Chapter 4 - Natalie
They took Adrian away before midnight.
He twisted around as the officers led him through the front door.
“Claire!”
I didn’t answer.
“Claire, this is insane! Call my attorney!”
I watched him disappear into the back of the patrol car.
The man I had married looked smaller behind steel and glass.
I should have felt grief.
Instead, I felt relief.
Then Detective Reed ruined that relief with one sentence.
“You shouldn’t go home tonight.”
I looked at him.
“Why?”
“Until we know what’s happening here, I’d prefer you somewhere your husband and his family can’t easily predict.”
“My condo has security.”
“They know where you live.”
That was true.
They had spent dinner planning to steal it.
Maya approached while the paramedics packed their equipment.
“You can stay with me.”
I studied her.
She looked exhausted.
“Your husband is Adrian’s brother.”
“Daniel is nothing like Adrian.”
“You expect me to trust a Mercer tonight?”
Pain crossed her face.
“No.”
At least she was honest.
“But I can tell you about Natalie.”
That changed everything.
We ended up at a small hotel in Napa under different names.
Maya sat across from me at two in the morning while I held an ice pack against my skull.
“Natalie Price was twenty-six when she disappeared,” Maya began. “She was funny. Loud. Stubborn.”
“Like me?”
A sad smile touched Maya’s mouth.
“Exactly like you.”
She told me Natalie had met Adrian while working at a legal nonprofit.
At first, he had been charming.
Flowers.
Trips.
Expensive dinners.
Then came the rules.
Which friends Natalie could see.
What she could wear to family events.
How much money she should contribute.
“She started pulling away,” Maya said. “Then she found out Adrian had been moving money from one of their joint accounts.”
“How much?”
“Almost ninety thousand dollars.”
I stared at her.
“What happened?”
“Natalie confronted him.”
Maya stopped.
“And?”
“The next morning, she was gone.”
Adrian told everyone Natalie had left him.
He claimed she stole cash and ran away with another man.
The Mercer family repeated the story until people believed it.
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because Natalie called me the night before she vanished.”
Maya’s voice cracked.
“She was scared.”
“What did she say?”
“She said, ‘If I disappear, Adrian did something.’”
Cold crawled down my back.
“Why didn’t you go to police?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“Charles found out.”
Maya looked toward the hotel door as if she expected him to walk through it.
“He told me Natalie was unstable. Then he told me Daniel’s career would be destroyed if I dragged the family into a scandal.”
“You believed him?”
“No.”
“Then why stop?”
Maya’s eyes filled.
“Because three days later, somebody broke into my apartment.”
I said nothing.
“My kids didn’t exist yet. Daniel was traveling. I came home and found every cabinet open.”
She rubbed her hands together.
“Nothing was stolen.”
“What was the message?”
“One photograph was left on my bed.”
She unlocked her phone and found an old image.
It showed Maya asleep.
Taken from inside her bedroom.
I felt sick.
“Someone had been watching you.”
“Yes.”
“So you stayed quiet.”
“I became a coward.”
“No. You became afraid.”
She looked at me.
“There’s more.”
“What?”
“Natalie wasn’t the only woman.”
My heartbeat slowed.
“What do you mean?”
Maya swallowed.
“Before Natalie, there was another girlfriend.”
May you like
“And?”
“She disappeared too.”
