Chapter 6

Emma’s POV

At eight the next morning, I put on a navy jacket and jeans and pinned my long hair neatly back.

I went into the dressing room and slipped off the custom diamond ring I had worn on my left ring finger for four years. I placed it at the bottom of the velvet jewelry box. Then came the platinum bracelet, diamond earrings, limited-edition watch, every supplementary credit card Adrian had given me, and the car keys.

Three full drawers of jewelry glittered beneath the lights, expensive and cold. I barely glanced at them before closing the drawers and picking up the two cases in the corner.

One held three changes of clothes and my toiletries. The other, a climate-controlled, shockproof aluminum case, contained copies of my seventeen original tapes, a portable digital recorder, two highly sensitive directional microphones, and a multichannel audio interface.

Maggie panicked when she saw me standing in the entryway with the cases. “Mrs. Hayes, where are you going? Your husband said you should stay home and rest…”

“Thank you for taking care of me these past four years, Maggie.” I set my house key on the entryway cabinet and gave her a gentle smile. “I left notes on the food in the fridge with reheating times. You won’t need to cook for me anymore.”

Then I opened the door and walked into the cool morning mist without looking back.

At nine thirty, I signed the final authorization giving the law firm full authority over my divorce and copyright case. Afterward, I removed my old SIM card, snapped it in half, dropped it into an airport trash can, and boarded a flight to the East Coast.

Adrian’s POV

I was holding a glass of champagne, talking with several representatives from our underwriting firms, when my private phone vibrated twice.

I looked down and opened a document from Emma: Divorce Settlement Agreement—Second Formal Delivery. A brief message followed.

[Hard copies have been sent by registered express mail to the Hayes Group executive office and the hillside villa. Please direct all further legal proceedings, copyright matters, and division of assets to Michael Carter at Carter Law.]

Someone beside me smiled. “Your wife checking on you, Mr. Hayes?”

“Nothing important. A family matter.” I put away my phone without changing expression and summoned my assistant, Ethan Brooks, from the ballroom entrance. Lowering my voice, I said, “Find out where Emma went today. She has a supplementary card. Check the transactions and her flight details. Have a couple of people keep an eye on her discreetly. Make sure nothing happens to her.”

As far as I was concerned, Emma rarely traveled far and had a very small social circle. Most likely, yesterday’s online criticism had upset her. She had bought a ticket somewhere to clear her head for a few days—and force me to back down.

But half an hour later, Ethan hurried back with an odd expression. He leaned close and spoke quietly. “Mr. Hayes, we checked. Mrs. Hayes hasn’t charged a cent to any of her supplementary cards today. She left them all at home. She took a ten o’clock flight to the East Coast, transferred straight to a long-distance bus, and boarded a passenger ferry at a coastal dock at four this afternoon. Her phone number has also been disconnected.”

My fingers tightened sharply around my glass.

“An offshore ferry? To which island?”

“The final stop is a small island more than thirty nautical miles from the mainland. It’s a remote fishing community scheduled to be completely evacuated next month.”

I couldn’t stay any longer. I canceled the golf outing scheduled for the following morning and took a red-eye flight home.

At one thirty in the morning, my black Bentley pulled into the driveway.

The villa was dark. The entryway lamp Emma always left on for me was off. I strode upstairs and flung open the bedroom door.

The bed was neatly made. The nightstand was bare.

I turned and hurried into the dressing room. I opened the jewelry drawers. Everything was untouched. On top lay the wedding ring I had placed on her finger, along with the bag containing the 1976 vinyl record I had bought the night before. The shrink-wrap was still sealed.

A strange, nameless panic shot up my spine.

I rushed into Emma’s study next door.

The moment I opened it, I froze.

The acoustic archive folders that had filled all four walls, the field notebooks she had kept for ten years, the reel-to-reel boxes covered in colored labels—even the worn pencil she always used—were gone.

The empty shelves stood beneath the harsh light like a body with its insides torn out.

In the middle of the desk, the divorce agreement I had tossed into the pending tray had been placed where I couldn’t miss it. A pale yellow square of graph paper lay on top.

Emma’s handwriting read:

“The archives belong to history. Our marriage belongs to the past. Please stop making decisions for me.”

I gripped the thin note until my knuckles turned white.

For the first time, I realized she might not be doing this out of anger.