Chapter 8
Anna didn’t answer Julian’s message. She stared at it until the screen dimmed, then locked her phone and set it beside the tablet.
“He wants me alone,” she said.
“He won’t get that.”
I heard how quickly I’d answered. It sounded less like a promise than a challenge, and the last thing the twins needed was another man deciding what would happen around them.
So I called Officer Bell instead.
She answered on the second ring. I told her about the message and asked her to come back to the staff lounge. Anna stayed beside me in the security office until Bell arrived, then walked back with her. I followed at a distance, leaving the console and its unexplained blank spaces behind.
The lounge smelled of coffee and clean linen. Rosa sat on the floor by the low table, making a small tower out of paper cups for Emma. Ethan stood close to her knee, the worn elephant pressed beneath his chin.
Bell read the message on Anna’s phone without touching it.
“You did the right thing by not going,” she said.
Anna’s gaze flicked to the lounge door. “What if he comes up here?”
“Then he speaks to me.”
As if Julian had been waiting for his cue, a man’s voice rose from the corridor beyond the lounge.
“I have a right to see my children.”
Ethan went rigid.
The elephant slipped from beneath his chin. Emma snatched it up and clutched it against her chest as Ethan dropped to his knees and scrambled under the table. Rosa moved toward him but stopped short, leaving room for him to choose whether to come out.
No one asked him what he was afraid of.
I knew the voice from the lobby. Smooth, controlled, with an edge that sharpened whenever the answer wasn’t what he wanted.
Julian.
Anna’s face changed—not into panic, but into a stillness that seemed to cost her something. Bell glanced at her.
“You can stay here,” Bell said.
“I know.”
Anna stepped toward the door anyway.
Bell went first. I followed, but Anna walked beside me, not behind me. The lounge door opened onto the service corridor, where Bell’s partner stood with Julian. Two hotel employees watched from several yards away, uncertain whether to approach.
Julian looked past Bell and fixed on Anna.
“There you are. I’ve been trying to find you.”
“You know where I am,” Anna said.
“I know where Martin has you.” He turned to the officers. “She’s being held against her will. He has my children hidden in his hotel.”
The word hidden hit harder than it should have. I’d brought Anna and the twins into my suite. I’d moved them through staff corridors. I had done it openly, with officers present, and still I could see how easily Julian could shape those choices into something ugly.
Bell held up a hand before I could answer.
“Mr. Voss, you can give me your statement. You cannot enter the lounge.”
“I’m not trying to frighten them.”
Behind us, a paper cup toppled. Ethan made a small, strangled sound beneath the table. Emma’s arms tightened around the elephant.
Julian heard it. His expression softened instantly, like a curtain falling over a window.
“Sweetheart,” he called, gentle as a bedtime story. “Daddy’s here.”
Ethan crawled farther under the table.
Anna didn’t look back. She kept her eyes on Julian.
“Don’t call to him.”
“I’m their father.”
“You’re frightening them.”
Julian’s attention shifted to me. “And you’re helping her keep them from me.”
That was when I understood the trap more clearly. If I argued, I became the man speaking for Anna. If I stood between them, I became a barrier. If I let Julian approach, the twins would have to face the voice that had sent them under a table.
I moved aside—not out of Julian’s path, but out of Anna’s.
“You can speak for yourself,” I said.
Anna glanced at me once. Then she took out her phone. Her thumb moved over the screen, quick and deliberate, and she held it at her side.
“Did you send me a message saying the twins would be gone before morning unless I came alone?”
Julian’s mouth tightened.
“No.”
The answer was quiet. Bell’s partner looked up from his notes.
Anna didn’t raise her voice. “You’re saying you didn’t send it?”
“I said I didn’t threaten you.” He took one step toward her. Bell’s partner shifted between them, and Julian stopped. “You twist everything I say.”
“Then explain what you meant.”
“I’m here because you’ve been keeping my children from me.”
“You brought a paper saying I gave them to you.”
“I brought an agreement.”
“The one with my name spelled wrong?”
Julian looked irritated now. The gentleness had vanished so completely that I wondered whether the children recognized both versions of him, or only the one that made them hide.
“You signed plenty of forms when the twins were born,” he said. “You knew what you were signing.”
“I was at the housing office at six that night. This says I signed at six ten.”
He drew a breath, as if preparing to explain away the date. Then he noticed the officers watching.
“That document came through my attorney,” he said. “I’m not here to debate a typo in the hallway.”
“Then explain the signature.”
“I’ve already explained it.”
“No,” Anna said. “You haven’t.”
Bell’s partner asked Julian to keep his voice down. Julian looked from him to Bell, then back to Anna. His gaze settled on her phone, though it was too far away for me to tell whether he’d seen her start the recording.
“You’re making this worse for yourself,” he said.
Anna’s hand remained steady. “I asked you a question.”
“You’re keeping my children in a hotel room with a man they barely know, and now you’re trying to provoke me on record.”
“I’m not keeping you here,” Anna said. “You can leave.”
He looked past her toward the lounge door. “I want to see them.”
“No,” she said.
There was no plea in it, no apology. Just a boundary, spoken in a voice that didn’t need him to agree.
For a moment, Julian seemed unsure which of his practiced expressions to choose. Then he gave Bell a thin, exhausted smile.
“You see what I’m dealing with?”
“I see you’ve made a claim that Anna is being held,” Bell said. “She just told you she isn’t.”
“And I see what Martin’s done.” Julian turned toward me. “You put them in your suite and kept them from their father. What would you call that?”
Before I could answer, the lounge door opened behind us. Rosa appeared in the gap, one hand resting on the doorframe. The children were out of sight, but the elephant’s torn ear showed in Emma’s fist.
Julian’s eyes caught it.
“Emma,” he said softly.
She vanished from the doorway.
Anna’s jaw flexed. She lowered her phone but did not put it away.
Julian reached inside his jacket and pulled out several pages. He handed them to Bell’s partner, who looked them over without changing expression.
May you like
“What is this?” Bell asked.
“My statement,” Julian said. He looked at her, but his words landed on me. “Martin abducted my children, and Anna Reed is helping him.”
