27. Rowan
ROWAN
By the next afternoon, Harper has apparently decided my relationship crisis requires office supplies. She writes PREGNANCY across the top of a yellow legal pad, underlines it once, and pushes it across her kitchen table toward me.
"I said I was making a list."
"You were making a closing argument." She settles back in her chair and reaches for the coffee she abandoned ten minutes ago.
Her laptop is open beside the mug, and two casebooks occupy the chair we aren't using.
"You don't need exhibits before you tell the father of your children that there are three of them. "
I turn the pad sideways and study the word as if she might have spelled it wrong. "I should lead with the apology."
Harper takes the pen before I can reach for it. "You should lead with the pregnancy."
I frown at her. "That feels manipulative."
She rolls her eyes and puts the pen beside her laptop. "It's a fact. You asked whether you could raise a family inside his life while hiding the family from him. He deserves the missing fact before you litigate whether you were reasonable."
The front window gives me a partial view of the street below.
One of the protection operators stands beside the sedan across the road, while the second is downstairs near the building entrance.
I know both names, I have the lead number in my phone, and I agreed to the arrangement before leaving the penthouse last night.
Erik listened when I asked for two days.
It turns out I don't need two.
I spent most of last night angry, then woke up less angry and considerably more embarrassed by how long I've managed to keep three babies from Erik while he has been asking increasingly specific questions about children.
By breakfast, I knew I had to tell him. Harper has spent the hours since then making sure I don't turn the confession into a legal brief.
"I know what I have to tell him." I pull the legal pad back toward me and straighten it.
Harper watches me for a few seconds before closing her laptop. "You've said that about twenty times since breakfast."
"I'm working toward execution."
"You're stalling."
"I prefer my version." I take the pen when she slides it toward me.
She leans one elbow on the table. "Your version has footnotes."
I grin despite myself and write three lines.
I'm pregnant.
There are three babies.
I should have told you the day I found out.
Reading them makes the conversation more real than the ultrasound did. Erik will know tonight. He may be furious, and he has earned that. I can handle fury better than another day of pretending I'm protecting either of us by keeping him outside this.
Harper reaches for her coffee again. "Are you calling him or going over there?"
"I haven't decided." I cap the pen and set it beside the pad.
"That sounds suspiciously like more stalling."
"I'm allowed five minutes between major emotional decisions." I start to smile when Harper reaches for her phone as if she intends to set a timer.
My phone vibrates on the counter before she gets the chance.
Callie's name appears on the screen. I reach it before the second vibration.
The message has a photograph attached. Mom's purse lies on the floor beside a wooden conference chair. I recognize it because I bought it for her birthday after she carried the same cracked brown bag for six years. A dark mark crosses the seat cushion above it.
The text beneath the image is short.
They took Mom. She's at the lakeside conference center from Dad's files. You can't contact Erik Danilov. Come alone. You have thirty minutes.
Harper is beside me before I finish reading it twice. I enlarge the photograph while she moves her coffee out of the way and pulls her laptop closer.
"The image has no location data." I turn the phone toward her. "Nothing useful in the metadata except the current timestamp."
Harper studies the screen without touching it. "The purse is definitely Laura's."
"Yes." I zoom in on the chair. The dark mark could be blood, wine, or something chosen because whoever sent the photograph knows exactly what I'll assume. "The rest proves nothing."
Harper gets up and picks up her own phone. "You need to call Callie."
"I'm doing it now." The first call goes to voicemail, which makes no sense because the message arrived less than a minute ago. I call again with the same result, then switch to Mom. Her phone goes directly to voicemail too.
Harper moves toward the other end of the kitchen while she calls the Bennett house. She listens through several rings before disconnecting. "Nobody's answering there."
"Callie was supposed to be with Mom tonight." I search through my messages until I find the invitation Callie forwarded three days ago. "There's a memorial dinner for Dad through the law school alumni association."
Harper takes my phone when I turn it toward her. "Evelyn organized it."
The dinner started forty minutes ago. The invitation asks guests to silence and check mobile devices during the memorial program, but nothing says where the phones are being held or when people can retrieve them.
