Chapter 1 - The Man Grant Feared
I slammed my bloody palm against the elevator button and screamed, “Please—close!”
A man in a black suit stood inside holding a silver hotel key card.
A number had been scratched across its back.
Then Grant Mercer reached the elevator—and stopped breathing.
For two years, I had imagined a hundred versions of my escape.
None of them included a stranger who knew my name.
“Claire.”
The word came from beside me.
I jerked so violently that my shoulder struck the brushed-steel wall.
The stranger hadn't raised his voice. He hadn't moved toward me. He stood perhaps six feet away, tall and broad-shouldered in a black suit and open-collar shirt, watching me with an expression I couldn't read.
My bare feet left wet red marks on the elevator floor.
“Who are you?”
He glanced at my bruised arms.
“Someone who's been looking for you.”
My stomach dropped.
That was when a hand shot between the closing elevator doors.
They opened again.
Grant Mercer stood outside.
Three security men crowded behind him.
I had seen Grant angry before.
I knew the small movements that came before the explosion: the tightening jaw, the flattening mouth, the slight twitch beside his right eye.
All three were there.
“Claire.”
Grant's voice was soft.
That made it worse.
“Come here.”
I pressed myself against the elevator wall.
“No.”
One of his guards stepped forward.
The stranger moved half a step.
Nothing dramatic.
No weapon.
No raised fists.
He simply placed himself between Grant and me.
Grant stared at him.
“Move.”
“No.”
Grant's eyes narrowed.
“You have no idea what you're interfering with.”
The stranger finally turned his full attention toward him.
“I know exactly what I'm interfering with.”
Something changed.
Grant looked at his face properly.
The color drained from his own.
“You.”
The stranger said nothing.
Grant's guard glanced sideways at his employer.
I'd never seen that expression on Grant.
Fear.
Real fear.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Grant whispered, “Adrian?”
The stranger's eyes hardened.
So now I had a name.
Adrian.
“You will never touch her again,” he said.
Grant recovered enough to laugh, but the sound was thin.
“She belongs with me.”
My entire body recoiled.
Adrian noticed.
“She doesn't belong to anyone.”
Grant's expression turned vicious.
“You think you can walk into my hotel and take her?”
Adrian glanced around the elevator.
“Your hotel?”
For reasons I didn't understand, that question made Grant even paler.
Adrian reached past me and pressed the button for the lobby.
The doors began closing.
Grant lunged forward.
One of his men caught his arm.
“Sir.”
Grant ripped himself free.
“Claire!”
I flinched.
“You get out of that elevator right now!”
The doors narrowed.
Adrian never looked away from Grant.
Grant shouted one final sentence.
“He won't protect you when he finds out what you did!”
The doors closed.
Silence.
My knees gave out.
Adrian caught me before I hit the floor.
I panicked instantly.
“Don't touch me!”
He released me so quickly I almost fell anyway.
“Okay.”
No anger.
No offended pride.
He stepped back.
“I'm sorry.”
I stared at him.
Men like Grant never apologized.
Not sincerely.
Not without wanting something afterward.
Adrian removed his jacket.
I recoiled again.
He stopped.
“You're cold.”
“I don't want it.”
“All right.”
He folded it over his arm instead.
The elevator descended.
Twenty-eight.
Twenty-seven.
Twenty-six.
I watched the numbers as though they were counting down the remaining seconds of my life.
“You said you were looking for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His eyes moved to the ceiling camera.
“Not here.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You know my name. Grant knows you. I'm bleeding in an elevator, and your answer is ‘not here’?”
“You're right.”
He reached into his pocket slowly.
I tensed.
He removed a phone.
He held it where I could see the screen.
A photograph appeared.
Me.
Not tonight.
The picture had been taken years earlier.
I was standing outside Northwestern Memorial Hospital beside my mother.
My mother.
My throat closed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Your mother sent it to me.”
“My mother died six years ago.”
“I know.”
I stared at him.
“You're lying.”
“I wish I were.”
The elevator stopped.
Seventeenth floor.
The doors opened.
Empty hallway.
Adrian didn't move.
