Chapter 6: The Number I Didn't Recognize
I stared at the text for a long time.
Then I did something I almost never do.
I called back immediately, without thinking it through first.
It rang twice.
A man answered.
"Vincent Hale," he said.
Not a question.
"Who is this?"
"My name is Daniel Carr." A pause.
"I was Sloan's boyfriend.
Before you.
We were together for two years."
I said nothing.
"I know how that sounds," he said.
"I'm not calling to cause trouble.
I'm calling because I saw the birth announcement — Jenna posted something, I still follow her — and I need you to know something about Sloan before this goes any further."
"Before what goes any further."
"Whatever you two are doing.
Getting back together.
Co-parenting.
Whatever it is." His voice was careful, measured.
The voice of someone who had rehearsed this.
"Sloan has a pattern.
I was part of it.
I think you should know."
"What kind of pattern?"
"She disappears when things get hard.
She doesn't fight, she doesn't argue, she just — goes.
And then she comes back when she needs something.
When I was with her, she left twice.
Both times she came back.
Both times there was a reason she needed to be back." Another pause.
"I'm not saying she's a bad person.
I'm saying she's someone who uses the people who love her without meaning to.
And now there's a child involved."
I looked at the bedroom door.
The light under it was off.
Sloan had been asleep for an hour.
"How did you get this number?" I asked.
"Jenna," he said.
"She's worried about Sloan too.
She thinks Sloan is making a mistake being there with you.
She asked me to reach out."
"Jenna asked you to call me."
"Yes."
I thought about Jenna — the friend who had driven Sloan to the hospital, who had stayed until morning, who Sloan had described as the one person who had been there.
The person Sloan trusted.
"What exactly do you want from this conversation?" I asked.
"Nothing.
I want you to be careful.
I want you to make sure whatever arrangement you're building with her has legal protection for the baby.
Don't let it be informal.
Don't let it be based on trust alone." His voice softened slightly.
"Sloan is capable of leaving again.
And next time she might take Willa with her."
I ended the call.
I sat in the kitchen for a long time after that.
The envelope from Eleanor was still on the counter.
Willa's monitor glowed green on the nightstand through the half-open bedroom door — Sloan had left it where I could see it from the kitchen, I realized.
She had thought about that.
She had arranged it deliberately so I could watch it from where I was sitting.
That was not the behavior of someone planning to disappear.
I thought about what Daniel Carr had said.
I thought about the way he had said Jenna's name.
I thought about the fact that Jenna — the same Jenna who had held Sloan's hand through labor and stayed until morning — had apparently given a stranger my private number and asked him to call me with a warning about the woman she was supposed to love.
Something about that didn't fit.
I opened my laptop and typed Daniel Carr's name into the search bar.
The first result was a LinkedIn profile.
Senior Vice President, Carr Capital Management.
Manhattan.
The second result was a society page photograph from three years ago: Daniel Carr at a charity gala, standing next to a woman in a blue dress.
The woman was Jenna.
They were not standing like strangers.
His hand was at her back.
She was turned toward him, laughing at something he'd said.
May you like
I looked at the photo for a long time.
Then I went and knocked softly on the bedroom door.
