Chapter 5 - THE WOMAN IN THE RED COAT
The alarm ripped through the apartment.
Grace woke screaming.
Every instinct inside me became animal.
I ran toward the portable crib.
Roman caught my arm.
“Bedroom.”
“What’s happening?”
“Take her into the bedroom and lock the door.”
“I am not—”
“Savannah.”
Something in his face stopped me.
Not authority.
Fear.
Pure, undisguised fear.
I grabbed Grace and the emergency bag beside the crib.
Evelyn had insisted I keep one packed.
I had teased her for being dramatic.
I would never tease her again.
Roman moved toward the front door while speaking into his phone.
“Lock down the underground garage. Nobody enters this floor. Call Chicago PD and tell them we have an active security breach.”
I stood frozen.
He looked back.
“Bedroom. Please.”
The please moved me faster than the command.
I carried Grace into the bedroom.
Locked the door.
Dragged a heavy chair against it.
Then sat on the floor between the bed and the wall with my daughter against my chest.
The alarm continued.
Grace wailed.
“It’s okay,” I whispered.
The lie tasted terrible.
“It’s okay.”
Two minutes passed.
Then three.
I heard footsteps.
Men shouting.
A crash.
My entire body went cold.
Then silence.
The bedroom door handle moved.
I grabbed the lamp from the bedside table.
“Savannah.”
Roman.
I did not immediately open it.
“What’s my mother’s middle name?”
Silence.
Then, “Elizabeth.”
I moved the chair.
Roman stood outside with one of his security men.
No blood.
No obvious injury.
I nearly collapsed.
“What happened?”
“Someone triggered a fire exit and cut power to two security cameras.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
“Did they get inside?”
“No.”
“Then why—”
His security officer interrupted.
“Mr. Carter.”
Roman turned.
“Police found something in the garage.”
We followed.
I should have stayed upstairs.
Roman told me to.
This time, I ignored him.
Grace was secured in her carrier against my chest as I entered the underground garage.
Police lights painted the concrete walls blue and red.
A black sedan sat near the exit.
Its rear door was open.
On the pavement beside it lay a red wool coat.
I recognized it immediately.
Claire had worn it in the photograph.
Roman stopped walking.
An officer approached.
“Mr. Carter?”
“Yes.”
“This yours?”
He held up a phone sealed inside an evidence bag.
Roman looked at the screen.
Claire’s phone.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
The sedan was registered to her.
No blood.
No body.
No Claire.
Only the coat.
And a message displayed on the phone.
YOU SHOULD HAVE KEPT YOUR FAMILY HOME.
My hands went numb.
Roman read it once.
Then again.
The version of him I had seen in boardrooms returned.
Cold.
Precise.
Terrifying.
“Savannah, you’re leaving.”
“With who?”
“Me.”
“No.”
His head snapped toward me.
“This is not negotiable.”
“Yes, it is.”
“Someone just entered a secure building to send me a threat.”
“And you still think taking me somewhere you choose is the answer?”
His temper finally cracked.
“Yes!”
The word echoed through the garage.
Grace startled.
Roman immediately stopped.
Shame crossed his face.
He lowered his voice.
“Yes. Because I can protect you.”
I stepped closer.
“You couldn’t protect our marriage from yourself.”
He flinched.
I regretted it instantly.
Not because it was false.
Because it was cruel.
There was a difference.
Roman looked away.
When he spoke again, his voice was quiet.
“No. I couldn’t.”
That response took the fight from me.
He continued.
“But I can try to protect my daughter from a man who may be using her to destroy me.”
Police officers moved around us.
Evelyn arrived ten minutes later, furious and breathless.
After twenty minutes of arguing, we compromised.
I would not return to the estate.
Roman would not choose my location.
The police placed us temporarily in a secure hotel used for protected witnesses and high-profile cases.
Grace and I would have our own suite.
Roman would have another room down the hall.
Separate.
It felt ridiculous.
It also felt safer.
By evening, the story had reached the press.
Someone leaked photographs of police outside Evelyn’s secured apartment.
Then the first headline appeared.
CARTER FAMILY CHRISTMAS CRISIS.
Another followed.
ROMAN CARTER’S WIFE LEAVES ESTATE HOURS BEFORE GIVING BIRTH.
Then:
MYSTERY WOMAN MISSING AFTER ALLEGED AFFAIR WITH CHICAGO BILLIONAIRE.
I stared at the television.
“Alleged?”
Evelyn sat beside me.
“You want me to call and confirm?”
“No.”
Grace slept in my arms.
“Maybe I do.”
My old phone, now switched on only so Evelyn could preserve evidence, contained forty-seven messages from reporters.
Friends.
Acquaintances.
People who had not contacted me in years.
Then I found one from Claire.
Sent at 6:02 p.m.
Before the alarm.
I’m sorry.
That was all.
I showed Roman when he arrived.
His face changed.
“Call her.”
“From my phone?”
“Yes.”
