Part 1: The Suitcase by the Door
The suitcase was already half full when Nora Ashford heard the elevator chime. She stood in the doorway of the walk-in closet, thirty-four weeks pregnant, a folded cashmere sweater in her hands, and listened to her husband’s footsteps cross the marble foyer of their forty-first-floor penthouse. Outside the tall windows, Chicago was melting into a pink and orange sunset, and she had never felt so far from anything beautiful.
"Nora?" Julian called from somewhere down the hall. "Every light in the place is off. Did you eat?"
She did not answer. She laid the sweater in the case, pressed the lid down with both palms, and zipped it shut. Then she pulled on the cream wool coat her mother had given her the winter they got engaged, and tucked her wedding ring hand against the curve of her belly as if she could shield the baby from what was about to happen.
Julian appeared in the bedroom doorway, one hand still on his collar. He stopped. His eyes went from the burgundy suitcase to the coat to her face, and the easy tiredness of his expression drained away. "What is this?"
"This is me leaving," Nora said. Her voice shook, and she hated that it did.
"Leaving? Nora, you’re eight months pregnant."
"Thirty-four weeks. I know exactly how pregnant I am, Julian. Apparently I know it better than you do." She reached to the bed, picked up a thick manila folder, and held it out to him with a hand that would not stay steady. "Petition for Temporary Guardianship. Filed Monday morning. Petitioner, Julian Ashford. Proposed guardian of the minor child upon birth, in the event of the mother’s incapacity, Warren Ashford."
Julian took the folder slowly. He read the first page, then the second, and she watched the color leave his face as if someone had pulled a plug. "I didn’t write this," he whispered.
"Your signature is on page four." Tears spilled over before she could stop them. "Your uncle. The man who told me at our wedding that I’d make a lovely ornament for the family. You asked a court to let him hold our daughter if somebody decides I’m not capable. Who decides that, Julian? Who decides I’m incapable?"
She took the handle of the suitcase and walked past him, and the wheels rattled over the marble all the way to the elevator. In the lobby, a hot band of pain tightened around her middle so sharply that she had to stop and grab the edge of the front desk. Eddie, the night doorman, rushed around the counter. "Mrs. Ashford? Mrs. Ashford, sit down, please, sit down." She breathed through her teeth, one hand under her belly, whispering to the baby that it was too early, that she needed to wait, just wait.
Upstairs, Julian had not moved for a full minute. Then he heard the elevator doors close on her, and he ran. He ignored the first elevator, slammed his palm against the second, and stood inside it counting floors as they fell.
"Nora, I can explain," he said when he reached the lobby, already halfway across it. "Raymond Pike puts forty documents in front of me every week. I sign where he tells me to. I never saw this one. I swear I never saw it."
"You swear." She was folded over the desk now, white-knuckled, and Eddie was already on the phone with 911. "You signed away our daughter between lunch and a meeting, and you swear."
"Please, let me take you to the hospital."
"Don’t touch me."
He dropped to one knee beside her anyway, because the fear in his chest had pushed everything else aside. That was when his phone buzzed in his jacket. He pulled it out meaning to silence it, and the preview lit the screen. It was from Raymond Pike.
Warren says she can’t leave the building tonight. Keep her there until the deputy arrives with the papers.
Julian’s blood ran cold. He looked up, and Nora was looking straight at his screen. She had read every word.