The doors closed again.
“My mother didn't know you.”
“She did.”
“What was her name?”
“Evelyn Hart.”
My heart hammered.
Anyone could discover that.
“What did she call me?”
He hesitated.
That tiny hesitation made me hate him.
“Exactly.”
I turned away.
Then he said, “Birdie.”
Everything inside me stopped.
Nobody knew that.
Nobody.
My mother had called me Birdie because when I was five, I'd tried to rescue an injured sparrow from our backyard and hidden it in my bedroom.
Grant didn't even know.
I looked at Adrian again.
“How?”
“Your mother came to me eight days before she died.”
The elevator seemed to shrink.
“She said that if anything happened to her, I was supposed to find you.”
My voice barely worked.
“Six years.”
“Yes.”
“You've been looking for me for six years?”
“Not continuously. You disappeared eighteen months after her death.”
“I didn't disappear.”
Adrian's expression changed.
I realized he understood before I said it.
“Grant isolated me.”
“Yes.”
“He took my phone. My accounts. He told everyone I'd had a breakdown.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because for two years, Grant Mercer has been paying people to make sure nobody asks where Claire Hart went.”
My stomach twisted.
The elevator reached the lobby.
Adrian didn't move toward the doors.
“There's a private exit through the service corridor.”
“How do I know you're not taking me somewhere worse?”
“You don't.”
That answer surprised me.
He continued, “So you choose.”
The doors opened onto the magnificent lobby.
Marble.
Gold light.
Night staff.
People.
Actual people.
I hadn't been around ordinary strangers without Grant controlling every conversation in months.
Adrian pointed left.
“Front entrance. Police station is four blocks east.”
Then right.
“Service corridor. My car is outside. I can take you to a hospital, police station, shelter, or anywhere else you choose.”
“You'd let me walk away?”
“Yes.”
I studied him.
“Even after looking for me?”
“Yes.”
Behind us, another elevator chimed.
Adrian looked up.
“Choose quickly.”
I heard Grant's voice.
“Claire!”
My body made the decision before my mind did.
I grabbed Adrian's arm.
“Go.”
We ran.
He didn't drag me.
That mattered.
He matched my pace as best he could while I limped through the service corridor.
A hotel employee opened a door.
Cold air struck my face.
A black SUV waited.
Adrian opened the rear door.
“Hospital?”
“No.”
“You're injured.”
“If Grant has people there—”
“He probably does.”
The casual certainty terrified me.
“Police?”
I shook my head.
Grant donated to police charities. Played golf with commanders. Had judges at his Christmas parties.
Adrian understood.
“Then somewhere secure.”
“Where?”
“My house.”
I almost laughed.
“No.”
“Then a hotel.”
“Grant owns half this city.”
“He doesn't own mine.”
Something about the way Adrian said it made me look at him.
“Who are you?”
Before he could answer, the service door burst open.
Grant appeared.
“Claire!”
Adrian stepped between us again.
Grant stopped under the awning.
Rain blew sideways across the alley.
“You think she's innocent?” Grant shouted.
Adrian's expression didn't change.
Grant pointed at me.
“Ask her why Evelyn Hart died.”
My heart stopped.
Adrian turned slowly.
For the first time, suspicion entered his eyes.
Grant smiled.
“She never told you, did she?”
I whispered, “I don't know what he's talking about.”
Grant laughed.
“Of course you do.”
A security guard appeared behind him carrying something.
A white envelope.
Grant held out his hand.
The guard gave it to him.
Grant pulled out a photograph and raised it toward us.
Even from twenty feet away, I recognized the woman in it.
My mother.
Beside her stood Adrian.
And between them stood someone I had spent six years believing was dead.
My father.
Grant smiled.
“Tell her who was really in Room 1907.”
Adrian went completely still.
Then my eyes dropped to the silver key card still in his hand.
The same number was scratched into the back.
Before I could speak, Adrian's phone vibrated.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
A message had arrived from an unknown number.
ROOM 1907 IS OPEN.
May you like
And underneath it:
CLAIRE'S MOTHER IS WAITING.
