Chapter 2 - Streets of Amber and ShadowFor the first twenty minutes after we left The Hearth, Chloe did not say a word.
She sat in the passenger seat of my sedan with both hands wrapped tightly around her thin torso, staring through the windshield as Atlanta passed in streaks of amber streetlight and dark storefront glass.
Every few blocks, I glanced at her.
I wanted to ask a hundred questions. How long had this been happening? Why hadn’t she called me? Where had her money gone? Why had she stopped designing? Why had she stayed?
But something stopped me.
Perhaps it was the way she kept rubbing her thumb over the raw red edge of her finger where her wedding ring sat. Perhaps it was the memory of Damian placing his hand on her shoulder earlier that afternoon, and how Chloe had immediately become smaller somehow, shrinking into herself. Or perhaps, after thirty years of teaching frightened children, I finally remembered the most important lesson I had ever learned.
People speak when they feel safe enough to speak.
So I drove in silence.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white, keeping my eyes fixed on the road while my heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. At the first red light, I tapped my phone's screen on the dashboard mount and brought up my contacts.
I scrolled past the local Baltimore numbers until I found a name I hadn't called in three years.
Robert Vance.
I hit dial. It answered on the fourth ring.
“Margaret?”
Hearing his familiar, deep voice nearly broke the precarious composure I had been holding together since walking into that kitchen.
“Robert,” I managed, my voice steady only by sheer force of will. “I need help.”
There was a pause on the line. Not the curious, gossipy pause of a casual acquaintance, but the careful, sharp pause of a man who had known my late husband and me for forty years—a man who knew I would never call him at nearly midnight unless the sky was falling.
“Are you safe?” Robert asked directly.
“Yes.”
“Is Chloe with you?”
I glanced at the passenger seat. Chloe was staring out at the dark trees bordering the highway, her breath fogging the cool glass.
“Yes.”
“Then don't explain anything while you're driving,” Robert instructed calmly. “Take her somewhere safe. Get off the road, lock the door, and call me the moment you are settled.”
Robert had been one of my husband Richard’s closest friends in college. Over the years, after Richard passed away, our families had seen less of each other, but the bond remained. Christmas cards arrived every December, birthday calls were made, and whenever he traveled through Baltimore, he made a point of taking me to lunch.
May you like
He had practiced high-stakes employment and corporate law in Georgia for more than twenty-five years. Until tonight, his profession had simply been an abstract fact I knew about him.
Suddenly, it felt like a heavy rope thrown to a drowning woman.
