CHAPTER 4: The Doorway Witness
Adrian Blackwood arrived home earlier than expected because of a storm over Chicago.
His private jet had landed in New York just after sunrise. He told his driver not to call ahead. He wanted to surprise Celeste with the signed documents from the merger, then sleep for twelve hours in his own bed.
But when he stepped through the front doors of the mansion, the house felt wrong.
No piano music. No staff moving quietly through the corridor. No breakfast scent from the kitchen. Only a sharp echo from the west salon and a woman’s voice carrying through the marble hall.
“Crawl if you have to,” Celeste said. “You’re leaving this house today.”
Adrian stopped.
His hand tightened around the leather folder he was carrying. At first he thought he had misheard. Celeste’s voice was always controlled in public, polished until it sounded almost kind. But this voice was raw, cruel, almost excited.
He crossed the hallway.
The salon doors were half open.
Through the gap, he saw yellow soup across the marble. He saw a broken bowl. He saw a pregnant woman on the floor in a black-and-white uniform, one hand braced against the ground, the other locked around her stomach.
Then he saw her face.
For one impossible second, the world lost sound.
Naomi.
Older than the last memory he had of her. Thinner. Exhausted. Covered in soup. But still Naomi Brooks, the woman whose disappearance had haunted him for two years.
Adrian pushed the doors open.
Celeste turned with the empty bowl still in her hand.
Her face drained of color.
“Adrian,” she said. “You’re home.”
He did not look at her first.
He went straight to Naomi and dropped to one knee beside her.
“Naomi?” His voice broke. “What happened to you?”
May you like
Naomi looked at him as if seeing him hurt more than falling.
“Your wife happened,” she whispered.
