Chapter 4 - THE PAWN SHOP SECRET
“They?” Naomi repeated, her voice dripping with skepticism.
She looked at the torn blue ticket trembling in Trevor’s hand, then up at his terrified face. For eight years, she had assumed his departure was a simple, brutal case of a selfish man choosing his mistress over his pregnant wife. Now, looking at the sweat beading on his forehead, a chilling realization crept over her.
“Who is ‘they’, Trevor?”
“I can’t explain it here,” he hissed, glancing nervously over his shoulder at the velvet curtains. “Just tell me. Do you have the key? Bianca told me she searched the apartment before the landlord locked you out, but she couldn’t find it. I’ve been trying to track you down for months. Please, Naomi. My life is in danger.”
Naomi felt a rush of cold anger. Bianca had searched the apartment? While Naomi was exhausted, pregnant, and facing eviction, her husband’s mistress had been digging through her home looking for a key?
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Naomi lied smoothly, not breaking eye contact. “I threw all your leftover garbage into the dumpster the day after you walked out.”
Trevor let out a sound that was half-sob, half-gasp. He grabbed the fabric of his hair, pulling it in desperation. “No, no, no. You couldn’t have. Naomi, you don’t understand what was in that box. The money I took from our account—it wasn’t for me and Bianca. It was to pay them off. But it wasn’t enough!”
Naomi froze.
The thousand dollars. The emptied savings account.
Before she could interrogate him further, the heavy velvet curtain was pushed aside.
“Mommy?”
The small, sweet voice echoed in the service hallway. Naomi turned instantly, her protective instincts flaring.
Lily stood there, wearing a beautiful dark green velvet dress that matched her mother’s gown. At eight years old, she was a striking mixture of Naomi’s fierce eyes and Trevor’s dark curls. She was holding a small plate with a single, perfectly frosted strawberry.
“Auntie Sarah said I could have one dessert before we go home,” Lily said, completely oblivious to the tension in the room. Then, her large brown eyes shifted to the man in the white server’s uniform.
Trevor stopped breathing.
He stared at the little girl. The daughter he had abandoned in the womb. The daughter he had never met, never sent a birthday card to, never provided a single dime for. Tears instantly welled in his eyes, spilling over his lashes and tracking down his hollow cheeks.
“Is… is that…?” he whispered.
Naomi stepped swiftly between them, shielding Lily from his view. “Lily, honey, go back to Aunt Sarah. Mommy is handling a staff issue.”
But Lily didn’t move. She tilted her head, peering around her mother’s waist to look at Trevor’s face. She frowned, her bright eyes narrowing in concentration.
“I know you,” Lily said.
Trevor’s breath hitched. “You do?”
Naomi felt a spike of pure panic. She had never shown Lily a picture of Trevor. She had completely erased him from their home. “Lily, go back to the ballroom now.”
“But Mommy, look.” Lily unclasped the little green purse slung over her shoulder. She reached her small fingers inside and pulled out a piece of paper that had been folded and taped together a dozen times.
Naomi’s blood ran cold.
Lily unfolded the paper and held it up. It was a photograph.
“I found it under the floorboard in my old room before we moved to the big house,” Lily said innocently. “It’s the man from the picture.”
Naomi snatched the photo from her daughter’s hand. She had thought she destroyed every photo of Trevor. But as she looked at the image, her breath caught in her throat.
It wasn’t a family photo.
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It was a grainy, candid shot of Trevor standing in an alleyway. He was handing a thick manila envelope to someone whose face was obscured by the shadows. But the background—the red brick, the rusted fire escape—was instantly recognizable.
It was the alleyway directly behind the rundown studio apartment Naomi had been forced to move into.
