Chapter 2
The fever started sometime after midnight.
She woke at six-forty with her sweater soaked through and nineteen missed calls on her phone, and she lay there doing arithmetic about how long she could stay in bed before she had to think about anything.
Rachel called at seven-fifteen. Corporate communications. Best friend since Olivia’s first year.
“You really resigned?”
“Yes.”
“Ethan found the letter this morning. He canceled his first meeting.”
That got her upright.
Ethan Caldwell did not cancel meetings. He had once conducted a board call from a hospital corridor while his father was in surgery, and the story had gone around the company for a year like a legend.
“Did you hear me?”
“I heard you.”
Somebody knocked on the door.
She checked the peephole with one hand on the chain. Ethan. No driver, no assistant, no coat. His hair was damp from the rain, which meant he had walked from the car, and his eyes were bloodshot in a way she had seen exactly once before, seven years ago, on the worst day of his career. Her resignation letter was crushed in his left hand like a receipt.
She opened the door six inches.
“What are you doing here?”
“You resigned.”
“Yes.”
“Come back.”
“No.”
His jaw tightened. He was still wearing yesterday’s shirt.
“Our company needs you.”
“Your company needs me.”
She looked at him.
“There’s a difference.”
For several seconds he said nothing. Then his eyes went past her into the apartment and found the box on the floor by the sofa.
“Why did you take everything?”
“Because I’m not coming back.”
His voice came out rough in a way she had never heard it.
“Why don’t you need me anymore?”
Before she could answer, her phone buzzed.
Rachel. A screenshot.
FINAL GALA TRANSPORTATION MANIFEST — REVISION HISTORY.
Thirty-two original assignments. And at the bottom, in the line that had not been in the version she was holding on that curb:
Vehicle 32. Passenger: Olivia Bennett. Requested by: E. Caldwell.
She held the phone up so he could see it.
“You assigned me a car.”
His face changed.
“I personally ordered transportation to reserve one for you.”
Another message arrived. A second screenshot, small and clinical.
Vehicle 32 — REMOVED 6:41 p.m.
Someone with executive-level access had deleted her name.
Then a third. A security still, grainy and gray, from a hallway camera.
At 6:38 p.m.—three minutes before her car disappeared—a woman had walked into the transportation coordinator’s office.
Wine-red gown. Hair pinned up.
She looked at Ethan.
May you like
He didn’t need her to say the name.
Madeline Hayes.
