Chapter 4 ⋆˚࿔

I read the message twice before looking toward the dark windows of my apartment.

The reaction was instinctive and embarrassing. One moment I was standing beside my bed with my phone in my hand; the next, I was crossing the living room and checking the lock on the window overlooking the street, then the narrow one above the kitchen sink. Everything was secure. Outside, cars sat beneath the amber wash of streetlights, and a woman in a red coat walked a terrier along the opposite sidewalk. Nothing looked unusual.

Which was exactly how my evening with Adrian had looked.

I returned to the bedroom, irritated with myself for allowing a stranger to make me inspect my own home as though I might find Celeste Vale pressed against the glass.

There was an obvious explanation. Whoever was doing this had expected Adrian not to answer. It had been an invasive question about the worst night of his life, after all. Predicting his refusal hardly required supernatural insight.

My phone vibrated again.

HE POURED THE WINE, BUT HE NEVER DRANK IT.

I went still.

The detail was so small that I almost doubted my memory, but I could see the moment perfectly: Adrian lifting the bottle, filling my glass, setting it beside his own. Then I had asked about Celeste, and the entire rhythm of dinner had changed.

His glass had remained empty.

I walked back to the window, though I knew there was no sensible reason to do it. Adrian’s penthouse was miles away. Someone watching my apartment could not have seen us there.

I typed quickly.

Who are you really?

The message delivered.

No answer came.

The silence bothered me more than another taunt would have. I stood there for nearly a minute before setting the phone on my dresser and forcing myself through the rest of my bedtime routine. By the time I turned off the lamp, I had settled on three possibilities: someone close to Adrian, someone who had known Celeste, or someone who had gained access to information they should not have.

None of those required believing the impossible.

I slept badly anyway.

Adrian noticed the next morning before I had finished my first cup of coffee.

“You didn’t sleep.”

We were sitting near the windows of a café two blocks from the museum. He had appeared outside my building at seven-thirty claiming he had been nearby, which I didn’t believe for a second. Adrian rarely did anything accidentally, including breakfast.

“I slept.”

“Not well.”

I looked at him over the rim of my cup. “Are we criticizing my face now?”

“There’s a crease between your eyebrows.”

“That seems cruel.”

“It means you’re thinking too much.”

Despite the night I’d had, I smiled. “You recognize my thinking face?”

“I recognize all your faces.”

The words should have been nothing more than affectionate arrogance. Instead, they brought the message back with uncomfortable force.

He poured the wine, but he never drank it.

Adrian’s expression sharpened slightly as he watched me. “Is the wedding becoming too much?”

“What?”

“You’ve been distracted.”

“I have work.”

“You always have work. Usually you still manage to insult me more efficiently.”

“That sounds like a challenge.”

“It’s concern.”

That softened something in me. It was easy to caricature Adrian’s protectiveness when he was arranging security or making decisions too quickly; harder when he simply sat across from me, watching closely because he knew when something was wrong.

For one reckless second, I considered telling him.

I could put my phone between us and let this become his problem too.

I also knew exactly what would happen next.

Julian Cross, Adrian’s head of security, would receive the messages before I finished breakfast. My building cameras would be reviewed. My phone would be analyzed. The museum would acquire an extra layer of security no one had asked for, and Adrian would call all of it reasonable because someone had invoked the name of his dead wife.

I still didn’t know whether this deserved that.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Wedding logistics. Work. Too much coffee.”

Adrian studied me long enough that I knew he didn’t entirely believe me, yet he let the answer stand.

That should have relieved me.

Instead, I wondered again whether he had accepted my explanation about Celeste the night before because he already knew I wasn’t telling him everything.

When we left the café, a man in a gray coat fell into step several yards behind us. I noticed him only because he stopped when Adrian stopped to answer a call.

Another man waited beside a black SUV across the street.

“Are those yours?” I asked.

Adrian followed my glance. “Security.”

“There are two of them?”

“Three.”

I looked around automatically.

His mouth almost curved. “You’re not supposed to find the third.”

“That’s deeply reassuring.”

“They’re not following me.”

I looked back at him.

“They’re covering both of us.”

Adrian said it as though the distinction should make me feel better.

Until that moment, I had never really considered how much of his security extended to me. I knew Julian arranged drivers for events and that someone always seemed to be nearby when we went out, but I had never asked how closely my movements were tracked, or how often someone knew where I was without my noticing.

The thought followed me into the museum.

So did another.

What if Adrian’s people weren’t the only ones watching?

By late morning I was tired of feeling manipulated by a person who refused to identify themselves. I shut my office door and opened the message thread.

There had been nothing new since last night.

I stared at the blank space beneath the last message, trying to think of a question that could not be answered through old newspaper articles or society gossip.

Then I thought of Adrian without a shirt.

The pale line high on his left shoulder was nearly invisible unless you knew where to look. He had told me once that it came from an accident years ago, and I had never asked for more.

I typed:

Fine. Prove you knew him. Where is Adrian’s scar?

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then the typing indicator appeared.

LEFT SHOULDER. SIX STITCHES. HE HATES WHEN YOU TOUCH THE CENTER OF IT BECAUSE IT’S STILL NUMB.

The museum around me seemed to recede.

I knew the scar.

I knew the thin white marks left by six stitches.

More than that, I knew the tiny movement Adrian made whenever my fingertips crossed the center—not pain, exactly, but irritation at a patch of skin that had never regained sensation.

It was not something a journalist could have found.

It was not something a stranger could have guessed.

And whoever was holding the phone knew every word was true.