“We haven’t been able to contact Claire.”
Adrian’s expression shifted.
“Since when?”
“She didn’t show for the morning briefing.”
“Call her again.”
“We have.”
“Her apartment?”
“Building security says she left last night around ten.”
“With luggage?”
Daniel paused.
“Yes.”
A quiet pressure filled the table.
I thought about the note.
Ask Adrian who was supposed to be sitting in seat 14B.
The answer was no longer a stranger.
It was his assistant.
The woman who managed his travel.
The woman who would know his schedules.
And perhaps his family history.
“Does Claire know about Caroline?” I asked.
Adrian looked at me.
“She’s worked for me seven years.”
“So yes.”
“Yes.”
“Does she know Northbridge?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“There’s more.”
I almost laughed.
“Of course there is.”
He glanced at Lily.
I understood.
“Sweetheart?”
She looked up.
“Yes?”
“Would you like to take your picture to the front desk and ask if they have crayons?”
She considered this.
“What colors?”
“Probably all of them.”
She immediately climbed down.
Adrian stood.
“I’ll take her.”
I looked at him.
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
He held out his hand to Lily.
She took one of his fingers.
I watched them cross the lobby.
An extraordinarily wealthy man with no jacket and a four-year-old carrying a drawing of him as a giant stick figure with a dog.
My throat tightened unexpectedly.
Daniel noticed.
He politely looked back at the computer.
“What else?” I asked.
“We reviewed Ms. Ellison’s company access logs.”
“You can do that legally?”
“She’s an employee using company systems.”
I nodded.
“At 11:06 last night, someone logged into her company account.”
“Where?”
“Houston.”
I glanced toward Adrian and Lily.
“Was she here?”
“We don’t know.”
“What did they access?”
“Old travel records.”
My stomach dropped.
“Whose?”
Daniel rotated the screen.
I read the names.
Adrian Prescott.
Caroline Prescott.
Samuel Baines.
And Ethan Walker.
I looked up.
“Why would Ethan have travel records in Adrian’s company?”
“That’s the problem.”
“What problem?”
“He shouldn’t.”
I stared at the screen.
“But he does.”
“Yes.”
“How far back?”
“Almost three years.”
The photograph.
The hospital fundraiser.
The beginning of Ethan’s questions about Northbridge.
I whispered, “Someone was tracking them.”
Daniel didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
Adrian returned with Lily, who now possessed a box of crayons large enough to stock an elementary school.
“They said I can keep them.”
“I’m very happy for you.”
She climbed into her chair.
Adrian sat.
Daniel quietly turned the laptop toward him.
He read.
His face hardened.
“Where did this come from?”
“Claire’s account.”
“That’s impossible.”
“You said she’s had access for seven years,” I said.
“Not to this.”
“What is it?”
Adrian looked at me.
“Private aviation records.”
“Your flights?”
“Mine. My family’s.”
“And Ethan’s?”
“That’s what I don’t understand.”
Daniel tapped a line on the screen.
“These entries weren’t created through the regular system. They were imported.”
“By Claire?” I asked.
“We don’t know.”
“Can you see when?”
“Yes.”
He pointed.
I leaned closer.
The first import date was nearly three years earlier.
Two days after the photograph had been taken.
Adrian pushed his coffee away.
“We need to go to the office.”
I immediately shook my head.
“You need to go to the office.”
His gaze lifted.
“You’re not coming?”
“No.”
He seemed surprised.
“So am I,” I admitted.
“But I have a daughter. I have an attorney to call. I have a cousin wondering where I am. And I have spent the last twelve hours being pulled into a mystery involving people I barely know.”
I took a breath.
“I need to stop reacting.”
Adrian watched me carefully.
“What are you going to do?”
“Call Celeste.”
“Good.”
“Then Marisol.”
“Good.”
“And then Ethan.”
His expression changed slightly.
“That may not be—”
I raised an eyebrow.
