Chapter 1 - The Ghost in the Window
The neon glow of the boutique cast a pale, sickly light over the rain-slicked sidewalk, illuminating the tiny white onesie like a beacon of impossibility. My feet felt anchored to the concrete, heavy as lead, while the rest of my world spun violently out of orbit.
"Grant? What is it? You've gone entirely white," Monica’s voice cut through the roaring in my ears. Her gloved hand remained tucked securely into the crook of my elbow, a constant, polite anchor tethering me to a future I was never meant to have. In three weeks, we were supposed to stand before a crowd of high-society elites and exchange vows. She was the pristine embodiment of everything the Holloway family valued: pedigree, poise, and predictability.
Yet, my eyes refused to detach from the woman on the other side of the glass.
Jolene Tab.
The woman whose death certificate I had clutched in my trembling hands five months ago. The woman whose ashes I had supposedly scattered off the jagged cliffs of Cape Hatteras, mourning her with a grief so hollow it had hollowed out my soul.
She stood four meters away, near the checkout counter, examining the price tag of a nursing bottle with delicate, trembling fingers. Her belly was unmistakably rounded beneath a loose-fitting knit sweater, carrying a secret that punched the air straight out of my lungs. She was pregnant. Roughly six or seven months along, judging by the swell—math that aligned terrifyingly with the exact week she vanished from my life.
For a brief, agonizing second, our eyes locked through the smudged storefront window.
I expected her to drop the bottle. I expected her to scream, to shatter, to drop to her knees in sheer terror or guilt. Instead, her gaze was unnervingly placid, heavy with a profound, suffocating sadness. When her dark eyes drifted from my face down to Monica’s hand locked tightly around my arm, a single flash of jagged pain crossed Jolene’s features. It was a look that bypassed my brain and sliced straight into my chest. Then, she pulled a woolen scarf tighter around her throat, rested a protective, trembling palm over her stomach, and turned away.
"Grant, talk to me. Who are you looking at?" Monica demanded, her tone finally losing its polished veneer, replaced by sharp anxiety as she tried to peer into the store.
"Someone... someone I thought was dead," I managed, the words tasting like ash.
Before Monica could process the absurdity of the statement, I yanked my arm away from hers and bolted toward the boutique door. The brass bell chimed mockingly as I shoved my way inside, the scent of lavender and baby powder suffocating me. I rushed to the back counter, my eyes darting down every narrow aisle, throwing open doors to stockrooms and employee-only areas.
Empty.
The rear exit door clicked shut, its metal bar still vibrating from force. I burst out into the alleyway just in time to see a worn-out sedan fading into the heavy evening traffic. There was no trace of her. Only the biting autumn wind and the sickening, inescapable realization that she had looked right into my eyes, recognized me, and deliberately chosen to run again.
We never made it to the wedding planning meeting. I drove Monica back to her penthouse in total, suffocating silence, brushing off her hysterical questions with cold monosyllables. As soon as I dropped her off, promising I needed to handle an emergency crisis at the corporate office, I pointed my car toward the industrial district on the city's eastern fringe.
The Holloway Organization’s secondary warehouse was a fortress of concrete and corrugated steel—a place where ledger books were balanced away from prying eyes and the uncomfortable loose ends of our empire were quietly tucked away.
Inside my private office, the air smelled of old paper, leather, and stale scotch. I bypassed my desk and walked straight to a heavy oak filing cabinet in the corner. Pulling a brass key from my keychain, I unlocked the bottom drawer—a compartment I hadn't opened since the week of the funeral.
Lying at the very bottom was a small, frayed scrap of charcoal-gray wool.
It was the fabric from the sleeve of the jacket Jolene had been mending the very afternoon before she disappeared. I could still vividly picture her sitting cross-legged on my office sofa, needle in hand, laughing softly at my frustration over a ripped cuff. “You’re hopeless with your hands, Grant Holloway,” she had teased, her smile radiant. “If I weren't here to fix your life, you'd fall apart at the seams.”
Twenty-four hours later, my uncle Desmond had walked into this exact room, his face etched with somber, paternal grief, to tell me she had suffered a catastrophic aneurism and died en route to Mercy Memorial Hospital.
My hands shook as I reached for my encrypted satellite phone and dialed a direct, untraceable number.
"Trent," I said the moment the line connected, my voice dropping an octave into a dangerous register. "I need you to run a ghost for me."
"Name it, boss," Trent’s crisp, digital-sounding voice replied. He was the best information broker money could buy—invisible, thorough, and entirely outside the Holloway payroll network.
"Jolene Tab," I said, staring down at the scrap of gray wool. "I want every single record, admission log, emergency room intake, and morgue manifest from Mercy Memorial Hospital spanning five months ago. Look for her name, look for her social, look for any irregularities. And Trent? Do not let my uncle Desmond catch wind of this inquiry. If he finds out, we're both done for."
A pause crackled over the line, heavier than the static. "Desmond Holloway? Understood, Grant. Give me a few hours."
May you like
I hung up, poured two fingers of neat bourbon, and sat back in my leather chair, staring into the dark. Desmond had raised me after my parents died in the crash. He had shaped my morals, taught me that family loyalty was a religion, and stood beside me at a grave containing an empty casket.
If he had lied to me about Jolene's death, it meant the foundation of my entire existence was built on a rotting corpse. And I was going to dig it up, no matter who had to bleed for it.
