Part 2
Adrian pressed the button again, hard enough to hurt his fingertip. When the doors opened, he stepped inside and called for his car.
The receptionist at Claire’s former office was trying to free a jammed label printer when Adrian walked in. A roll of paper hung from the machine, and she was still holding its loose end when he asked for his wife.
Her expression changed before she answered.
“Claire isn’t working here anymore, Mr. Voss.”
He looked beyond her toward the corridor. Through a glass wall he could see drafting tables, sample drawers, a coat slung over a chair. Claire should have been at one of those desks, bent over a plan with her hair clipped up.
“When did that happen?”
“Three days ago. She told us she was moving for her health.”
Adrian rested both palms on the desk. “Give me whatever address she left.”
The receptionist set down the loose printer paper. “She didn’t give us a destination.”
“Three days,” he repeated. “She came home after that and never said a word.”
The young woman waited.
“I would have noticed,” he said.
She let that stand unanswered.
“Then a contact number? Somebody she asked you to speak to?”
“Her arrangements weren’t made through this office, Mr. Voss. I have nothing more to offer.”
He studied her face, looking for the satisfaction of someone withholding a secret. She seemed only uncomfortable, and worried about what he might do next.
He straightened. On his way out, he passed a display of finished projects. Claire had once stopped him in front of it, pointing out a lobby she had worked on. He had been on a call and had waved for her to keep walking.
Out on the street, a bus discharged passengers into the slush at the curb. Adrian stood in their way until a woman asked him to move.
Three days. Claire had gone to work, come home, eaten with him, and kept that decision to herself. He had not even noticed she was carrying it.
He took out his phone to call her again.
Another message arrived from the unfamiliar number.
“She’s trying to recover from what you put her through. Don’t turn this into a pursuit.”
He looked up sharply. A man waiting at the crosswalk glanced at him, then away. Across the street, sunlight flashed from an office window.
Adrian typed, “Give me your name.”
The reply indicator appeared briefly. Then it disappeared.
He waited, holding the phone above the salt-streaked cuff of his coat. No answer came.
By the time he returned home that afternoon, he had convinced himself Claire might already be there. She had never managed to stay angry with him very long. Perhaps the empty closets were meant to frighten him. Perhaps she would be in the kitchen, tired of the game, ready to tell him what she needed him to promise.
He opened the door and found the note where he had left it.
The apartment had warmed in the afternoon sun. On the arm of the sofa, Claire’s hand cream had left a faint citrus scent. He sat beside it, leaned forward, and tried calling her once more.
Voicemail.
He did not leave a message. He could not decide whether to sound worried or furious, and either choice seemed likely to be used against him.
He remembered how she moved through a room when he was angry: quietly, giving him space, sometimes carrying a cup she had forgotten to drink from. He had liked that she did not make scenes. He had never considered what it cost her to prevent them.
“Just answer,” he said to the screen.
The phone rang in his hand.
Vanessa.
He rejected the call. A message followed almost immediately, telling him to call back because something serious was happening at Calder & Pierce.
He put the phone on the cushion. It rang again, stopped, then started a third time. When he finally answered, he did not bother with a greeting.
“I’ve been trying to reach you,” Vanessa said. Her usual languid delivery had disappeared. “The board has copies of account records. People are asking questions.”
“About what?”
“Don’t do that with me. The overseas accounts. Changes to the reports. Somebody sent them enough to start checking.”
Adrian got to his feet.
He had let Vanessa know those accounts existed. He had liked impressing her with the fact that he could make arrangements other people could not. But knowing about them and possessing the records were different things.
“Who’s saying this?”
“People who don’t usually say anything unless they’re frightened.” Her voice lowered. “You need to figure out who has access.”
He looked toward the bedroom, where Claire’s journal lay on the bed.
Could she have found something? He had treated the household computer as his own, leaving documents in folders he assumed she would never open. Yet Claire had never shown any interest in corporate finance. She barely asked about his work anymore.
“Adrian? Are you listening?”
He ended the call.
For the first time that day, he thought beyond Claire’s location. Whoever had stepped between them might also have stepped into his office, his accounts, the private arrangements on which his public success depended.
He stood in the middle of the living room until the phone stopped lighting up.
Several miles north, Grant Hollis watched Claire turn a paper cup between both hands in the passenger seat of his SUV. She had taken three small sips of tea since he bought it. Each time, she checked the lid as though concentrating on that simple task could keep everything else in place.
