Chapter 2 - THE FIRST SUNDAY WITHOUT HER
Grant left for Italy Tuesday morning.
Hannah did not go downstairs to say goodbye.
He stood in their bedroom doorway for nearly a minute, dressed in a dark traveling suit with his passport in one hand.
Hannah was sitting beside the window, folding tiny newborn clothes into a white dresser.
A blue sleeper.
Two pairs of socks.
A blanket Margaret had knitted.
Grant cleared his throat.
“My car is here.”
Hannah folded another shirt.
He waited.
Normally she would have looked up.
Normally she would have reminded him to take the medication he sometimes forgot, asked whether his security detail had confirmed the route to Kennedy Airport, told him to eat something before boarding, or kissed him despite whatever argument they were having.
That morning she did none of those things.
“You have my number,” he said.
Hannah's hands paused.
She still did not speak.
Grant frowned.
“Hannah.”
Nothing.
His expression hardened slightly.
He was not accustomed to being ignored.
Especially by her.
Finally, she looked at him.
There were no tears in her eyes.
That disturbed him more than anger would have.
He had spent three days convincing himself that she would calm down.
That Sloan was an indulgence, not a replacement.
That his marriage existed in a different category.
Permanent.
Protected.
Untouchable.
Hannah knew him.
Sloan excited him.
Those were not the same thing.
At least that was the story Grant told himself.
He took a step toward his wife.
Hannah lowered her eyes to the baby clothes.
The last thing she had said to him remained between them.
Take her on our honeymoon.
Grant left.
Twenty minutes later, Hannah watched his motorcade disappear through the estate gates.
Only then did she open the drawer beneath the crib.
Inside were three things.
Her passport.
A sealed envelope.
And a small black flash drive she had found inside Grant's home office two nights earlier.
She had not been searching his desk.
She had gone inside because Grant had left his blood-pressure medication beside the printer.
Even after discovering the affair, some habits were difficult to kill.
The flash drive had been taped beneath the bottom drawer.
Hannah recognized Grant's private encryption label.
She almost left it there.
Then she remembered Sloan's message.
Maybe this time you'll have the right woman beside you.
Something inside Hannah had shifted.
She took the drive.
She had no idea that doing so would save her life.
By Wednesday evening, Grant and Sloan were drinking champagne on a terrace above the Mediterranean.
Sloan posted nothing publicly.
Grant had made that rule.
His world survived because people knew very little.
Yet she took photographs constantly.
The cliffs.
The sea.
The suite.
The bed.
Grant stood at the balcony rail while Sloan approached from behind and wrapped her arms around him.
“You're thinking about her.”
He removed her hands.
“Don't.”
Sloan smiled.
“I didn't say anything insulting.”
“You didn't have to.”
“She told you to come.”
Grant turned.
“You know nothing about my wife.”
“I know she's at home while you're here.”
His jaw tightened.
Sloan walked toward the champagne.
“That seems fairly clear.”
Grant looked toward the sea.
For the first time since leaving New York, he felt something he did not have a name for.
Not guilt.
He knew guilt.
This was discomfort.
A faint sense that he had stepped away from something and the ground behind him had disappeared.
His phone vibrated.
MARGARET.
He answered.
“Mom.”
“Where is Hannah?”
Grant straightened.
“At home.”
“No, she isn't.”
His heart gave one hard beat.
“What?”
“Rebecca went over to take her dinner after the specialist appointment.”
Grant looked at his watch.
He had forgotten the appointment completely.
“Hannah wasn't there?”
“The housekeeper said she left this morning.”
“She probably went shopping.”
“Seven months pregnant after a specialist appointment?”
“I'll call her.”
“I already did.”
Grant glanced toward Sloan.
His mother continued.
“She isn't answering.”
“I'll handle it.”
Margaret's voice sharpened.
“You were supposed to be at that appointment.”
“I know.”
“No, you clearly don't.”
Grant had rarely heard his mother speak to him that way.
“Mom—”
“And Ethan sat at our kitchen table Sunday afternoon for three hours waiting for you.”
Grant closed his eyes.
The bridge.
“He knows I'm traveling.”
“He knows you promised.”
“I'll make it up to him.”
“That child threw the bridge plans in the trash.”
Grant said nothing.
Margaret lowered her voice.
“What are you doing, Grant?”
He looked toward Sloan.
“Business.”
His mother laughed once.
It was a bitter sound.
“Do not insult me.”
The call ended.
Grant immediately called Hannah.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
He texted.
WHERE ARE YOU?
No response.
