.”

And thank God for that.

“Uh . . .”

She set her jaw. “I understand you’re considering filing . . .” She glanced back and forth, then lowered her voice. “That you’re considering filing ‘charges’ against him.”

He’d fessed up to the wife? That was surprising.

“Well, if you know about that, then you know what happened.”

She laughed humorlessly. “I know that an entitled little whore slept with my husband.”

Of course you do. “And that she’s having his baby?”

Susan stiffened, and through taut lips, she muttered, “Yes. I’m aware of that.”

“Then I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I want you to tell me why on earth you want the whole world to believe he raped you.”

I held her gaze. “Because he did.”

Her head tilted just so, her eyes narrowed. It was probably the look she gave her kids when they were feeding her bullshit. I felt like a prisoner visited by someone on the outside, listening to the well-dressed lady tell me how my choices and actions were affecting everyone else. How I was hurting people and making their lives hell and had no one to blame but myself while I sat here behind the glass in my uniform.

“Do you want the whole story?” I kept my voice low. “Because I’m pretty sure he didn’t give you all the details.”

“No, I do not,” she growled. “But you are going to ruin our family’s life.”

“What about my life?” I snapped back.

She sighed heavily and did that impatient head-tilt again. “Listen, sweetheart. You made a mistake. Plenty of girls in the military do the same thing. But one time doesn’t make you a tramp. People will forget.” Her eyes narrowed. “But they won’t forget when you accuse someone of being a rapist just to cover your own tracks.”

My mouth fell open. “What? You think I’m just doing this so people don’t think I’m a slut?”

Her lips tightened, and one pencil-thin eyebrow arched. “I think that ship has already sailed.”

“Then why would I bother making up—”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care.” She leaned closer to the window. “But I would suggest you reconsider.”

“Your husband has already suggested that. Did you know he threatened me?”

She laughed dryly. “Oh, darling. Aren’t you familiar with the saying ‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?”

I clenched my teeth. God knew what Stanton had told her. In his mind, I’d probably dragged him from the party and seduced him.

“Listen.” She folded her hands on the desk and leaned in even closer. “I know my husband is sometimes unfaithful. I don’t like it, and I’d do anything to stop it. But he is not a rapist.”

“How do you know?” I asked through my teeth, struggling to keep my voice down. “You weren’t there.”

“I know my husband.”

“And I know myself, damn it!” I smacked my palm on the desk, and all the chatter around us instantly stopped. Everyone stared.

Susan’s eyes flicked back and forth. My face burned.

She sat up straighter and gathered her Coach bag. “You think about what I’ve said. I assure you, you are making a huge mistake even thinking about filing charges against him.”

She didn’t wait for a response. She stood, shouldered the bag, and stalked out of the building.

I sat back, releasing my breath.

My supervisor touched my shoulder. “You okay, MA2?”

“I’m . . .” Oh, Christ, don’t cry. Not here. “Do you mind if I step out for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure.” He gestured at the door Susan Stanton had just gone through. “What was that all about, anyway?”

“Nothing.” I waved a hand as I stood. “Just some . . . some personal bullshit.”

“You’re pretty rattled, though.”

I quickly wiped my eyes. “It’s okay. Just hormones.” God, I hated hiding behind that, but all I could do was play the cards I’d been dealt.

“Oh. Right.” He cleared his throat. “Take your time.”

“Thanks.”

I went into the half-filled storage room we used as a break room and dropped into a chair. I rubbed my temples, breathing slowly and evenly to ward off any nausea that might decide to join this party as I replayed my conversation with Mrs. Stanton.

Anger burned hotter in my chest than it had since the night her asshole husband had raped me. I’d been furious when Reese had all but rolled her eyes at the suggestion that I’d been assaulted, but she’d apologized repeatedly, especially after she’d heard the whole story.

But this?

This was bullshit.

The woman who lived with him, who’d been married to him for years and years, the mother of his children—she was threatening me now? Taking her husband at his word, even though she knew damn well he cheated on her sometimes.

I sat up. Something cold replaced the anger.

He’d cheated before. More than once.

But was I the only . . .

Oh God.

What if I wasn’t the only one? More to the point, what were the odds he’d had consensual affairs all these years and then randomly decided he’d fuck me whether I liked it or not?

And if I let this one go, how many more would come after me?

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and sent Reese a text.

Can you meet me at White Beach?