“Stay in the taxi. Keep the doors locked.”
“I have two children with me, Adrian.”
“I know.”
Something in the way he said it made my throat tighten.
Not your children.
Not the twins.
Just I know.
As if, in the twenty minutes since I had walked away from him at O’Hare, that fact had already rearranged something fundamental inside him.
The taxi driver glanced nervously into the mirror.
“Ma’am, should I call the police?”
Before I could answer, Adrian spoke sharply through the phone.
“Tell the driver to stay on Wacker.”
“How do you know where we are?”
A pause.
“Daniel is tracking the taxi.”
My eyes closed for half a second.
Of course he was.
“Adrian—”
“Be angry later.”
His voice softened.
“Please.”
That stopped me.
Adrian Mercer did not say please.
Not often.
Not even when we were married.
The gray SUV shifted into the lane beside us.
Emma reached for my hand.
“Mommy?”
“I’m here.”
I wrapped my fingers around hers.
The SUV’s windows were tinted, making it impossible to see who was inside.
Then one of Adrian’s black vehicles moved smoothly between us.
Another appeared behind the SUV.
For several seconds, all four vehicles traveled together through the afternoon traffic beneath Chicago’s steel-and-glass skyline.
Then the gray SUV slowed.
It took the next turn.
And disappeared.
I released a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“They’re gone,” I whispered.
“For now,” Adrian said.
I hated those two words.
“What does that mean?”
“It means I need you somewhere secure until I understand who accessed the records.”
“I have a hotel.”
“No.”
“I didn’t ask permission.”
“And I’m not giving an order.”
I almost laughed.
“That would be a first.”
Silence settled between us.
Then he said quietly, “The hotel reservation you made three weeks ago was accessed yesterday.”
My stomach dropped.
“How do you know that?”
“Because after someone opened the children’s medical records, Daniel checked whether any of your travel information had been compromised.”
I looked at Ethan.
He had stopped watching the window and was staring at me now.
Children knew when adults were lying.
They especially knew when their mothers were afraid.
I lowered my voice.
“Where exactly do you expect us to go?”
“My house.”
“No.”
“Evelyn.”
“Absolutely not.”
Emma looked between me and the phone.
“Is that the man from the airport?”
I covered the receiver.
“Yes.”
“The one who used to be your husband?”
“Yes.”
She considered this.
“Does he have snacks?”
Despite everything, the taxi driver gave a quiet laugh.
I closed my eyes.
Six years of careful parenting, educational toys, bedtime routines, and teaching emotional awareness—and my daughter had apparently decided that snacks were the correct metric by which to evaluate her father.
Through the phone, Adrian said, “I have snacks.”
“You heard that?”
“I heard everything.”
Emma leaned toward the phone.
“What kind?”
“Emma,” I warned.
Adrian answered anyway.
“Probably the wrong kind. But I can fix that.”
My heart did something inconvenient.
I looked away.
The city passed outside the window.
Chicago.
The place I had once considered home.
The place I had spent six years convincing myself I no longer missed.
“We are not staying at your house,” I said.
“There’s an apartment in one of my buildings near the university district. Private entrance. Security downstairs. No one will know you’re there.”
“I’ll know.”
“That seems unavoidable.”
For one brief second, I heard the Adrian I remembered.
Dry.
Controlled.
Almost amused.
I hated how familiar it felt.
“What about my research presentation tomorrow?” I asked.
“You’re still planning to attend?”
“I didn’t fly halfway across the country to hide in an apartment.”
“That presentation is exactly why you’re here.”
“Yes.”
“And whoever searched for you may know that.”
My fingers tightened around the phone.
Adrian continued.
“I’m not asking you to cancel anything. I’m asking you to give me a few hours.”
“A few hours for what?”
“To find out whether this is about me…”
He stopped.
“Or about you.”
That possibility had not occurred to me.
I stared at the screen of my phone after the call ended.
For years, I had assumed every danger attached to Adrian Mercer began and ended with Adrian Mercer.
Now, for the first time, I wondered whether I had brought something to Chicago that had nothing to do with him.
The apartment Adrian sent us to was nothing like his old penthouse.
That surprised me.
I had expected marble floors, impossible views, art selected by consultants, furniture nobody was actually supposed to sit on.
Instead, the apartment felt almost ordinary.
Three bedrooms.
Warm wood floors.
A kitchen with mismatched ceramic bowls on the counter.
Books on the shelves.
A large window overlooking the river.
Emma immediately discovered a basket of blankets and dragged one toward the sofa.
Ethan remained suspicious.
“Whose house is this?”
“Apartment,” I corrected.
He looked at me.
“That’s not an answer.”
Sometimes having highly observant children felt like parenting two tiny attorneys.
“I don’t know whose apartment it is.”
Behind us, Daniel closed the door.
“It belongs to Mr. Mercer.”
Ethan looked pleased with himself.
I looked at Daniel.
“Thank you.”
Daniel had the good sense not to smile.
He had aged since I last saw him.
There was more gray at his temples now, and the hard lines beside his mouth made him look permanently tired.
But his manner was exactly as I remembered—quiet, efficient, and impossible to read.
“Someone will be downstairs,” he said.
“I don’t need guards.”
“They aren’t for you.”
I frowned.
“Then who are they for?”
His eyes moved toward the children.
That answer settled badly in my stomach.
Emma had already found the television remote.
“Can we watch cartoons?”
“Yes.”
Ethan stood near the window.
I crossed the room and closed the curtains.
He noticed.
“Was that car following us?”
There it was.
The question I had been trying to avoid.
I crouched in front of him.
“Maybe.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
He studied my face.
“Are we in danger?”
I could have lied.
For most parents, lying to protect their children begins with small things.
The dog went to live on a farm.
The shot won’t hurt.
Mommy isn’t scared.
But Ethan had always sensed dishonesty.
So I chose something close to the truth.
“I think some adults are trying to understand something they don’t understand yet.”
“About us?”
“Maybe.”
He glanced toward Emma.
“Should I stay with her?”
My chest tightened.
“You don’t have to protect Emma from everything.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No.”
I placed both hands gently on his shoulders.
“That is my job.”
He looked unconvinced.
I knew where he had learned that expression.
I just wasn’t ready to think about it.
Adrian arrived forty minutes later.