He called the head of security at the Westchester estate.
Nico Reyes answered immediately.
“Boss.”
“Find my wife.”
A pause.
“Mrs. Whitmore dismissed her daytime detail yesterday.”
Grant's blood pressure rose instantly.
“You allowed that?”
“She has authority over her own security.”
“Not while she's pregnant.”
Nico did not respond.
“Where did she go?”
“We're checking.”
“Check faster.”
Grant ended the call.
Across the terrace, Sloan raised an eyebrow.
“Trouble?”
“No.”
It was automatic.
Grant's answer to everything.
No problem.
No weakness.
No fear.
But thirty minutes later, Nico called back.
“Hannah's car is at NewYork-Presbyterian.”
Grant stood.
“The appointment.”
“No, sir.”
“What?”
“The car is in the employee garage.”
Grant's chest tightened.
Hannah had worked as an emergency nurse before marrying him. She maintained credentials and still volunteered twice a month.
“Find her.”
“We did.”
Grant exhaled.
Then Nico said, “She left through the north entrance at 2:18.”
“With who?”
“A woman.”
“Name.”
“Dr. Lena Ortiz.”
Grant knew the name.
Hannah's closest friend from nursing school.
“Where did they go?”
“We lost them.”
Grant's voice became dangerously quiet.
“You lost my seven-month-pregnant wife?”
“They switched vehicles inside a private parking structure.”
“Why?”
“I don't know.”
Grant stared at the ocean.
Suddenly the Amalfi Coast looked very far from home.
“Find her.”
“Yes, sir.”
He ended the call.
Sloan approached.
“Grant, if you need to go—”
“No.”
He said it too quickly.
Pride was a strange thing.
Sometimes it kept men standing.
Sometimes it kept them walking in the wrong direction long after they knew they should turn around.
“I told Hannah I'd be here for the week.”
Sloan smiled.
“Actually, she told you to bring me.”
Grant looked at her.
Something about the satisfaction in her voice bothered him.
Back in New York, Hannah sat inside Lena's apartment in Queens with a laptop open across her knees.
The black flash drive had taken hours to access.
Hannah expected business records.
She expected Grant's criminal accounts.
Names she did not want to know.
Payments she had spent years deliberately refusing to ask about.
Instead, she found photographs.
Her.
Leaving the hospital.
Driving to prenatal appointments.
Walking through a grocery store.
Sitting beside Margaret at a charity luncheon.
Every photograph had been taken from a distance.
Hannah's skin went cold.
“Grant has people watching you?” Lena asked.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because his men don't hide from me.”
Hannah clicked another folder.
Inside were copies of her prenatal records.
Her blood type.
Her due date.
Her obstetrician's name.
Her scheduled specialist appointment.
Lena stopped breathing.
“Hannah.”
“I know.”
A final folder contained an itinerary.
Thursday.
8:30 a.m.
WHITMORE FEMALE — MEDICAL TRANSFER.
Destination:
ST. AGNES PRIVATE CLINIC.
Hannah stared.
“I've never heard of that place.”
Lena searched it.
Her face changed.
“Hannah, this clinic closed two years ago.”
A phone number was listed beneath the address.
Hannah recognized it.
She had seen it on Grant's iPad.
Sloan.
The room became silent.
Hannah scrolled lower.
A note appeared beneath the itinerary.
TARGET WINDOW: GRANT OUT OF COUNTRY.
Her son moved hard beneath her hand.
Lena immediately stood.
“We're calling the police.”
“No.”
“Hannah.”
“If this comes from Grant's world, normal police aren't enough.”
“Then call Grant.”
Hannah stared at her.
Call the husband currently sleeping in their honeymoon suite with the woman whose phone number appeared inside a file tracking her unborn child?
No.
Not yet.
Hannah picked up her own phone and called the only Whitmore man she believed might tell her the truth.
Not Grant.
Walter.
He answered after two rings.
“Hannah?”
“Dad, I need you to listen carefully.”
Walter became silent.
Hannah had called him Dad since her second year of marriage.
“I found something.”
“What?”
“I think someone planned to take me tomorrow.”
Walter's breathing stopped.
“And I think Sloan is involved.”
For several seconds, there was nothing.
Then Walter said four words that changed everything.
“Hannah, don't come home.”
Her fingers tightened around the phone.
“You believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Walter's voice dropped.
“Because twenty-three years ago, somebody used the same words in a file about Grant's mother.”
Hannah looked at Lena.
“What are you talking about?”
May you like
Walter whispered,
“Grant has never known the real reason I left the organization.”