He stopped.
Then smiled faintly.
“Your decision.”
“Yes.”
Lily held up a crayon.
“Purple.”
I looked at it.
“Yes, baby. Purple.”
She went back to drawing.
I felt something inside me settle.
Not confidence exactly.
Something more useful.
Direction.
I had boarded the plane believing my life was falling apart.
Maybe it was.
But falling apart and ending were not the same thing.
Sometimes things broke because they had been built around truths no one had been willing to face.
I looked at Adrian.
“Find Claire.”
“I intend to.”
“And when you do?”
“I ask her why.”
“No threats.”
His eyebrows rose.
“I wasn’t planning any.”
“No pressure either.”
“Elena.”
“I mean it.”
He studied me.
Then nodded.
“No pressure.”
“Just the truth.”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“So will I.”
Marisol arrived an hour later.
She entered the hotel room carrying two grocery bags, a backpack for Lily, and the expression of a woman prepared to reorganize someone’s entire life before lunch.
“You look terrible,” she told me.
“Good morning to you too.”
“You need moisturizer.”
“I need a new existence.”
“That too.”
Then she hugged me.
I had expected questions.
Instead, she held me so tightly that I stopped breathing for a second.
When she stepped back, her eyes were wet.
“You scared me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Just warn me next time before the internet tells me you’re dating a billionaire.”
I groaned.
“You saw it.”
“My mother sent it to me.”
“Aunt Rosa?”
“At five thirty this morning.”
I covered my face.
Marisol laughed.
Then she became serious.
“Are you safe?”
“Yes.”
“Lily?”
“Yes.”
“Did Ethan come here?”
“No.”
“Good.”
She looked around.
“Where is Billionaire Airplane Guy?”
“His name is Adrian.”
“So you’re defending him already.”
“I am correcting you.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Marisol.”
“Fine.”
She started unloading groceries.
Bananas.
Crackers.
Juice boxes.
A package of cheese.
Everything a parent might need while the world became confusing.
I watched her.
“Why did you bring food?”
“Because children get hungry at inconvenient times.”
I almost cried.
Apparently that was what happened when your nervous system had been functioning on fear and caffeine for too long.
Marisol saw my face.
“Oh, Elena.”
“I’m fine.”
“No one who says that while crying over string cheese is fine.”
I laughed through the tears.
She sat beside me.
“Tell me.”
So I did.
Not everything.
Not the financial details I barely understood.
But enough.
The photograph.
Northbridge.
Ethan.
Adrian.
Claire.
Seat 14B.
When I finished, Marisol leaned back slowly.
“Well.”
“That’s all you have?”
“I’m deciding whether your life is a mystery novel or a very complicated tax audit.”
“Helpful.”
“I try.”
Then she took my hand.
“What do you believe?”
I looked at her.
“No one has asked me that.”
“Then everyone is doing this wrong.”
I stared at our joined hands.
“I believe Ethan lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“I believe he may have had reasons.”
“Yes.”
“I believe reasons don’t undo what those lies did.”
“No.”
I swallowed.
“I believe Adrian doesn’t know everything happening inside his company.”
“That seems possible.”
“I believe someone wanted me on that plane.”
Marisol’s expression changed.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Claire booked the seat beside mine days before Adrian moved flights.”
“Maybe she wanted to talk to you.”
“That’s what I keep thinking.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.”
Marisol became quiet.
Then she asked, “What if Adrian wasn’t supposed to meet you?”
I frowned.
“That’s what the note suggests.”
“No.”
She leaned forward.
“What if nobody cared whether you met Adrian?”
I stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
“What if the important person was Claire?”
I thought of the empty seat.
The stranger who should have been beside me.
The assistant who disappeared.
“Claire was supposed to sit next to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That’s the question.”
I stood and crossed to the window.
Outside, Houston moved beneath a pale blue sky.
Ordinary traffic.
