Chapter 1 - The Yellow Room
“Who is it?”
Grace had asked Thomas Kane that question beneath the burning trees eight months earlier.
Thomas’s fingers tightened around her wrist.
His face was gray from blood loss.
His eyes kept moving toward the top of the embankment.
Then he whispered one name.
“Marcus.”
Grace stopped breathing.
Thomas pulled her closer.
“Marcus changed the route.”
A branch cracked somewhere above them.
Thomas immediately covered Lily’s face with the scorched blanket.
“Listen to me.”
“He has men everywhere.”
“Police.”
“Security.”
“Maybe even people inside the hospital.”
“You take this baby somewhere no one connected to Adrian would ever look.”
Grace shook her head.
“I’m a housekeeper.”
“That’s why you’re perfect.”
Then voices came through the trees.
Thomas pushed Lily into Grace’s arms.
“Go.”
“What about you?”
“GO.”
Grace ran.
She never saw Thomas again.
Until now, she had never told Adrian the name.
The sedan became completely silent.
Rain hammered the windshield.
Adrian stared straight ahead.
“Marcus Reed?”
Grace nodded.
“I didn’t know whether Thomas survived.”
“I didn’t know if he was confused.”
“And Marcus controlled everything around you.”
“Your drivers.”
“Your guards.”
“Your phones.”
“Your house.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
For fifteen years, Marcus had eaten at his table.
Marcus had carried his father’s coffin.
Marcus had stood beside Evelyn’s grave.
Marcus had watched Adrian lower a white infant casket into the ground knowing Lily might still be alive.
Adrian suddenly pulled the car to the curb.
Grace flinched.
He turned toward her.
“You should have told me.”
“I wanted to.”
“Eight months, Grace.”
“I know.”
“My daughter was alive for eight months.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“And if I had been wrong about Marcus for even one second, she could have been dead by morning.”
Adrian looked away.
He hated her answer.
But he understood it.
Twenty minutes later, they reached a narrow brick house on the western edge of Chicago.
Grace led him through the kitchen.
Emma hurried ahead.
She pushed open a small bedroom door painted yellow.
Adrian stopped on the threshold.
A crib stood beneath the window.
A little girl sat inside it wearing pale blue pajamas.
She was almost nine months old now.
Dark hair curled behind her ears.
Her tiny fingers were wrapped around a wooden flower.
Adrian could not move.
Grace whispered behind him.
“Her name is still Lily.”
The baby looked up.
For several seconds, she studied his face.
Then Lily smiled.
And Adrian Vale fell to his knees.
He pressed one trembling hand over his mouth.
Eight months of rage disappeared in one breath.
He had forgotten how to cry.
Lily reminded him.
Grace quietly turned away.
Emma walked toward the crib.
“I told you Daddy would come.”
Adrian looked sharply at her.
Emma hugged her gray rabbit.
Then she said something that made Grace’s face change.
“Mommy, should we give him the thing Mr. Thomas hid inside Bunny?”
Grace froze.
May you like
Adrian slowly stood.
“What thing?”
