Chapter Four—Chris
THE PENTHOUSE IS EMPTY when I get there. I took the first flight out of Denver, a six-fifteen departure that put me in Charleston before nine.
I didn’t sleep. I sat beside the window while the woman next to me read a paperback and replayed my conversation with Lorna until I knew exactly where I should have stopped talking.
Probably before I told my injured wife she needed a psychiatrist. Definitely before I told her I wasn’t sure she’d been attacked.
Fenton tried to talk me out of coming home. He called while I was packing and reminded me about the Highfield breakfast, the financing team, and the contractor walkthrough. Lorna was safe at the hotel. Nothing would be improved by my arriving exhausted and upsetting her further.
I’d gotten angry.
Not because he was necessarily wrong. Fenton had been dealing with this almost as long as I had.
The calls, deliveries, changes to our schedule, security arrangements, and messages from Lorna when I was unavailable had all passed through him at one point or another.
He had to be frustrated too, and unlike me, he didn’t love her.
I couldn’t expect him to have the same patience when she was frightened.
Still, telling me not to go home had been insensitive. Lorna was my wife. She was hurt. Whether every detail she remembered was accurate or not, she’d spent last night terrified.
I told Fenton to move the meetings. He apologized, and I came home.
The apartment looks normal. The blinds are drawn, the kitchen is clean, and the lights are off except for the one over the stove that Lorna leaves on overnight. Her laptop is gone from the island. The charger cable hangs from the outlet behind the counter where she usually plugs it in.
I set my bag down. “Lorna?”
I don’t expect an answer. She told me on the phone last night that she was at a hotel, but she didn’t say which one. Saying her name comes automatically when I walk into our home and don’t see her.
The guest room closet is open. That catches my attention because Lorna closes closet doors without thinking about it. I’ve opened one behind her before just to watch her notice it five minutes later and go back.
Her overnight bag is gone from our bedroom. So is the gray pillowcase she likes to take when she travels by car. The bed is made, and her side of the bathroom counter has gaps where her toothbrush, moisturizer, and contact solution usually sit.
She packed deliberately.
I walk back into the hallway, but there’s nothing to see.
The hardwood is clean. The wall looks untouched. The alarm panel at the end of the corridor shows green. If I hadn’t talked to Lorna last night, I could walk through here without knowing anything happened.
I stop near the place she described.
She’d been walking toward the bedroom. The lights went out. Someone grabbed her from behind. She fought. She hit the wall. An arm closed around her neck. Then nothing until she woke up on the floor.
I look down at the hardwood. I don’t know what happened here.
Last night, that uncertainty seemed important enough to keep saying. This morning, standing where she woke up, it seems less useful.
Whatever happened, Lorna was terrified.
She woke up alone and didn’t know where the person she believed attacked her had gone. She didn’t know what had happened while she was unconscious.
She checked whether she’d been raped.
I close my eyes. I keep hearing that part.
She told me while she was crying, and I spent the next hour explaining why she might not be able to trust her own memory.
My phone is already in my hand when I decide to call Willa.
She answers on the third ring. “Mr. Aldren.”
“Where’s Lorna?”
There’s a pause before she answers. “She left the hotel last night.”
I straighten. “Where did she go?”
“She didn’t tell me.”
“You don’t know where she is?”
“I know she’s safe. She contacted me at six-forty this morning to confirm she’d arrived.”
Relief comes first, but irritation follows it. “You let her drive somewhere alone after she’d been unconscious?”
She doesn’t apologize. “Lorna declined my offer to drive her.”
“Willa.”
Her voice doesn’t change. “She’s my client, Mr. Aldren. She told me she needed to go somewhere that was hers. I gave her the rental car and asked her to contact me when she was safe. She did.”
I start to argue, then stop.
Willa was there last night. I wasn’t. “Did she tell you where she went?”
“No.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
That surprises me. “Why not?”
“Because she specifically didn’t want anyone to know.”
Anyone probably means me. I rub my forehead. “Which hotel?”
“The Belmond. Room two-ten. It’s still under my card until checkout.”
I look around the empty penthouse. Lorna took enough from here that she wasn’t planning to come straight back. “Did she say anything else when she left?”
“Only that she needed to be somewhere that was hers.”
Somewhere that’s hers. I don’t know what that means.
Lorna has things that never became ours after we married.
Accounts she had before me. Investments.
Pieces of a life she built long before Aldren was attached to her name.
Somewhere in that category is apparently a place she believes I won’t find her.
