Chapter 5 - NO SAFE PLACE
Amy didn’t argue.
She grabbed her purse, suitcase, and shoes.
“Margaret, I need you to do something.”
“What?”
“Don’t call Daniel yet.”
“Amy—”
“Please.”
That single word changed Margaret’s tone.
“All right.”
“I’m leaving the hotel.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know.”
“Send me your location.”
“No.”
“Amy—”
“If Ryan has access to Daniel’s people, I’m not sending anything electronically.”
Margaret went silent.
Then said, “Use cash.”
Amy blinked.
“What?”
“Your cards are linked to the household accounts. Daniel’s security team can track them.”
Amy’s stomach sank.
“Of course they can.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
She stopped.
A strange thought came to her.
“When Daniel realizes I’m pregnant, what will he do?”
Margaret didn’t hesitate.
“Everything.”
That was exactly what Amy feared.
She left through the stairwell.
Outside, she took a taxi to a twenty-four-hour pharmacy, bought a prepaid phone, paid cash, then took another cab to Penn Station.
No flights.
No private cars.
No predictable route.
At 4:10 a.m., she boarded a train to Philadelphia.
From there, she could decide what came next.
She sat near an older woman carrying a floral tote bag and tried to disappear into the seat.
Her new phone rang.
Nobody had the number.
Amy’s heart stopped.
Then she realized she had given it to Margaret twenty minutes earlier.
She answered.
“It’s me,” Margaret said. “Daniel knows.”
Amy closed her eyes.
“How?”
“I told him.”
“You said—”
“He found me packing.”
“Packing?”
“I was coming to find you.”
Amy rubbed her forehead.
“What happened?”
“He saw the ring again. I couldn’t lie anymore.”
“And?”
“He asked if you were pregnant.”
Amy sat up.
“How did he know to ask that?”
Margaret’s silence answered her.
“Someone told him.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Ryan.”
Amy’s blood chilled.
“What exactly did Ryan say?”
“He came to Daniel’s apartment about twenty minutes ago. Said there had been a security breach involving your medical data.”
“How convenient.”
“Daniel hit him.”
Amy blinked.
“What?”
“In the kitchen.”
“That sounds dramatic.”
“He broke Ryan’s nose.”
Amy pressed her lips together.
She shouldn’t have found that satisfying.
She did.
“Daniel accused him of spying on you.”
“And Ryan?”
“Claimed Vanessa asked him to verify whether you were pregnant.”
Amy stared ahead.
“Why would Vanessa care?”
“Ryan says she believed a pregnancy would prevent Daniel from agreeing to a corporate deal.”
“What deal?”
“A sale.”
“What sale?”
Margaret lowered her voice.
“Harrison Freight has been receiving acquisition offers. Daniel rejected all of them.”
“And Ryan wants one?”
“Very badly.”
Amy’s mind raced.
“If Daniel’s wife was pregnant, wouldn’t that make him more conservative? More likely to protect the company?”
“Perhaps.”
“So why push me away?”
“I don’t know.”
Amy looked down at her stomach.
Then Margaret said, “There’s more.”
“What?”
“Daniel searched Ryan’s laptop after the fight.”
Amy waited.
“He found draft emails.”
“To who?”
“Reporters.”
Amy’s stomach dropped.
“About me?”
“Yes.”
“What do they say?”
Margaret hesitated.
“Amy…”
“Tell me.”
“They claim you’re unstable.”
Amy didn’t breathe.
“They say you’re secretly taking psychiatric medication, that you’ve been having paranoid episodes, and that Daniel has been trying to protect you.”
The train suddenly felt too warm.
Amy’s hands shook.
“That’s not true.”
“I know.”
“I don’t take anything.”
“I know.”
“Why would they—”
Then she understood.
Medical records.
Not to expose her pregnancy.
To manufacture a story.
“They were building a narrative.”
“Yes.”
“A crazy wife.”
“Yes.”
Amy stared out the window as dawn began whitening the sky.
A public breakdown.
A jealous wife.
A husband photographed innocently dancing with another woman.
If Amy had stormed across that ballroom?
If she had slapped Vanessa?
Screamed?
Threw a glass?
They would have had the image they wanted.
Amy whispered, “That’s why Vanessa wanted me to see them.”
Margaret was silent.
Amy’s skin prickled.
She hadn’t walked away from humiliation.
She had walked out of a trap.
And then Margaret said the words that made her blood turn cold.
“Amy, Daniel found something else on Ryan’s laptop.”
May you like
“What?”
“Your entire travel plan to Oregon.”
