Chapter 2 - THE BLACK SUVS ON ALDER STREET
Maya regretted inviting Grant home approximately forty seconds after opening her apartment door.
Not because he did anything frightening.
Because he looked around.
Their apartment was small.
Not charming-small.
Actually small.
Second floor above a laundromat.
Two bedrooms.
One bathroom.
A kitchen with peeling cabinet paint and an ancient refrigerator that hummed loudly enough to sound annoyed.
Maya suddenly saw all of it through a stranger’s eyes.
Ellie did not share her concern.
“You can put the baby here.”
She dragged two couch pillows onto the floor.
Maya stopped her.
“No babies on loose pillows.”
Ellie sighed.
“You have too many baby rules.”
“I’m a pediatric nurse.”
“Exactly.”
Grant stood dripping onto the entry rug.
Owen had finally weakened from screaming to exhausted whimpers.
Maya pointed toward the bathroom.
“Towels are in the cabinet.”
Grant looked down at his wet suit.
“I can stay like this.”
“You can also develop pneumonia somewhere else.”
He stared at her.
Then obeyed.
Interesting.
Maya heated the apartment, washed her hands, checked Owen’s temperature, changed his soaked outer layer, and examined him for anything immediately alarming.
Nothing.
No fever.
Good color.
Good breathing.
Wet.
Hungry.
Furious.
Four months old.
Human.
Grant returned wearing his dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up and a faded Seattle Mariners sweatshirt Maya had found in a donation box.
It belonged to nobody anymore.
On Grant, it looked deeply confused.
Ellie stared at him.
“You look less rich.”
Grant blinked.
Maya covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Her.”
Ellie looked offended.
Grant almost smiled.
Then Owen started crying again.
Grant reached for him immediately.
His hands shook.
Maya noticed.
“Sit.”
“I’ve got him.”
“Grant.”
“I said—”
His knees visibly softened.
He sat.
No argument this time.
Maya checked the formula.
The bottle from the park was too old to use safely.
She threw it away.
Grant’s face changed.
“That was the last prepared one.”
“We make another.”
“I don’t know how.”
Maya stopped.
“What?”
“The nanny usually—”
He closed his eyes.
“Vanessa did it before.”
There was no arrogance in the admission.
Only shame.
So Maya showed him.
Water.
Measured formula.
No extra powder.
No improvising.
Grant watched as though she were explaining emergency surgery.
“You’ve never made his bottle?”
“Once.”
“How old is Owen?”
“Four months.”
Maya looked at him.
Grant looked at the floor.
“I know.”
That was the first moment she understood something important.
Grant had not been a single father for three days.
He had been an occasional father for four months.
There was a difference.
It did not mean he did not love Owen.
It meant someone else had carried the ordinary weight.
Vanessa.
Nannies.
Housekeepers.
People.
Grant had loved his son without learning enough of his life.
Now everybody else was gone.
Owen drank.
Halfway through, his fists loosened.
Grant watched every swallow.
“Slow down,” Maya said.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You’re holding the bottle too high.”
He adjusted it.
Owen stopped coughing.
Grant exhaled.
Ellie sat cross-legged on the rug.
“Was I that small?”
“Smaller.”
Her eyes widened.
“That’s rude.”
Maya smiled.
Then the baby finished.
Maya showed Grant how to burp him.
Two minutes later, Owen produced a belch loud enough to make Ellie laugh so hard she fell sideways.
Grant stared at his son.
“That came out of him?”
“Welcome to babies.”
For the first time all night, Grant laughed.
Then his face collapsed with exhaustion.
“Lie down.”
“I’m not sleeping.”
“You’re sleeping.”
“What if he wakes?”
“I am sitting six feet away.”
“No.”
There it was again.
Fear.
Not of Maya.
Of letting go.
She softened.
“I’m not asking you to leave him.”
Grant looked toward the couch.
Then toward Owen.
“Twenty minutes.”
“Fine.”
He lasted nine seconds.
Maya watched him sit with Owen against his chest.
His head leaned back.
His eyes closed.
Gone.
Completely.
She quietly transferred Owen into the portable bassinet Ellie had used years earlier and Maya still kept folded in her closet because nurses apparently became emotionally attached to practical equipment.