I call the event number at the bottom. A recording tells me the alumni office closed at five. Harper is already searching for another contact when I call Erik. His phone rings until voicemail answers. I disconnect and try again in case I caught him during something he couldn't interrupt.
Nothing.
The second failure hurts more than it should after I asked him for space and he gave it to me.
I call Makari next, and his line gives me a busy signal. That makes no sense.
Harper closes her laptop and comes around the table. "Do you know where they are tonight?"
"No." I open the protection-detail contact and attach Callie's photograph to a message for Makari. "Peter's recording gave them two meeting locations. Erik said they were following both."
I add the lakeside conference-center address from Dad's decrypted property file.
Callie's phone sent this. Mom and Callie are unreachable. Going now.
The message sends.
Harper grips the back of the chair and looks at me with a deep frown. "You don't know who actually sent that from Callie's phone, and you don't know whether your mother is inside that building."
"I know." I get my coat from the hook near the door and check that the pepper gel is still in the side pocket. "I'm also not going alone, and I'm not walking into the building because an anonymous message ordered me to."
Her gaze drops briefly to my stomach before returning to my face. "You have three babies to think about too."
The words hurt because they're true, not because they change anything. "Three babies don't make Mom disposable. I'm taking the detail. They'll decide if we get close enough to see anything."
Harper moves toward the door but doesn't block it. "You should give Erik more time to answer."
"I called twice, and Makari has the photograph and location." I show her the sent message. "You keep my location. If anything changes here, you call me."
She looks at the photograph again, then at the protection operator visible through the window. She clearly wants to keep protesting but understands why I'm not going to spend the next twenty minutes sitting at her table waiting for somebody else to become reachable.
My phone rings before she answers with a call from Evelyn.
I accept immediately. "Professor Grant?"
"Rowan, where are you?" Her voice is strained. Traffic moves in the background, followed by a horn close enough to make her stop for a second.
"I'm at Harper's. What happened?"
"I followed your mother's car out of the memorial dinner." She speaks quickly now. "A valet brought it around, but Laura wasn't inside. A man I didn't recognize was driving."
Harper comes closer until she can hear both sides of the call. I grip the edge of the counter. "Where are you?"
"About three hundred yards from the lakeside conference center. I followed the car here."
I look at Harper. The photograph on my screen suddenly has a second source. "Can you see Mom?"
"No." Evelyn sounds as if she's moving inside her car. "I can see Laura's car and three men near the building. There's another vehicle behind the east wing."
I turn away from Harper and concentrate on Evelyn's voice. "Did you call police?"
"I called campus police first. They won't move because I can't establish that Laura is inside. State police told me to stay where I am and wait for a unit."
That's the correct advice, but it also leaves my mother's car sitting outside a property from Dad's hidden files while three unknown men control the entrance. "Callie isn't answering."
"She won't." Evelyn pauses. "The memorial program collected phones at the entrance. Mine was in my bag because I left before the program began. Laura and Callie checked theirs with everyone else."
Harper closes her eyes for a moment. The unanswered calls are no longer evidence that Callie is in danger, but somebody knew we wouldn't be able to reach either of them. Whoever sent the text planned around the dinner.
Evelyn continues before I can respond. "Rowan, I don't know what this is. I only know I watched your mother's car leave without her, and I followed it here."
Four semesters with Evelyn taught me to trust her when she tells me not to confuse fear with evidence. She's been the person who made me slow down every time anger tried to outrun proof. That history is assuring.
"I'm coming with security." I pick up my bag and move toward the door. "You stay in your car with the doors locked. I sent Makari the location."
Evelyn is quiet for a second. "The state police told me to wait."
"I want you to wait. I'm not asking you to approach anything."
"All right." She sounds reluctant, but she agrees.
I disconnect.
Harper catches my shoulders before I can leave. "Fifteen minutes."
I look at her. "What?"
"You send me a pin when you arrive. If I don't hear from you fifteen minutes after that, I call Erik, Makari, state police, the governor, and God if I can find a direct number."
I hug her hard enough to surprise both of us. "Fifteen."