I pressed the number.
It rang twice.
Then someone answered.
No one spoke.
“Claire?”
Breathing.
Female.
“Claire, is that you?”
Roman stood beside me.
I put the call on speaker.
Finally, a whisper.
“Savannah?”
My skin prickled.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Where are you?”
“I didn’t know he would threaten the baby.”
Roman moved closer.
“Claire.”
She gasped.
“You’re with him?”
“Yes.”
“I told you not to trust him.”
Roman’s expression went hard.
“You came to me.”
“Because Malcolm was going to kill me!”
Grace shifted.
I turned away from Roman.
“Claire, listen to me. Are you safe?”
A sob came through the phone.
“No.”
“Tell me where you are.”
“I can’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Malcolm has people everywhere.”
Roman mouthed, Keep her talking.
I shot him a look.
“Why did Malcolm send me the picture?” I asked.
Claire breathed unsteadily.
“To make you leave.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because he needed Roman distracted.”
“With me?”
“With the company.”
I frowned.
“Explain.”
“Malcolm moved money. A lot of money. Roman was getting close. He knew Roman would tear the company apart if he thought someone was targeting you.”
Roman’s face darkened.
“How much?”
Claire heard him.
“Eighty-four million.”
Roman went completely still.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“Claire—”
“I don’t!”
She began crying again.
“I helped him because I thought he loved me.”
I stared at Roman.
Apparently poor romantic judgment was contagious.
Claire continued.
“He said Roman deserved it. He said Roman had treated him like an employee for twenty years.”
“Why sleep with Roman?” I asked.
Silence.
The answer mattered to me more than I wanted it to.
“Claire?”
“Malcolm told me to.”
Roman closed his eyes.
The humiliation on his face was brutal.
“He said Roman talked too much after sex.”
I almost laughed from disbelief.
Roman did not.
“And did he?” I asked.
Claire hesitated.
“No.”
Roman opened his eyes.
“He barely talked to me at all.”
That somehow hurt worse.
Because it meant Roman had destroyed us for something empty.
Not love.
Not connection.
Nothing.
Claire’s voice broke.
“I thought he would leave you eventually.”
Roman turned away.
I stared at the back of his head.
“Did he tell you that?”
“No.”
“Did he ever say he loved you?”
Silence.
“No.”
Pain moved through me.
Still.
Damn him.
Even now.
I swallowed it.
“Where are you?”
Claire whispered, “Union Station.”
Roman turned sharply.
“What part?”
“Lower level. Near the old baggage corridor.”
“Stay there.”
“I can’t.”
“Claire—”
A man’s voice sounded faintly through the phone.
Claire inhaled.
“Oh, God.”
The call ended.
Roman was already moving.
“No.”
He looked back at me.
“You are not going.”
“She may know where Malcolm is.”
“You have police.”
“Police don’t know him.”
“You do?”
“Better than they do.”
I stood.
“Then tell them.”
“Savannah.”
I stepped closer.
“Your daughter was born this morning.”
“Yesterday.”
I blinked.
It was after midnight.
Time had become meaningless.
“Fine. Yesterday. She was born yesterday, and you are already planning to run toward a man who threatened her because you think you’re invincible.”
“I don’t think I’m invincible.”
“You act like it.”
His eyes held mine.
“I spent my entire life believing I could fix consequences after they happened.”
The words quieted me.
He looked toward Grace.
“I was wrong.”
“Then prove it.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
“Stay.”
He stared at me.
Then he slowly pulled out his phone.
Called the detective downstairs.
Gave Claire’s location.
Stayed.
It might not sound like much.
But for Roman Carter, allowing someone else to handle a problem was almost unnatural.
Forty minutes later, the police found Claire.
Alive.
Terrified.
And carrying a flash drive taped inside the lining of her red coat.
The coat in the garage had been a duplicate.
A warning staged by Malcolm’s men.
The real coat was still on Claire’s body.
The flash drive contained financial records.
Transfers.
Shell companies.
Encrypted communications.
Enough evidence, Evelyn later told me, to destroy Malcolm Grayson.
But that was not all.
At 2:13 a.m., Detective Harris knocked on our hotel suite.
Roman opened the door.
The detective looked past him toward me.
“Mrs. Carter?”
“Yes?”
“We found another file on the drive.”
Something in his expression frightened me.
“What kind of file?”
He held out a printed photograph.
It showed me leaving a prenatal appointment three weeks earlier.
Another showed Margaret shopping for baby clothes.
Another showed the estate gate.
Then one of the nursery window.
Photographed from outside the property.
My breathing stopped.
Roman took the photographs.
His hands tightened around them.
Detective Harris spoke quietly.
“Malcolm has been watching your family for weeks.”
I looked down at my sleeping daughter.
Roman’s voice changed.
“Find him.”
The detective nodded.
“We’re trying.”
May you like
But Malcolm Grayson had disappeared.
And for the next three days, Chicago became a city of locked doors.
