Chương 6
Because hope could hurt more than grief.
“Where did you keep it?” he asked.
Naomi looked toward the hallway.
“Somewhere safe.”
“Safe from who?”
She did not answer.
Marcus watched her face.
The silence told him enough.
“You were hiding.”
“Yes.”
“From Daniel?”
Her eyes shifted.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Naomi looked down at the photograph.
For a moment, she seemed younger.
Not thirty-five.
Not the tired hotel employee standing in front of him.
The woman he married.
The woman who used to sing badly while cooking dinner.
The woman who cried during commercials and denied it afterward.
The woman who once told him that the hardest part of loving someone was accepting that you could never fully know what they carried inside.
“I found out something the week before I disappeared,” she said.
Marcus waited.
Naomi took a slow breath.
“Something about your company.”
Marcus frowned.
“My company?”
“You weren’t supposed to be involved.”
“Involved in what?”
She looked at him.
“That’s what I was trying to figure out.”
A strange anger rose inside him.
Not at Naomi.
At the fact that she was still speaking in pieces.
“You’re telling me my wife disappeared because of something connected to my work, but you still won’t tell me what happened?”
“I’m telling you because I don’t want you walking into this without knowing there are things you don’t see.”
Marcus stared at her.
“What things?”
Naomi looked around.
Then she lowered her voice.
“People you trust.”
The words landed differently.
Because Marcus immediately thought about the years after she vanished.
The people who helped him.
The people who advised him.
The people who told him to stop searching.
The people who said he needed to accept reality.
His former business partner.
His attorney.
The detective who handled the case.
The friends who slowly stopped asking if he had heard anything.
Too many people.
Too many possibilities.
“Who knew?” he asked.
Naomi looked at him.
“I don’t know.”
That answer frustrated him.
But it also felt honest.
And that was new.
Before, everyone had given him certainty.
Naomi was gone.
Naomi left.
Naomi chose not to come back.
Now uncertainty was the only thing that felt real.
A hotel employee approached from behind them.
“Naomi?”
She turned.
A young woman wearing the same cleaning uniform stood there.
She looked nervous.
“I need to talk to you.”
Naomi’s expression changed.
“What happened?”
The employee glanced at Marcus.
Then lowered her voice.
“The office called downstairs.”
Naomi went still.
“Why?”
“They said you need to come upstairs.”
Marcus watched her carefully.
“Who called?”
The employee swallowed.
“Mr. Mercer.”
Naomi closed her eyes.
Only for a second.
But Marcus saw it.
Daniel was not just someone from her past.
He still had access to her present.
“No,” Naomi said.
The employee looked confused.
“But he said it was urgent.”
“I said no.”
The young woman nodded quickly and walked away.
Marcus watched her go.
“Who is he here?”
Naomi did not answer.
“Naomi.”
“He owns part of the hotel.”
Marcus felt something shift.
The Sterling Crown.
The luxury.
The employees.
The way the manager immediately recognized Naomi.
“You work for him?”
“I work here.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
She looked away.
“Not originally.”
The distinction bothered him.
“Explain.”
Naomi rubbed her thumb against the edge of the photograph.
A habit.
One he remembered.
She did it whenever she was deciding whether telling the truth would create a bigger problem than hiding it.
“I came here because I thought nobody would look for me.”
Marcus stared.
“Nobody?”
She looked at him.
“You did.”
The answer hurt.
Because there was guilt inside it.
“You knew I was looking?”
“I knew.”
“How?”
Naomi hesitated.
“Because I saw you.”
Marcus felt his chest tighten.
“When?”
“Many times.”
The lobby noise seemed distant.
“You saw me?”
“Yes.”
“And you never came to me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
Her eyes filled slightly.
But she did not cry.
Naomi had changed.
The woman he remembered cried when she was angry.
This woman swallowed everything.
“Because every time I got close,” she said, “someone reminded me what happened the last time I trusted the wrong person.”
Marcus felt the question forming before he spoke.
“Who hurt you?”
Naomi looked at him.
And for a moment, he thought she might finally answer.
Then she looked past him.
At the security cameras mounted above the lobby.
Her expression changed.
“Not here.”
Marcus followed her eyes.
The cameras.
The guests.
The employees.
The entire building suddenly felt less like a hotel and more like a place where every movement was being recorded.
“Where can we go?” he asked.
Naomi thought for a moment.
Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small key.
Marcus recognized it.
Not the key itself.
The way she held it.
Carefully.
Like it mattered.
“What is that?”
“Something I kept.”
“From before?”
She nodded.
“From our apartment.”
Marcus looked at the key.
Their old apartment had been emptied after she disappeared.
He remembered standing in the living room months later, surrounded by boxes.
He remembered not knowing whether he was packing memories or evidence.
“I thought everything was gone.”
“Almost everything.”
She closed her fingers around the key.
“There was one place nobody checked.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Where?”
Naomi stepped closer.
Her voice dropped.
“The one place you never looked.”
The answer confused him.
Then she said it.
And the confusion disappeared.
“The storage unit under your name.”
Marcus stared at her.
“The storage unit under my name?”
Naomi nodded.
“But I never had one.”
“Yes, you did.”
The certainty in her voice unsettled him.
Because it was not the certainty of someone guessing.
It was the certainty of someone who had been there.
“Why don’t I remember it?”
Naomi looked at him.
“That’s the question you should be asking.”
Marcus felt a chill move through him.
Not because he believed her completely.
Not yet.
Because he knew himself.
May you like
He knew the shape of his own memory.
And there were things from that time that had always felt wrong.
