Chapter 3

The next afternoon, Sienna arrived with two suitcases.

One hand rested on her visibly rounded stomach, the other on the luggage handle.

“Thank you for taking me in.”

Her smile was warm and gracious.

If I hadn’t heard her at the station, I might have believed she was only a frightened pregnant woman abandoned by her baby’s father.

But I knew she had stolen money from my father’s restaurant.

And I knew Cole had set the fire to destroy the ledger for her.

Now she was bringing their secret into my home.

“Come in.” I stepped aside.

Her eyes lingered on my face as she passed, as if she were checking whether I knew.

Cole came downstairs and immediately took her suitcase.

“Careful. Didn’t the doctor tell you not to lift anything heavy?”

“It’s one bag,” Sienna said.

“You’re not alone in your body anymore.”

His hand settled naturally around her arm.

It looked less like the touch of an ex-boyfriend and more like the habit of a man who had been beside her throughout the pregnancy.

He gave her the guest room at the end of the hall—the room I had planned to turn into a nursery.

Only last week, I had been looking at cribs online. Now I had to hide my own baby from Cole while a woman who might be carrying his slept there.

At dinner, Sienna recoiled from the smell of the fish. Before she could say anything, Cole removed her plate and opened the window.

“I remembered it makes you sick,” he said.

The gesture was too practiced for a man who claimed he hadn’t seen her in years.

Sienna stroked her stomach and looked at him.

“You promised you would always protect me.”

“That was a long time ago,” Cole replied, but he never said the promise was over.

I set down my glass.

“I was going through Dad’s things today. The ledgers are missing. So is the key to the basement.”

Sienna’s hand moved toward her coat pocket before she caught herself.

That was all the answer I needed.

Cole’s phone rang. The station was short-staffed and needed him for an emergency shift.

Before leaving, he reminded Sienna about her medication twice. He barely looked at me.

After the front door closed, Sienna remained at the table.

“You brought up the restaurant on purpose.”

“It belonged to my father. Why shouldn’t I talk about it?”

“Some things help no one when they’re dug out of the ashes.”

“Who wouldn’t they help?”

She studied me, then smiled.

“Good night, Ava.”

She went upstairs without answering.

At eleven thirty, Sienna slipped into Cole’s study.

I turned off the living room lamp and hid beneath the stairs.

The safe clicked open.

She emerged with a key blackened by fire. I photographed it from the darkness.

Outside, she loaded two gas cans into her trunk and drove south.

There was only one place in that direction—the ruins of my father’s restaurant.

I followed her.