Chapter 2
Daniel didn’t leave after I demanded proof. He stayed near the corner of the room, as if even the distance between us were something I had asked him to keep.
Beyond the glass, the hospital corridor shone a flat, sleepless white. I could still feel Noah’s tiny fingers against mine, but my arms were empty again, and every beep from the monitor beside me seemed to count the seconds I couldn’t reach him.
“Tell me what happened,” I said. “Not what you think I need to hear. What happened between you and my mother?”
Daniel lowered his eyes to the locket in my hand. “Evelyn told me she was leaving. She was carrying you. She said she couldn’t stay, and I couldn’t make her.”
“You let her go?”
“I thought I was respecting what she wanted.” His mouth tightened. “That’s what I told myself, anyway.”
It wasn’t an answer that made him innocent. It was worse: it sounded like one he’d been punishing himself with for years.
“What happened after?”
“Months later, I got word that the baby hadn’t survived. I was told there’d be no funeral, no chance to say goodbye. Just that I should stop looking.”
“Who told you?”
He hesitated. “A message came through someone who knew us both. I don’t know who wrote it. I didn’t see Evelyn again.”
Anger rose in me, quick and hot. “You believed a message from an unnamed person and never asked my mother yourself?”
“I did ask. I sent letters. I called the places I thought she might be. Nothing came back.” His hands closed together. “I was young, and she’d made it clear she didn’t want me near her. I thought insisting would turn grief into something cruel.”
“And you never found out why she said the baby died.”
“No.”
His answer landed between us without defense or excuse. I looked down at the locket, at the tiny portrait of the woman who had taught me how to find the emergency passage in a burning cabin, yet had left a whole life sealed behind her silence.
“Do you have the letters?”
“I kept what I sent. A few came back unopened.” Daniel glanced up. “If you want them, I’ll bring them. You can decide whether they prove anything.”
The offer didn’t make me trust him. It did make the room feel a fraction less crowded with secrets.
A light knock sounded at the door. Lena Ortiz, the nurse who had brought Noah in, stepped inside and closed it softly behind her. She studied my face before she spoke.
“Someone called the desk asking whether you were here,” she said. “They also asked about the baby.”
My fingers tightened around the locket. “What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. They didn’t give a name I recognized, and I didn’t confirm anything.” Lena’s voice stayed gentle, but her eyes had sharpened. “I wanted you to know.”
“Did they sound like they knew me?”
“They asked for you by name.”
Daniel moved from the corner, not toward me but toward the door. He stopped there, waiting for my decision.
The caller could have been anyone. A worried relative. A reporter. Someone from Northstar. Or a man in a black anniversary suit trying to learn whether the people he’d left in a fire were still breathing.
“Thank you,” I said to Lena. “Please don’t send anyone in unless I approve it.”
She nodded. “I’ll make sure the staff knows.”
When she had gone, Daniel looked at me. “Do you want me to find out who called?”
“I want you to find out what Grant is doing.”
His expression changed at my husband’s name. “The man from the memorial?”
I hadn’t told him about the livestream yet. I must have seen the question in his face, because I said, “He stood beside an empty casket and told people we were dead. He was there when the cabin burned.”
Daniel’s jaw set. “Then I’ll help however you want.”
“Quietly. No police calls, no questions that could lead back here. I don’t know what he’s told people, and I’m not giving him a reason to look harder.”
“Understood.”
“I know a dispatcher at Northstar. Tessa Ruiz. She may be able to tell us what’s happening inside the company.” I had spoken with Tessa often enough over the years to know she was careful with other people’s emergencies. “Call her. Tell her I’m safe, but not where I am. Ask what Grant’s been requesting.”
Daniel took out his phone. “Do you want to speak to her yourself?”
I watched the doorway. “Not yet. Put her on speaker.”
He dialed. It rang twice.
“Tessa Ruiz.”
“This is Daniel Rowan. I’m calling for Mara Hart.”
A breath caught on the other end. “Mara?”
“I’m here,” I said.
The silence that followed was brief but full. “I thought—” Tessa stopped herself. “I’m glad you’re alive.”
“So am I. Listen carefully. I need you to keep this between us. Has Grant been asking for anything unusual?”
“He’s been asking for records tied to you and your Northstar shares,” she said. “Not just routine company files. He wants access to original records, and he’s pressing people to move quickly.”
“What kind of original records?”
“I can’t tell yet. He’s routing requests through offices that don’t usually handle them.” Her voice dropped. “I didn’t want to put details in a message.”
The monitor ticked beside me. Somewhere down the hall, a cart rattled over a seam in the floor.
“Can you look without alerting him?” I asked.
“I can try. But I need you to understand—he’s the CFO. He can make a lot of questions sound ordinary.”
“Then don’t make any questions. Just watch.”
“I will.”
Daniel’s eyes met mine over the phone. He looked angry, but he didn’t interrupt.
“Call me if anything changes,” I said.
“I will, Mara.” Tessa paused. “And don’t assume the hospital is the only place he’s looking.”
The call ended.
I held the locket so tightly its edge bit my palm. Daniel sat back down, leaving the same careful space between us.
“I can bring you the letters,” he said. “And I can find out what Grant’s doing.”
“Do that,” I told him. “But don’t mistake being here for forgiveness.”
“I won’t.”
For the first time, I believed he understood the difference.
Daniel’s phone rang again. Tessa.
May you like
He answered, and I heard the urgency in her voice before she said my name.
“Mara, I just checked the latest request. Grant’s already moving—before you can even leave the hospital.”
