Chapter 5 - The Vanishing Trail
By noon, the news had hit the financial wires.
BREAKING: Daniel Morgan Ousted as CEO of Morgan Apex Following Sudden Restructuring; Bennett Trust Takes Controlling Stake.
I sat in the back corner of a dim, crowded diner six blocks away from Wacker Drive, staring at my reflection in the greasy napkin holder. My phone had not stopped ringing for three hours, but none of the callers were friends. They were reporters, hedge fund analysts smelling blood in the water, and debt collection automated notices.
My personal cards were declined when I tried to pay for my black coffee. I had to scrape together fifteen dollars in crumpled cash from the bottom of my suit coat pocket—cash I had stuffed there months ago and forgotten about.
I was completely, utterly isolated.
Determined to find Claire, I broke every single restriction Patricia Holloway had warned me against. I walked three miles through the cold drizzle to the north side of the city, heading toward the brownstone in Lincoln Park where Claire’s younger sister, Sarah, lived.
When I reached the front steps, the iron gate was locked. I pressed the buzzer repeatedly until Sarah’s voice crackled through the intercom.
“Sarah, please,” I pleaded, pressing my forehead against the cold metal bars. “It’s Daniel. I just need to know if Claire is okay. Just let me talk to her for five minutes. That’s all I’m asking.”
A long pause hung over the line. When Sarah finally spoke, there was no anger in her voice—only an exhausted, biting disgust.
“Do you remember what today is, Daniel?” she asked quietly.
I blinked, rain dripping from my eyelashes. “It’s... it’s Wednesday. It’s the sixteenth.”
“It’s your ninth anniversary,” Sarah said.
The words hit me like a physical blow to the sternum. I stumbled backward, the air rushing out of my lungs.
April sixteenth.
Nine years ago today, we had stood in the garden of her family’s home in Lake Forest, surrounded by white hydrangeas and family members who believed our union was unbreakable. I had sworn to honor her, to cherish her, to put our shared life above all else. And yesterday, on the eve of that anniversary, she had executed our divorce papers while I was asleep beside a woman whose last name I barely remembered.
“Sarah, I made a mistake,” I whispered, tears finally mixing with the rain on my cheeks. “I lost my way. I let the ambition and the money turn me into someone I hate. But I still love her. I swear to God, I love her.”
“If you loved her, you would have noticed that she stopped painting three years ago,” Sarah said through the intercom, her voice tight with unshed tears. “You would have noticed that she lost twenty pounds after you canceled her mother’s memorial dinner to attend an investor retreat. You would have noticed that she spent the last eight months packing her life into boxes while you spent your evenings in downtown hotel lounges.”
“Where is she?” I sobbed. “Please, Sarah. Just tell me what state she’s in.”
“She’s where you can never buy her again, Daniel,” Sarah replied. “Leave us alone. If you come back to this gate, the police will be here in two minutes.”
May you like
The intercom clicked dead.
I stood on the sidewalk in the rain, a disgraced former titan in an ruined suit, watching the curtains flutter shut on the second floor. She wasn't there. She wasn't anywhere in Chicago. She had vanished into the vastness of the country, leaving me with nothing but the empty shell of a life I had built on sand.
