Chapter 2 - The Open Nursery Door

I read the message twice.

Margaret read it over my shoulder and whispered, "Dear God."

The house suddenly seemed to have ears.

I turned my phone face down.

"Who knows I'm leaving?"

"No one. You only just decided."

"Then somebody is watching Roman, or somebody is watching me."

A floorboard creaked upstairs.

Margaret and I both froze.

The nursery door stood open at the end of the hall, spilling soft yellow light across the runner rug. I was certain I had closed it before dinner.

"Stay here," Margaret said.

"Absolutely not."

We climbed the stairs together.

The nursery looked untouched until I saw the closet.

My hospital bag was gone.

"You said it was here," I whispered.

"It was. I packed the extra blanket myself."

My pulse jumped.

On the changing table sat a black phone I had never seen before.

It rang once.

Stopped.

Rang again.

I picked it up.

No passcode.

The screen showed a live map. A blue dot marked our house. A second dot moved south along Lake Shore Drive.

Roman.

At the top of the screen was a label: S. CARTER - PRIMARY.

I did not understand until I opened the device list.

My phone. My car. My watch. Even the small Bluetooth tag sewn into my hospital bag.

"He's tracking me," I said.

Margaret's face hardened. "Then we make him track the wrong woman."

For the first time that night, I almost laughed.

She moved quickly. My phone went into an old flour tin in the pantry. My smartwatch stayed on its charger. Margaret found one of her spare coats for me, brown wool instead of my white cashmere. She handed me her old prepaid phone.

"My sister keeps a car two blocks away," she said. "She leaves it when she works nights at Mercy. No tracker. No Carter plates."

"How do we get past the gate?"

Margaret glanced toward the service corridor.

"We don't use the gate."

Behind the laundry room was an old storm door Roman had once ordered sealed. Margaret knew the contractor had never finished the interior lock.

We were halfway down the back steps when headlights swept across the snow.

A black SUV stopped outside the kitchen entrance.

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Roman's head of security stepped out.

And he was carrying my missing hospital bag.