“What’s wrong? What else happened?”
“I overheard part of their conversation. Andrei said something about information about ‘the boy.’”
Carmen sinks onto the edge of the bathtub. “Oh, Danielle. Do you think he meant Leo?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I hope not, but if so, I have no idea how much he knows, but if he’s been investigating...” I press my hand to my stomach, feeling the small but growing bump beneath my polo shirt. “I might be out of time to handle this on my own terms.”
She looks as worried as I feel. “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” I say again, and the admission feels like defeat. “If I tell Radmir now, it’ll look like I’m only confessing because I got caught. If I don’t tell him and Andrei reveals everything, it’ll be even worse.”
“Maybe Andrei doesn’t know anything specific. Maybe it’s just routine background checks? Maybe the boy has nothing to do with your boy.”
“Maybe.” I don’t believe it though. Andrei doesn’t strike me as someone who wastes time on routine anything, and “the boy” feels so ominous.
“We should get back to work before someone notices we’re both missing.” Carmen stands and smooths her uniform. “Whatever happens, I’ll help how I can.”
“Thank you.” The words feel inadequate for everything she’s done for me.
After she leaves, I finish the guest room and move on to the next, but my mind isn’t on the work. Instead, I’m thinking about the conversation with Radmir and the vulnerability I saw in him when he talked about Luca and the costs of his world.
For a moment, he’d seemed like someone I could trust with the truth, who might understand why I’ve been hiding Leo, and why I’m so afraid of what his life could mean for my children. The loneliness in his voice when he talked about people he couldn’t protect made me think that maybe he’d want to protect us too. Damned Andrei for his timing.
The rest of the morning passes in a blur of routine tasks, but I can’t get rid of the sense everything is about to change. Every time I hear footsteps in the hallway, I expect to see Andrei or Radmir coming to confront me. Every phone that rings could be someone calling with information that unravels my carefully constructed lies.
By lunchtime, my nerves are stretched to the breaking point. I eat a sandwich in the staff kitchen while Carmen fills me in on the morning gossip, but I barely hear what she’s saying. My attention is focused on listening for any sound from Radmir’s office.
“You’re not listening to a word I’m saying,” Carmen says, but without censure.
“Sorry. I’m just distracted.”
“Understandably.” She lowers her voice. “Have you seen either of them since this morning?”
“No. I’m supposed to finish Radmir’s office this afternoon, so I’ll have to face whatever’s waiting for me there.”
At two o’clock, I gather my cleaning supplies and make my way back to Radmir’s office. The hallway feels longer than usual, each step bringing me closer to whatever confrontation is waiting.
I press my hand to my stomach, where the baby is growing larger each day, and whisper a promise I hope I can keep.
“I’ll figure this out. I’ll keep you both safe.”
But as I approach Radmir’s office, listening to the low murmur of voices that might still be discussing something I’m not allowed to hear, I know that time has finally run out. The harsh reality clings to me like as gremlin.
Whatever Andrei has discovered, whatever conversation happened behind that closed door, my carefully constructed world of secrets is about to come crashing down.
The only question now is whether I’ll have any control over how it falls.
14
Radmir
After Danielle leaves my office, Andrei settles into the chair across from my desk and sighs. “The boy’s name is Leo Arden,” he says, consulting a tablet in his hands. “He was born three years and six months ago at Scripps Memorial Hospital. No father listed on the birth certificate.”
Three years and six months. I do the math quickly in my head, counting backward from our night together four years…and five months ago. The timing isn’t quite right to be mine, unless there are factors I don’t know about. “Could the boy have been born premature?”
Andrei makes a note on his tablet. “I’ll look into that angle. What time frame are we trying to eliminate, sir?”
“Don’t worry about that. Just keep looking for information about the father as well.”