Ordinary people.
Thousands of lives continuing while mine seemed to have developed hidden doors.
My phone rang.
Ethan.
Marisol saw the name.
“You want me to stay?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
I answered.
“Hello.”
Ethan’s voice was tense.
“Are you alone?”
“No.”
“Who’s there?”
“Marisol.”
A pause.
“Good.”
I put him on speaker.
“What do you want?”
“I found something.”
Marisol gave me a look.
I sat.
“What?”
“Rebecca called me.”
“Sam’s sister?”
“Yes.”
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ethan.”
“She wouldn’t tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because she thinks her phone is being monitored.”
Marisol mouthed, Seriously?
I gave her a tiny shrug.
“What did Rebecca say?”
Ethan inhaled.
“She knows Claire Ellison.”
The room went silent.
“How?”
“They worked together.”
I gripped the phone.
“At Prescott?”
“No.”
“Northbridge?”
“Yes.”
I stood.
“When?”
“Before Claire went to Prescott.”
“How long before?”
“About eight years ago.”
I looked at Marisol.
She had gone completely still.
“What did Claire do?”
“Compliance.”
The word hit me.
Ethan’s field.
Financial records.
Approvals.
Missing shipments.
“Did Adrian know?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Does Rebecca?”
“She doesn’t know.”
“What else?”
Ethan hesitated.
“She said Claire left Northbridge suddenly after an internal audit.”
“What happened in the audit?”
“No one ever saw the final report.”
“Why not?”
“It disappeared.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course it did.
“Ethan, why didn’t you tell me Claire worked there?”
“I learned ten minutes ago.”
“Where is Rebecca now?”
“She’s trying to get to Houston.”
“Why?”
Another pause.
Then Ethan said, “Because Claire contacted her last week.”
My eyes opened.
“What?”
“She asked Rebecca about you.”
I stopped breathing.
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“What did she ask?”
“Whether you were still married to me.”
Marisol stood.
I gripped the edge of the desk.
“What else?”
“Whether you had a daughter.”
My eyes went immediately to Lily.
She was sitting on the carpet, coloring.
Safe.
Happy.
Purple crayon moving across paper.
“Why would she ask that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did Rebecca answer?”
“Yes.”
I pressed my fingers to my temple.
“Why?”
“She thought Claire was asking because of me.”
“Because of your investigation?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did Claire say?”
“I don’t have the full conversation.”
“Get it.”
“I’m trying.”
“Try faster.”
The words came out sharper than I intended.
Ethan went quiet.
Then said, “I will.”
For once, he didn’t correct my tone.
Didn’t tell me to calm down.
Didn’t take control.
That mattered.
More than I wanted it to.
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“I’m not forgiving you.”
“I know.”
“But I need you to tell me everything from now on.”
“Yes.”
“No deciding what I can handle.”
“Yes.”
“No protecting me with lies.”
His answer took longer.
Then:
“Yes.”
I looked at Lily.
“Good.”
I ended the call.
Marisol sat slowly.
“Well.”
I stared at her.
“You already used that word.”
“It continues to apply.”
Then Lily looked up from the floor.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“I made us a house.”
She held up the page.
There were three figures in front of a square with a chimney.
Lily.
Me.
And someone else.
My chest tightened.
“Who’s that?”
“Daddy.”
I sat beside her.
Ethan’s stick figure had a blue shirt and enormous hands.
“Why are his hands so big?”
“He fixes things.”
I almost laughed.
Almost cried.
Children remembered what adults forgot.
Before our marriage became silence and lawyers and locked accounts, Ethan had repaired broken cabinet doors.
Built Lily’s crib.
Fixed toys with tiny screwdrivers.
Maybe that was why grief inside a marriage was so strange.
You weren’t only grieving what someone had done.
You were grieving every good thing that had once been true at the same time.
“Do you miss Daddy?” I asked.
Lily nodded.
“Do you?”
