Chapter 2 - SOMEONE KNEW ABOUT THE BABY
Z
I stared at the sentence until the letters seemed to move.
DON’T LET ADRIEN FIND OUT ABOUT THE BABY.
There are moments when fear arrives loudly.
A gunshot.
A scream.
Glass breaking downstairs at three in the morning.
Then there are moments when fear is silent.
That email was silent.
And somehow that made it worse.
I closed the laptop, immediately reopened it, and took a photograph of the message with an old digital camera I found in my suitcase.
Living with Adrien had taught me one useful thing.
Never assume evidence will still exist when you need it.
The email vanished less than two minutes later.
Not moved to trash.
Gone.
I sat on the edge of the bed with one hand over my stomach.
Three days earlier, I had taken the pregnancy test in the guest bathroom because Adrien was on a conference call in our bedroom.
The following morning, I had visited Dr. Margaret Bell, an obstetrician whose office Adrien’s family had never used.
I paid personally.
I told no one.
There had been exactly four people in the examination room.
Me.
Dr. Bell.
A nurse.
And the receptionist who copied my insurance card.
Somebody had found me anyway.
My instinct said run farther.
My common sense said running without knowing who was hunting me was exactly what they expected.
So I stayed.
At sunrise, I bought a prepaid phone.
Then I made one call.
Not to Adrien.
To June Callahan.
June and I had shared an apartment during my sophomore year at NYU, long before expensive dresses, armored cars, and men whispering outside restaurant doors because Adrien Moretti had walked inside.
She now owned a bookstore in Kingston.
More importantly, she hated Adrien.
That made her strangely trustworthy.
“Elena?”
Her voice went instantly alert.
“I need somewhere to stay.”
She didn’t ask why.
“Come here.”
“June—”
“Come here.”
Two hours later, she opened the door to her apartment above the bookstore and stared at my suitcase.
Then at my face.
Then at my left hand.
“You finally did it.”
I looked away.
She hugged me anyway.
I started crying against her shoulder.
Not elegantly.
Not quietly.
Five years of pretending I was fine seemed to leave my body at once.
June let me cry until I stopped.
Then she poured coffee.
I pushed it away.
Her eyes narrowed.
“You never refuse coffee.”
“I don’t want any.”
“Elena.”
I looked at her.
She looked at my stomach.
“No.”
“June.”
“Oh my God.”
“Please.”
She sat down slowly.
“You’re pregnant?”
I nodded.
“Does he know?”
“No.”
For once, June Callahan had nothing to say.
Back in Manhattan, Adrien had not slept.
By eight in the morning, he had reviewed building security, traffic cameras and toll records.
My cab had taken me to Grand Central.
After that, I disappeared.
I had purchased my train ticket in cash.
Adrien’s financial people confirmed I had not touched our joint accounts.
No hotel charges.
No credit cards.
Nothing.
“She planned to be untraceable,” Luca said.
Adrien stood at the penthouse window.
“No.”
Luca frowned.
“She didn’t plan anything.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Elena plans everything.”
Adrien finally turned.
“If she had planned to leave me, she would have organized documents, transferred her books, packed enough clothes for winter and told Maria what to do with the orchids.”
Luca glanced toward the collection of plants near the window.
Adrien continued.
“She left in under thirty minutes.”
“So something happened tonight.”
“Yes.”
“The picture?”
Adrien nodded.
“And what she heard afterward.”
Luca’s expression changed.
“Vanessa.”
Adrien looked toward him.
“When you called, what exactly did you ask me?”
Luca remembered.
“What do you want done about Vanessa?”
“And I said?”
“Keep her.”
Adrien closed his eyes.
For one second, the feared head of the Moretti family looked sick.
“She heard me.”
Luca exhaled.
“Jesus.”
Adrien opened his eyes again.
“Bring Vanessa here.”
An hour later Vanessa Cole walked into the penthouse wearing jeans, sneakers and a borrowed sweatshirt.
She was thirty-four, sharp-eyed and exhausted.
The woman in the photograph.
She looked at the anniversary table.
Then at Elena’s ring.
“What happened?”
“My wife left.”
Vanessa’s face fell.
“Because of me?”
“Because somebody made sure she believed there was something between us.”
“There isn’t.”
“I’m aware.”
Vanessa stared at him.
“You could’ve told her what was happening.”
Adrien’s eyes hardened.
“It would have put her at risk.”
Vanessa laughed once without humor.
“She married you, Adrien. She was already at risk.”
Nobody in the room spoke.
Vanessa walked toward the table.
“You men always do this.”
Luca frowned.
“Do what?”
“Call secrecy protection.”
She picked up Elena’s ring.
“Then act surprised when the women you’re protecting realize they’ve been locked outside their own lives.”
Adrien looked at the ring in Vanessa’s fingers.
For once, he had no answer.
Vanessa had been Adrien’s forensic accountant for seven months.
She had discovered that millions of dollars were being siphoned from Moretti-controlled shipping companies through shell corporations registered in Delaware, Panama and Cyprus.
Money itself wasn’t unusual in Adrien’s world.
The destination was.
Someone was financing a private organization whose only documented objective was dismantling Adrien’s leadership.
Three nights earlier Vanessa’s apartment had been broken into.
The previous night, while she met Adrien in a hotel suite to transfer evidence, someone fired through the window.
Adrien had gotten her downstairs alive.
That was the photograph.
That was all.
But someone had cropped away the truth.
At 10:41 a.m., Luca entered Adrien’s office carrying another report.
“We traced where the photo originated.”
Adrien stood.
“Who?”
“Encrypted relay. But there’s something else.”
Luca placed a sheet of paper down.
“The person accessed Elena’s private medical appointment confirmation.”
Adrien froze.
“What medical appointment?”
Luca looked uncomfortable.
“A women’s clinic.”
Everything inside Adrien seemed to stop.
“What kind?”
“I don’t know.”
“Find out.”
Twenty minutes later, Luca returned.
He didn’t sit.
Adrien knew before he spoke.
“Obstetrics.”
The room became completely silent.
Adrien stared at him.
“Say that again.”
“Elena saw an obstetrician three days ago.”
Adrien’s hand tightened against the desk.
His eyes went to the empty cream-colored place on the dining room floor where Maria remembered seeing a gift box.
Tiny box.
Anniversary dinner.
Medical appointment.
Suddenly all the pieces aligned.
And for the first time since I disappeared, Adrien understood exactly what he had lost.
“My wife is pregnant.”
Luca said nothing.
Adrien looked toward the city.
Then he whispered the words like they physically hurt.
“She was going to tell me last night.”
At that same moment, nearly one hundred miles away, June and I were locking the bookstore for lunch when a black SUV rolled slowly past the front window.
I stopped breathing.
June noticed.
“What?”
The SUV continued down the street.
Maybe it was nothing.
Then it turned at the corner.
Three minutes later, it passed again.
June reached beneath the counter and took out a baseball bat.
“That Adrien?”
I shook my head.
Adrien never followed people badly.
Whoever was outside wanted me to notice.
My prepaid phone buzzed.
One message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT RUNNING.
May you like
A second appeared before I could breathe.
NOW HE KNOWS ABOUT THE BABY TOO.
