Chapter 1 - The Sixth Dress
Fay Harwick clutched the red gown against her chest and whispered, “Please just send it back.”
Conrad Harwick entered the boutique holding the $850 refund receipt.
Someone had circled the dress size in black ink.
Beside it were three handwritten words: NOT FOR HER.
Conrad stopped walking.
This was no longer about a dress.
The boutique went silent.
Fay stood in front of a three-panel mirror, wearing the pale pink satin dress she had arrived in while holding the deep-red gown against herself. Under the warm lights, the fabric looked expensive enough to belong behind glass.
It was beautiful.
That was precisely the problem.
Behind the marble counter, two sales associates suddenly found reasons to look anywhere except at Fay.
Conrad noticed.
Conrad noticed everything.
He was forty-four, six feet three, broad through the shoulders, with dark hair swept back from a face Chicago newspapers carefully avoided printing unless the story absolutely required it. A burgundy suit fit him with the precision of armor. Gold rested at his throat. Tattoos disappeared beneath his cuffs and collar.
He had entered carrying shopping bags.
He put them down.
“Who wrote that?”
Fay looked at the receipt in his hand.
Her face drained.
“Conrad.”
“Who?”
“It doesn't matter.”
His voice remained low.
“That wasn't my question.”
The younger sales associate swallowed.
The other woman touched her arm.
Fay immediately stepped between Conrad and the counter.
“No.”
One word.
Conrad looked down at his wife.
Most people became cautious when he used that tone.
Fay became stubborn.
That was one of the things about her that had first confused him.
And then fascinated him.
“Don't frighten them,” she said.
“I asked a question.”
“And I said no.”
His jaw shifted.
Eight months earlier, Fay Donahue had become Fay Harwick in a marriage negotiated across a walnut conference table.
Her father owed money.
Conrad needed the Donahue family's legitimate distribution connections.
The marriage settled both problems.
There had been no proposal on one knee.
No moonlight.
No trembling declaration of love.
Conrad had slid a contract across the table.
Fay had read every page.
Then she had looked at him and asked, “Will my father be safe?”
“Yes.”
“My sisters?”
“Yes.”
“The diner employees?”
Conrad had paused.
“The diner employees?”
“They've got mortgages.”
He had stared at her for several seconds.
“Yes, Fay. Them too.”
She had signed.
He had expected gratitude.
Instead, she had said, “Good. Now move your elbow. You're sitting on my purse.”
That had been the beginning.
The first gown came two months after the wedding.
Emerald silk.
Returned.
The second was midnight blue.
Returned.
Then silver.
Black.
Burgundy.
Returned.
Returned.
Returned.
Conrad had assumed Fay disliked extravagant gifts.
So he had stopped sending jewelry and started sending practical things.
A new espresso machine appeared at the women's shelter.
Returned.
A luxury SUV arrived because Fay's old sedan made a noise that offended him personally.
She kept the sedan.
When he quietly had its engine rebuilt, she somehow discovered what he had done and left an invoice on his breakfast plate.
PAID IN FULL, she had written.
He had almost smiled.
Almost.
But the dresses were different.
She needed one for the Harwick Foundation fundraiser.
Conrad's world would be there.
Politicians.
Developers.
Lawyers.
Men who smiled for cameras while privately negotiating favors that never appeared on paper.
And Fay had nothing appropriate.
He had told her so.
That conversation had gone badly.
Now he understood it had gone worse than he realized.
His gaze returned to the receipt.
NOT FOR HER.
“Fay.”
“I'm leaving.”
She put the red gown across the counter.
“Mrs. Harwick,” the older employee said gently, “you don't have to—”
“It's okay.”
Fay smiled.
It was the smile she used when she wanted everyone else comfortable.
Conrad hated that smile.
Because it never reached her eyes.
He looked toward the mirror.
For the first time, he understood that Fay had not been admiring the dress when he entered.
She had been studying herself.
Not vainly.
Critically.
Almost cruelly.
He remembered something she had said the previous night.
What exactly does your wife need to look like, Conrad?
Appropriate, he had answered.
For your world?
Yes.
And I'm not?
That isn't what I said.
But perhaps it was what she had heard.
Conrad placed the receipt on the counter.
“We're going home.”
“I can get a cab.”
“You're coming with me.”
“That sounded dangerously like an order.”
“It was a request.”
“Your requests usually make grown men sweat.”
“Fay.”
She finally looked at him.
Her eyes were wet.
That silenced him faster than a gun ever had.
She walked past him.
Conrad followed.
He did not threaten the employees.
He did not demand an explanation.
He did not even take the red gown.
But as he left, his eyes moved once toward the younger associate.
She looked terrified.
Not of him.
Of being caught knowing something.
Twenty minutes later, Fay sat beside him in the back of the car.
Chicago moved beyond the tinted windows.
Neither spoke.
Finally Conrad said, “Did someone insult you?”
“No.”
“That receipt says otherwise.”
“I said it doesn't matter.”
“It matters to me.”
She gave a small, humorless laugh.
“Everything matters to you when you can fix it.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You solve problems with money, Conrad.”
“Money solves many problems.”
“Not this one.”
“What problem?”
Fay turned toward the window.
“That.”
He waited.
Nothing.
Conrad could make silence uncomfortable.
Fay could make it immovable.
At the townhouse, she went upstairs.
Conrad remained in his study until nearly eleven.
Three contracts lay unread on his desk.
His phone rang four times.
He ignored it.
At 11:17, he walked upstairs.
The bedroom was empty.
Light showed beneath the dressing-room door.
He tried the handle.
Locked.
“Fay?”
Nothing.
Then he heard it.
A breath.
Broken halfway through.
Another.
Then the unmistakable sound of a woman desperately trying not to cry.
Conrad's hand remained on the knob.
His first instinct was anger.
Not at Fay.
At whoever had caused this.
“Open the door.”
“Go away.”
“No.”
“Conrad.”
“Open it.”
“I said go away.”
He stepped back.
For six years, locked doors had existed in Conrad's life for one reason.
To be opened.
But this was his wife.
So he waited.
Then something hit the floor inside.
Fay gasped.
Conrad kicked the door.
The latch shattered.
The door flew inward.
Fay spun around.
“Conrad!”
He took one step inside.
Then stopped.
The room was filled with dresses.
Not six.
Dozens.
Some still carried designer tags.
Others were inexpensive department-store gowns.
Every one had been pinned, altered, cut, or folded around the waist.
On the floor lay photographs.
Fay in a restaurant uniform.
Fay at twenty-five.
Fay at thirty.
Fay at forty.
And beside the photographs was an envelope.
Conrad crouched.
Fay rushed toward him.
“Don't.”
Too late.
He picked it up.
The envelope carried the logo of Maison Valette.
Inside was a handwritten note.
He unfolded it.
The first sentence made his face go still.
The second made his hand tighten.
Then Conrad read the name signed at the bottom.
May you like
He knew that name.
And the woman who had written it was supposed to be dead.