He kept the radio off.
At a red light, he glanced at her. “Any cramping? Dizziness?”
“No. I’m just tired.” She looked embarrassed by the answer. “I don’t think I slept at all.”
“You don’t need to explain being tired.”
She looked out at the storefronts. They had spent the morning completing arrangements she had begun days earlier, after finally returning Grant’s call. Even with her suitcase beside her, she had kept asking whether she was making everything worse.
Now she said, “I wanted a quiet place to go. I didn’t want a fight.”
Grant waited for a delivery van to clear the intersection.
“Then I should warn you,” he said. “Quiet is something I’m better at arranging than ignoring a problem.”
She turned toward him, uncertain whether he was joking.
He gave her a small smile, then returned his attention to the road. “We’ll take one thing at a time.”
He had already taken several steps she knew nothing about. The messages to Adrian had come from a separate phone Grant used for business calls he did not want routed through his office. After Adrian appeared at the design firm, Grant had been told about it. His professional relationships extended through enough offices and hotel lobbies that the news had reached him quickly.
Another conversation, reported to him from Calder & Pierce, had concerned records sent to the board. He had made inquiries. The allegations were serious, and the person who had provided the evidence was not ready to be identified.
Claire did not need all of that in the car. She needed somewhere to sleep without listening for a key in the door.
He turned onto a residential street in Lincoln Square and stopped in front of a brick building with deep window bays. The property belonged to a holding company he controlled, but a casual search would not lead Adrian to it.
Claire studied the entrance. “Is this a hotel?”
“No. An apartment.”
“For tonight?”
“For as long as it helps.”
She remained in the car after he switched off the engine.
“Grant, I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”
He came around to open her door, giving her room to step out before reaching for the suitcase.
“You asked for help,” he said. “You shouldn’t have had to work so hard to find somebody willing to give it.”
Her mouth tightened. He could see her trying not to cry.
He lifted the bag from the back seat. “And Adrian has made a habit of letting other people absorb the damage. I’m not willing to watch him do that to you.”
Claire followed him inside.
The apartment door opened onto a small entry with hooks at two heights and a bench broad enough to sit on while taking off boots. Claire noticed those things automatically. Someone had considered how a person would use the space.
Beyond it, a lamp stood beside a comfortable chair. Books occupied the shelves without being arranged for color. A kitchen window looked over a courtyard where snow had collected on the iron fire escapes.
She had expected something impersonal. Instead, she could imagine spending an ordinary afternoon there.
Grant put her suitcase down. “There’s a bedroom at the end of the hall. I’ll use the smaller room tonight, if that would make you feel better. Otherwise I can go.”
“Stay,” she said, before she could make the request sound less urgent.
“All right.”
The baby moved, a light flutter low in her abdomen. Claire stopped walking and set her palm there. Tears slipped out before she could contain them.
Grant did not reach for her. He waited while she found a tissue in her pocket.
“I don’t know how to do any of this,” she said.
“Today doesn’t require a complete plan. Sit down. I’ll find something you can eat.”
On the sofa, she touched a woven cushion with a narrow rust-colored border. She recognized the work of a small textile shop she had once mentioned at a benefit. She had spoken about it for perhaps a minute, while Adrian talked over her to somebody else.
Grant had remembered.
His phone vibrated before she could ask about it. He stepped into the kitchen, keeping his voice low, but the apartment was quiet enough for a few words to reach her.
“He hasn’t identified the woman who sent it. Keep her name out of the discussion for now.”
Claire’s fingers stopped on the cushion.
When Grant came back, she sat straighter. “Who sent what?”
He looked at the phone, then at her. “There’s an investigation into Adrian’s work.”
“What kind?”
“Financial misconduct. The board received records that need to be examined.”
She lowered her hand from her stomach. “Do they think I had anything to do with it?”
“No. You didn’t send the material.”
“You sounded as if you knew who did.”
“I know enough to say you aren’t the target. The person who came forward has been paying attention to him for some time.”
Claire tried to reconcile that with the husband who had complained about dinner and lost socks, who had once brought her flowers for no reason she could remember.
“Will this go away?”
Grant set his phone on the table.
“No,” he said. “Adrian won’t stop this with a phone call. And he won’t get past me to you…”
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