“Is the room still open?”
“Until eleven.”
I check the time. “I’m going over there.”
Willa doesn’t ask why.
Maybe Lorna left a note. Maybe there’s a receipt, an address, or anything that tells me where she intended to go when she walked out in the middle of the night.
I don’t know what I’ll do if I find it. “Thank you for last night.”
Her silence lasts long enough that I wonder whether the call dropped. Then she says, “You’re welcome.” Her tone is chilly.
I hang up and go to the parking garage. The drive takes twelve minutes.
I leave the car with the valet and cross the lobby with my Denver bag still over my shoulder.
The front desk calls a manager, who checks my identification and confirms the room is still occupied under Willa’s reservation before giving me access.
The elevator doors close.
Goodbye, Chris.
I hear it again.
Not good night. Not I’ll call you tomorrow.
Goodbye.
I should have heard it last night.
The second-floor hallway is empty. I find room two-ten and let myself inside.
The first thing I notice is the bedding is pushed aside along one edge, and two pillows are stacked against the headboard. A plastic bag with melted ice sits near the nightstand. There’s a damp washcloth in the bathroom sink.
I picture Lorna sitting against those pillows. Bruises around both wrists. Swollen temple. Sore throat but still talking to me.
I set my bag down beside the door.
She called because she wanted me. She actually said it. I could come home and stay with her if I was that worried.
I told her she had Willa. At the time, I’d thought that was reassuring. She wasn’t alone. She had a trained professional with her, and I could finish what I needed to do in Denver without leaving her unprotected.
Except Willa wasn’t her husband.
I check the bathroom first. Nothing except the washcloth and the plastic bag. The closet is empty. I open the trash can and immediately feel ridiculous when all I find is a tissue and the paper sleeve from a hotel cup.
No note. No receipt. Nothing that tells me where she went.
I turn back toward the room. That’s when I see the desk. Her rings are sitting on the hotel key card.
I stop.
The wedding band lies beside her engagement ring, both placed near the center of the card. Not forgotten beside the sink. Not dropped while she packed.
Left.
I cross the room slowly.
I pick up the wedding band first. Platinum, scratched from daily wear. Our wedding date is engraved inside in small block numbers.
I run my thumb over it.
Then I pick up the engagement ring. I chose this one myself.
Lorna never knew how long it took. I spent weeks looking because everything I found seemed wrong. Too ornate. Too delicate. Too much decoration around the stone. Then I realized I already knew what she liked.
Every piece of jewelry she bought for herself had clean lines.
I’d noticed. I hadn’t needed anyone to tell me.
The thought makes me look at the ring differently. Last night, I let Fenton tell me what my wife needed.
I don’t like that sentence, so I correct it immediately. Fenton gave me his opinion. I made the decision.
There’s a difference.
There has to be.
I close my hand around both rings as my phone rings. It’s Fenton.
I consider letting it go to voicemail, mostly because I don’t want to talk to anyone. Then I answer. “What?”
“I saw you landed.” His voice is as alert as it was when he called before dawn. “I moved Highfield to Wednesday. The contractor walkthrough is next week, and Jensen can cover the financing meeting. Do you need a car?”
“I’m already at the Belmond.”
There’s a brief pause. “A hotel?”
“Yes.”
He sounds confused. “Is she there?”
“No. She left last night.”
“Do you know where she went?” There’s genuine worry in his voice.
I look at the rings in my hand. “No.”
Fenton is quiet for a moment. “Did Willa?”
“She knows Lorna is safe. That’s all she’ll tell me.”
“Probably for the best right now.”
My head comes up even though there’s no one in front of me. “What does that mean?”
He seems surprised by my tone. “Only that Lorna asked for space.”
“She left her wedding rings.”
He swallows quietly but says nothing.
I open my hand again.
When Fenton answers, his voice has softened. “I’m sorry.”
I sit on the edge of the bed. “She left them on the key card.”
“Chris.”
I wait.
“I know you’re upset.”
“She thinks I don’t believe her.”
Another short pause. “Do you?”
The question irritates me because there isn’t a simple answer. “I believe she’s scared.”
“That’s what you told her.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
I rub the wedding band between my thumb and forefinger. “It wasn’t enough.”
Fenton doesn’t rush to answer. That’s one of the things he’s good at. He waits until he knows what I need from him instead of filling every silence. Finally, he says, “What are you thinking about doing?”
“Finding her.”
His answer is immediate. “I wouldn’t.”