Chapter 2 - The Woman Beside Him
Zoe discovered that jealousy was possible even when you had absolutely no right to feel it.
She disliked that discovery.
Celeste Baron was beautiful in a manner that seemed expensive without trying. Her dark-blond hair fell perfectly over one shoulder. Her cream dress had probably cost more than Zoe’s monthly restitution payment, and she spoke with the effortless confidence of someone who had never entered a room wondering whether everyone inside knew the worst thing she had ever done.
Alaric barely looked at her.
That should have made Zoe feel nothing.
Instead, it made things worse.
While Zoe poured wine, Celeste touched Alaric’s wrist.
His body became almost imperceptibly still.
Zoe noticed because nurses learned to notice tiny things.
She also noticed Emil watching her notice.
“So, Zoe,” Emil said.
Every head turned.
Staff were not normally included in dinner conversation.
Zoe kept the bottle steady.
“Yes, sir?”
“You were a nurse.”
The room changed.
Reese’s fork stopped.
Alaric looked at Emil.
Not angrily.
That somehow felt more dangerous.
“How did you know that?” Zoe asked.
Emil smiled.
“Providence is small.”
“No,” Alaric said quietly. “It isn’t.”
Silence.
Emil’s smile survived, but only just.
Zoe finished pouring.
Then Celeste said, “Harrowgate, wasn’t it?”
The wine bottle nearly slipped.
That information was not in any newspaper story Zoe remembered.
Alaric turned toward Celeste.
“Where did you hear that?”
Celeste blinked.
“Emil mentioned it.”
For the first time, Emil looked genuinely annoyed.
Only for a second.
Then Karen Ferrante asked Zoe for water.
The conversation moved on.
But Zoe understood something.
Someone at that table had investigated her.
After dinner, she escaped to the pantry.
Her hands were shaking.
She hated that.
She had spent a year teaching herself not to shake when people mentioned Harrowgate.
“You missed a glass.”
Alaric stood in the doorway.
Zoe looked down.
One wineglass remained on her tray.
“Fire me.”
His brow moved slightly.
“That is an unusual response to a dirty glass.”
“You investigated me.”
“Yes.”
The honesty disarmed her more effectively than a lie would have.
“How much do you know?”
“Enough to know what a court decided.”
“And?”
“And courts have been wrong before.”
Zoe laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“You don't get to say that because you read a folder.”
“No.”
“Then don't.”
Alaric accepted the correction.
That surprised her.
Most powerful men she had met treated being contradicted as an injury.
He stepped aside to let her pass.
Zoe stopped.
“Did you tell Emil?”
“No.”
“Celeste?”
“No.”
“Your mother?”
“No.”
“Reese?”
“No.”
“Then somebody else looked.”
“Yes.”
That answer frightened her.
Alaric apparently saw it.
“I will find out who.”
“I didn't ask you to.”
“No.”
There it was again.
No argument.
No promise she had requested.
Just acknowledgment.
Zoe carried the tray away.
At midnight she found an envelope pushed beneath the door of her basement room.
Inside was a photocopy.
A bank transfer authorization.
$47,500.
Harrowgate Patient Trust.
Authorized by Z. Callahan.
Her old signature sat at the bottom.
Across it, someone had written 5 words in black ink.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED GONE.
Zoe stopped breathing.
For a year, she had told herself the past was finished.
Apparently the past disagreed.
She took the paper upstairs.
The house was dark except for a light beneath Alaric’s study door.
She knocked.
“Come in.”
Alaric sat behind his desk without a jacket, reading shipping reports.
Zoe placed the paper in front of him.
His eyes moved once over the message.
Then again over the transfer.
“Where?”
“Under my door.”
“When?”
“Within the last hour.”
Alaric reached for his phone.
Zoe covered it with her hand.
He looked at her fingers over his.
“Don't turn this house upside down.”
“Someone entered your room.”
“I know.”
“Someone threatened you.”
“I can read.”
“And you're asking me to ignore it?”
“No. I'm asking you not to treat me like a package that needs guarding.”
Something changed in his expression.
“Then tell me what you need.”
Nobody had asked Zoe that question in a long time.
Police had told her what they needed.
Prosecutors had told her what they needed.
Her attorney had told her what plea she needed to accept.
Her fiancé, Daniel Mercer, had spent 3 years telling her what their future needed to look like.
“What I need,” Zoe whispered, “is to know how somebody here got this.”
Alaric looked down at the document.
“Then that's what we'll find out.”
He pulled a chair beside him rather than across from him.
Not an order.
An invitation.
Zoe sat.
For the next hour, she told him about Daniel.
She had met him when he handled outside billing software for Harrowgate. He had been funny, patient and ordinary in all the ways that once made ordinary seem safe.
They became engaged after 2 years.
Then money disappeared.
Daniel disappeared 4 days later.
Investigators found Zoe's credentials connected to 7 transactions.
Her attorney warned that trial could expose her to years in prison.
Daniel had vanished.
Zoe pleaded guilty.
When she finished, Alaric asked only one question.
“Did you steal the money?”
“No.”
He nodded.
That was all.
Zoe stared at him.
“You believe me?”
“I asked you.”
“That isn't an answer.”
“Yes, it is.”
She suddenly wanted to cry.
That irritated her more than anything.
Alaric looked away, giving her the privacy of not being watched.
On his desk, his injured hand remained wrapped in the bandage she had changed the previous morning.
“You should replace that tomorrow,” she said.
His mouth almost smiled.
“Yes, nurse.”
Zoe's chest tightened.
“Don't call me that.”
The almost-smile vanished.
“I'm sorry.”
She stood.
At the door, Alaric said, “Zoe.”
She looked back.
It was the first time he had said her name.
Not the maid.
Not the new girl.
Zoe.
“I'll knock before entering your room,” he said. “So will everyone else.”
May you like
It was a strange promise from a dangerous man.
But walking downstairs, Zoe realized it was the first promise in years that she almost believed.
