Chapter 2
Emma did not meet Claire through the Whitmore family.
She met her at a diner.
That mattered.
Victor had controlled the ranch.
Marco controlled security.
My captains controlled nearly every road, stable, guesthouse, and supplier attached to Whitmore land.
Claire had chosen someone outside all of it.
“A woman came into the diner before sunrise,” Emma told me. “No coat. Blood on one sleeve. She had your wife’s pendant around her neck.”
My breathing slowed.
“How did you know who she was?”
“I didn’t.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
I turned my head.
He stopped.
Emma continued.
“Claire never told me her last name that morning. She asked for coffee, then sat where she could see both doors.”
That sounded like her.
Even scared, Claire watched exits.
“She came back?”
“Three nights later.”
“Why?”
Emma looked at the babies.
“She asked if I knew how to keep a secret from dangerous men.”
I almost smiled despite myself.
“What did you say?”
“That dangerous men don’t usually tell waitresses enough to matter.”
For the first time since entering the barn, something close to anger disappeared from my chest.
Claire would have liked that answer.
Emma continued.
“She started coming after closing. Sometimes for ten minutes. Sometimes an hour. She never told me everything. Just that someone inside her husband’s family had turned the ranch against her.”
I looked at Victor.
He said nothing.
“Why the pendant?”
Emma shook her head.
“She always wore it. The last time I saw her, she opened the back and put something inside.”
The note.
“When?”
“Six days ago.”
Victor’s expression shifted.
Six days.
Not four months.
Claire had been alive less than a week ago.
I folded the warning carefully.
“Where did she go after that?”
Emma looked at me.
“She said if she stayed in one place, Victor would find her.”
Silence.
She had used his name.
Not a suspicion.
May you like
Not a guess.
Claire had been hiding from the man I trusted to find her.
