Chapter 13
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
I crossed my arms.
“You had your opportunity to control my movements during our marriage.”
His expression darkened.
“This isn’t about control.”
“It always is with you.”
“Vanessa vanished for four days after secretly photographing our children.”
“Our children whom you didn’t know existed until three days ago.”
“That does not make me less responsible for keeping them safe now.”
The possessiveness in his voice made me bristle.
“They are not property you discovered in an account.”
His eyes flashed.
“I know that.”
“Do you?”
“I lost six years, Evelyn.”
“And I lived every one of them.”
Silence fell between us.
Adrian took a slow breath.
“You’re right.”
I stared at him.
He continued.
“I don’t know them.”
His gaze moved toward my door.
“I don’t know what Noah is afraid of, what Lily eats when she’s sick, what songs they like, what stories they ask for before bed, or whether they sleep with the lights on.”
His voice became rougher.
“I don’t know the first words they said.”
I swallowed.
“I don’t know when they walked.”
He looked at me.
“I don’t know anything.”
For the first time since O’Hare, his grief felt larger than his anger.
“That isn’t entirely my fault.”
“No.”
His answer came immediately.
“It isn’t.”
That surprised me.
He looked away.
“But it isn’t entirely yours either.”
My anger cooled by a fraction.
“No.”
He nodded once.
“Then let me come close enough to protect you without entering the chapel.”
I considered him.
“You stay outside.”
“Yes.”
“No listening devices.”
A pause.
“Adrian.”
“No listening devices.”
“No one follows Vanessa afterward unless I tell you.”
His jaw hardened.
“That depends on what she says.”
“No.”
He looked like the word physically hurt.
Then he nodded.
“Fine.”
At ten that morning, I entered the small chapel beside St.
Catherine’s alone.
Vanessa Hale sat in the last pew.
I knew her immediately.
Time had changed her more than it had changed Adrian.
She had once possessed the kind of beauty people noticed across crowded rooms.
She was still beautiful, but thinner now.
Fragile.
Dark hair fell around a face almost too pale for the bright autumn light filtering through the stained glass.
When she saw me, she stood.
“Evelyn.”
I stopped several feet away.
“Where have you been?”
“At my aunt’s apartment.”
“Adrian checked your family.”
“My aunt died last year.”
That explained why she had disappeared from the places Adrian expected her to be.