Chapter 2 - THE DATE ON THE PHOTOGRAPH
“Someone sent you a picture of me sleeping, and your solution was to break my heart?”
My voice sounded strange inside the hospital room.
Dorian stood beside the door, his phone still in his hand.
“Alina, listen to me.”
“No. You listen. Six months, Dorian. Six months of wondering what I did wrong. Six months of watching my husband look through me like I was a stranger.”
His face tightened.
“I thought if you stopped being my wife, they'd stop seeing you as a way to hurt me.”
“Who are they?”
He looked toward Dr. Mercer.
She calmly closed her tablet.
“I think you two need a moment. But, Mrs. Cross, I need to repeat your bloodwork, and I'd like you to remain here until we understand what we're seeing.”
I nodded.
When the door closed, Dorian reached into his jacket.
He took out a worn leather wallet and removed a photograph.
For a moment, he couldn't seem to make himself hand it over.
Then he did.
I recognized our bedroom immediately.
The cream curtains.
The blue quilt my mother had sewn before she died.
Me, asleep on my side.
And the small silver clock on the nightstand.
The photograph had been taken from inside our bedroom.
I turned it over.
Six words were written across the back.
MARCH 19. SHE DOESN'T SEE SPRING.
My knees weakened.
Dorian caught my elbow.
I pulled away.
“March nineteenth?”
He nodded.
“That's tomorrow.”
“I know.”
I stared at him.
“You knew someone threatened to kill me tomorrow, and you brought me to a law office?”
“I had security covering the building.”
“That isn't what I asked.”
His silence told me enough.
“You thought signing those papers would end this?”
“I thought making the separation official might remove whatever advantage they believed they had.”
“Or you wanted me to leave quietly before something happened.”
He looked wounded.
Good.
I wanted him to understand what his silence had done.
“Do you know what I thought when your lawyer handed me those papers?” I asked. “I thought you had finally found somebody you weren't ashamed to love.”
“Never.”
“You should have told me.”
“I know.”
That stopped me.
Dorian Cross rarely admitted he was wrong.
He sat down heavily.
“The photograph arrived at my office six months ago. It came with copies of your travel plans and the registration number of your car. Whoever sent it knew where you slept, where you worked, and when you visited your father's grave.”
My hands went cold.
“Did you find out who took it?”
“No. Someone had accessed the security system inside our house. The recording from that night was gone.”
I looked down at the photograph again.
Something bothered me.
The clock.
Its hands showed 2:14.
But I remembered that night.
Because there had been a thunderstorm.
I had been awake at two, sitting downstairs with tea while Dorian took an emergency business call.
“Dorian, this photograph wasn't taken when you think.”
He stood.
“What?”
“The nightstand. Look at the clock.”
He examined it.
“Two fourteen.”
“That clock stopped working months before I moved out. I never replaced the battery.”
His eyes narrowed.
“Are you sure?”
“I'm sure. You kept promising to fix it.”
For the first time, he looked at the photograph differently.
Someone had used a detail from our house to make an old image appear recent.
Or perhaps the photograph was older than the threat itself.
Before we could discuss it, Dr. Mercer returned with a nurse.
“I'd like to do an ultrasound,” she said. “And our laboratory is performing a more specific analysis of the unexpected result.”
Dorian stepped toward her.
“Is the baby in danger?”
“Not necessarily. At this stage, we don't have enough information.”
I touched my stomach.
Until that moment, pregnancy had been a frightening possibility.
Now there was a baby.
Our baby.
And someone might already have hurt us.
Dr. Mercer noticed my expression.
“Alina, uncertainty isn't the same thing as bad news. Let's take this one step at a time.”
The ultrasound room was dim.
Dorian stood beside the wall while the technician adjusted the screen.
I stared at the ceiling.
Then I heard it.
A fast, steady heartbeat.
The technician smiled.
“There we are.”
I turned toward the monitor.
A tiny shape appeared in black and gray.
So small.
So impossibly real.
Tears slipped into my hair.
Dorian moved closer.
“That's our baby?” he whispered.
The technician nodded.
“Heartbeat looks reassuring.”
Dorian covered his mouth.
I had seen him negotiate deals worth hundreds of millions without changing expression.
But looking at that monitor, he began to cry.
Not loudly.
Just two tears he seemed powerless to stop.
I wanted to reach for him.
Instead, I held my hands together.
Love didn't disappear because trust had been broken.
Unfortunately, neither did pain.
Afterward, Dr. Mercer explained that the initial screening suggested exposure to a sedating medication.
She wouldn't identify it until the second test was completed.
“Could it explain my nausea?” I asked.
“Some of your symptoms could be pregnancy-related. The possible exposure is a separate concern.”
“Could someone have put it in my food?”
“That's one possibility. We need confirmation before drawing conclusions.”
Dorian was already reaching for his phone.
I stopped him.
“No more giving orders about my life without asking me.”
He lowered the phone.
I surprised myself by continuing.
“I want Caleb to check my apartment. But I want to know everything he finds.”
“All right.”
“And I decide where I go.”
His jaw tightened.
Then he nodded.
“All right.”
It was the first honest agreement we'd made in months.
Two hours later, Caleb arrived at the hospital carrying my cream coat.
He was tall, broad-shouldered, and had worked for Dorian since before our wedding.
I had always trusted him.
Now I wasn't certain I trusted anyone.
“We checked the apartment,” he told Dorian.
“Anything?”
“Nothing disturbed. Building cameras are being reviewed.”
I reached for my coat.
Something fell from the pocket.
A small paper ticket.
Pale yellow.
The kind you received at a parking garage.
I frowned.
“That isn't mine.”
Caleb picked it up.
“Where did you park today?”
“I took a cab.”
Dorian examined the ticket.
It carried a date.
March 19.
And a location printed beneath it.
NORTH SHORE MEMORIAL — LOWER GARAGE.
Tomorrow's date.
The hospital where we were standing.
Dorian turned toward Caleb.
“Did you search her coat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Before you brought it here?”
“Yes.”
The two men stared at each other.
Then I noticed something else.
A handwritten number across the bottom of the ticket.
B-17.
I had seen that number somewhere before.
Not on a car.
Not on an address.
On a small brass key Dorian used to keep in his study.
A key he had once told me never to touch.
“Dorian,” I whispered, “what's in locker B-17?”
His expression changed.
Caleb turned sharply toward him.
And my husband said something I had never expected to hear.
“That locker belonged to my brother.”
I stared at him.
“Your brother died twelve years ago.”
Dorian looked down at the yellow ticket.
“Yes.”
Then he unfolded it completely.
On the back was a photograph of a tiny silver baby bracelet.
May you like
And beneath the picture, someone had written:
ASK YOUR HUSBAND WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRST CHILD.
