Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN IN THE HOTEL PHOTO
I woke at 5:12 the next morning on Hannah’s couch with my coat still on and thirty-eight missed calls.
Thirty-one were from Adrien.
Three from Maria.
Four from numbers I didn’t recognize.
Hannah stood in the kitchen holding two mugs.
“I’m assuming Mr. Wall Street Panic is your husband.”
“Unfortunately.”
She placed tea in front of me.
“You going to tell him where you are?”
“No.”
“You going to tell me why you’re carrying baby socks around like they’re classified documents?”
I looked at her.
Hannah’s eyes widened.
“Oh my God.”
I started crying before I could stop myself.
She sat beside me.
“You’re pregnant?”
“Seven weeks.”
“Does he know?”
“He shouldn’t.”
That wasn’t entirely true anymore.
I just didn’t know it.
I showed Hannah the hotel photograph.
Vanessa wore a red coat. Adrien’s palm was at the small of her back. They were leaving the Whitmore Hotel at 9:17 the previous evening.
Hannah studied it.
“That looks bad.”
“It is bad.”
“It looks bad. That isn’t always the same thing.”
I almost laughed.
“You sound like me six months ago.”
My phone buzzed again.
Unknown number.
A message appeared.
YOU DID THE RIGHT THING BY LEAVING.
Then another.
DON’T TELL ADRIEN ABOUT THE BABY.
My blood turned cold.
Hannah saw my face.
“What?”
I showed her.
“Who knows?”
“Nobody.”
“You told me five minutes ago.”
“The pharmacy. My doctor.”
“And whoever sent that.”
Before either of us could say more, someone knocked downstairs.
Hannah went still.
Nobody should have known I was there.
She checked the building camera on her phone.
A woman stood outside.
Red coat.
Vanessa Cole.
My stomach twisted.
“No.”
“Elena,” Hannah said carefully, “maybe you need to hear her.”
“I saw enough.”
Vanessa knocked again.
Then called through the door.
“Elena, I know you’re inside.”
That changed everything.
I walked down before common sense could stop me.
Hannah stayed two steps behind.
I opened the door but left the chain attached.
Vanessa looked nothing like the glamorous woman in the photograph.
Her hair was wet.
Her mascara had smudged.
And she looked terrified.
“I’m not sleeping with your husband.”
I laughed once.
“You crossed Brooklyn at dawn to tell me that?”
“I crossed Brooklyn because somebody wants you to believe I am.”
She slid an envelope through the gap.
Inside was another photograph from the Whitmore Hotel.
Same time.
Same entrance.
But the wider angle showed Adrien wasn’t holding Vanessa intimately.
He was catching her.
A man behind them had just shoved her toward the street.
Vanessa pointed at the stranger.
“Adrien met me because I asked for protection.”
“From whom?”
She looked behind her before answering.
“His brother, Luca.”
My heart began pounding.
Then Vanessa said something worse.
“Last night you heard Adrien say ‘Keep her,’ didn’t you?”
I stared at her.
She already knew.
Vanessa’s face lost what little color remained.
“Elena, he wasn’t talking about me.”
“Then who?”
May you like
Vanessa looked directly at my stomach.
“You.”