Grant jerked awake.
“Where is he?”
“Three feet away.”
His breathing came too fast.
Maya pointed.
Grant saw Owen.
Safe.
Sleeping.
He covered his face.
“I’m sorry.”
“For waking up scared?”
“For all of it.”
Maya did not know what all meant.
She suspected Grant did not either.
Then headlights swept across the living-room wall.
One vehicle.
Then another.
Then another.
Maya walked to the window.
Three black SUVs stopped along Alder Street.
A fourth pulled in behind them.
Men in dark coats stepped out.
Grant was awake instantly.
Not the broken man from the park.
Something else.
“Ellie.”
Maya turned.
“Bedroom.”
Her daughter looked frightened.
“Mommy?”
“Take your tablet. Close the door.”
Grant stood.
“No.”
Maya stared at him.
“No what?”
“They’re mine.”
Silence.
“Your what?”
“My security.”
Maya looked outside again.
Four SUVs.
Eight men.
“Are you the president?”
Grant almost laughed.
Then someone entered the laundromat downstairs.
Footsteps came up.
Maya moved toward her phone.
Grant said quietly,
“My full name is Grant Holloway.”
Her hand stopped.
Even Maya knew that name.
Holloway Technologies.
Cloud infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence.
Medical software.
A company valued somewhere north of forty billion dollars.
Grant Holloway had been on magazine covers.
Usually looking expensive and emotionally unavailable.
Maya stared at the wet stranger wearing a donated Mariners sweatshirt.
“You’re that Grant Holloway?”
He looked exhausted.
“Unfortunately.”
The knock came.
Maya opened only after Grant confirmed the woman outside.
Tess Morgan.
His chief of staff.
Behind her stood Noah Briggs, head of security.
Tess took one look at Grant and nearly cried.
“We have been looking for you for eleven hours.”
“I lost my phone.”
“We noticed.”
She saw Owen.
Then Maya.
Then the apartment.
Her expression did not become judgmental.
Maya liked her immediately.
Noah did less well.
“We need to move Mr. Holloway and the baby.”
Maya folded her arms.
“No.”
He blinked.
Grant almost smiled.
“I told you.”
Noah looked between them.
Tess stepped in.
“Grant, your father filed an emergency family petition two hours ago.”
Everything changed.
Grant’s expression hardened.
“For what?”
“Temporary authority over Owen’s care.”
Maya stared.
Grant laughed once.
“That is not happening.”
“He claims Vanessa abandoned the child and you disappeared while severely sleep-deprived.”
“I took my son for a walk.”
“For eleven hours.”
Grant said nothing.
Tess handed him a folder.
“There’s more.”
Inside was a document signed six months before Owen’s birth.
Grant read it.
Then again.
“I signed this.”
Maya watched his face.
“What is it?”
“A family continuity agreement.”
Grant’s voice had become cold.
“I was told it dealt with trust administration if I was hospitalized.”
Tess pointed lower.
“It also authorizes your father to petition for temporary custodial control if both parents are considered unavailable or impaired.”
Grant stared.
“That was never explained to me.”
Noah said, “Vanessa found out.”
Grant’s head snapped up.
“How do you know?”
Tess reached into Owen’s designer diaper bag.
“The zipper lining was cut.”
She pulled out a silver hospital bracelet.
OWEN HOLLOWAY.
Grant stared.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Maya opened the tiny clasp.
Inside was folded paper.
Vanessa’s handwriting.
Grant recognized it immediately.
He read aloud.
“Grant, if you find this, do not sign anything your father gives you.”
His face changed.
Then he reached the final line.
His voice stopped.
Maya took the paper.
Below the first sentence, Vanessa had written:
BEFORE YOU LET WILLIAM DECIDE I’M UNFIT TO BE OWEN’S MOTHER, ASK HIM WHAT HE DID WHEN YOUR OWN MOTHER ASKED TO COME HOME.
Grant looked at Maya.
All the color had disappeared from his face.
“My mother died when I was twelve.”
Maya looked at Vanessa’s note.
May you like
Apparently—
that was not the part of his mother’s story Vanessa wanted him to question.
