Chapter 3 - THE MAN AT THE GATE
The man at the gate called himself Gavin Rourke.
I knew the name.
Stellan watched my face. “Who is he?”
“My former landlord’s brother.”
“That is not the whole truth.”
“No.”
Fern woke and started fussing. Stellan handed her back to me with obvious reluctance.
“Tell me.”
Gavin had worked security at the charity gala two years earlier. He was the one who kept trying to refill my drink after I said no. Adrian—Stellan—had stepped between us before I understood what Gavin was doing.
The next morning, Gavin vanished from the event company.
Six months later, he appeared outside my apartment and asked whether I had “kept anything from that night.”
I moved twice after that.
Stellan’s face became unreadable.
“He found you again.”
“I don’t know how.”
A guard’s voice came through the office speaker. “Sir, Rourke says he has legal paperwork.”
“Bring it to the vestibule. Do not bring him inside.”
Five minutes later, a guard carried in an envelope.
Inside was a petition for emergency paternity testing.
Gavin claimed he was Fern’s biological father.
I almost dropped it.
“That’s a lie.”
Stellan read every page.
“It includes a sworn statement.”
“From who?”
He turned the last page around.
My mother’s signature sat at the bottom.
I had not spoken to my mother, Loretta Vale, in fourteen months.
The statement said I had confessed that Gavin was Fern’s father and that I was hiding the baby because I wanted money from “another man.”
Stellan’s voice went flat. “Did your mother know about the gala?”
“She knew I came home upset. That’s all.”
“Did she know about Fern’s father?”
“I told her his name was Adrian.”
Stellan looked toward the security monitor showing Gavin waiting in the rain outside the gate.
“He didn’t come for paternity.”
“What did he come for?”
Stellan tapped the petition.
“To get your address into a court file.”
My stomach dropped.
His phone rang.
He answered. Listened.
Then his expression changed.
“Lock the house down.”
I clutched Fern closer.
“What happened?”
Stellan looked at me.
“One of my men just found your apartment door open.”
May you like
A pause.
“And Fern’s medical records are gone.”
