Chapter 4: Evidence of an Exit

Mason refused to let the night end after one round.

By the time Grant reached the villa, dawn had begun to pale the sky. He showered on instinct, dropped his clothes on the bathroom floor, and fell across the bed without pulling back the covers.

A vicious cramp woke him two hours later.

Grant rolled onto his side and pressed a fist beneath his ribs. Sweat gathered along his spine. He had ignored dinner, replaced it with whiskey, and forgotten the medication Clara used to set out whenever he went drinking.

Her name reached the back of his throat before he stopped it.

She had blocked him. Fine. He was not going to beg for a bottle of antacids in his own house.

He searched the bathroom, the kitchen, and every drawer in the living room. Nothing.

At last he called Mrs. Palmer.

"The medicine is in the dressing room," she said. "Back drawer on the left. Miss Whitmore stocked enough for several months."

Five boxes sat in a neat row behind a stack of folded scarves. A note in Clara's handwriting was taped to the first: two tablets after food, never on an empty stomach.

Grant tore off the note and swallowed the pills dry.

The handwriting pulled up a memory he had not invited. Clara kneeling beside this same drawer after his last attack, checking expiration dates while he complained that she treated him like a patient. She had answered that patients followed instructions, so he was considerably more difficult.

He had laughed then. He could not remember whether he had thanked her.

While he waited for the pain to loosen, he looked around the dressing room properly for the first time.

Clara's gowns still hung by color. Jewelry filled the velvet trays. Handbags remained behind glass. She had taken none of the things he bought her.

Her passport wallet was gone.

So was the pink carry-on she used for short trips.

Grant opened another drawer, then another. The absence was precise. Clara had removed what belonged to her life and left what belonged to his money.

"Dramatic," he muttered.

The word did not explain why the room felt staged for someone who would never return.

The front door opened downstairs.

Grant descended too quickly, one hand still braced against his stomach. For half a second, expectation overrode reason.

Victoria Holloway looked up from the foyer. "Were you expecting someone?"

"No."

"Mom asked me to check on you." Victoria dropped her bag on the sofa and headed for the kitchen. "I also came for breakfast."

She reappeared less than a minute later. "There is no breakfast. Where's Clara?"

Grant sat down. "Not here."

"Obviously." Victoria opened a cabinet and found it nearly empty. "I saw her at Beacon Hill Medical Center yesterday. She looked awful."

Grant straightened. "Why was she at the hospital?"

"How would I know?" Victoria shrugged. "Maybe she finally made a friend."

"Was she a patient?"

"I saw her outside the surgical wing. That's all." Victoria inspected her manicure. "Professor Caldwell was there too. She practically approved my doctoral application."

Grant barely heard the second sentence. Clara had been pale at a hospital one day after leaving him. Had she been ill before the party? Had she hidden it?

He reached for his phone, then remembered the blocked call.

Victoria was already heading out. "Two tomorrow at The Westbridge. Mom arranged another introduction for you. Bianca Sinclair. Don't be late."

"Cancel it."

"Tell Mom yourself."

The door shut behind her.

Grant spent the afternoon in his study, clearing work that had accumulated while he waited for Clara to surrender. Numbers usually steadied him. That day, each page seemed to return him to the first years of Holloway Holdings, when lenders stopped answering and payroll came due every other Friday.

Clara had been there then.

She had slept on the office sofa, brought food for the engineers, and sold a piece of jewelry when Grant refused to ask his family for help. He had repaid her once the company recovered. At least, he had assumed money settled things.

The study held photographs from those years in a locked cabinet: Clara asleep over a spreadsheet, Clara painting the first office herself, Clara holding a grocery-store cake when Holloway Holdings signed its first serious contract. Grant had not displayed them because the frames looked cheap beside the art Catherine selected for the villa.

For the first time, he wondered where Clara had put her copies.

By evening, hunger drove him downstairs.

He called Paige.

"I'm still in class," she whispered. "Can I call you after?"

Grant ended the call.

Five minutes later, the doorbell rang.

Paige stood on the step with a bright, breathless smile. "Julian gave me the address. You sounded upset."

Her gaze traveled past him into the villa, taking in the marble foyer and double-height windows.

"Do you know how to make millet porridge?" Grant asked.

Paige blinked. "Not yet. But I can learn."

He imagined her searching for a recipe while Clara's handwritten instructions sat torn in the dressing room.

"Forget it. I'll have the driver take you back."

The disappointment on Paige's face should have moved him. It did not.

* * *

Later, Grant met Mason at a downtown intersection. While the light remained red, he opened the messaging app and searched for Clara's account.

The chat history was still there: reminders about medicine, photos of meals cooling on the table, questions he had often left unanswered.

He typed a single word.

Call.

A notice appeared instead.

Message not delivered. This contact is no longer available to you.

The light turned green. Horns sounded behind him.

Grant kept staring at the screen.

Clara had not only walked out. She had closed every door he once assumed would remain open.