Chapter 3 - The Warning He Had Called Jealousy
Grant read the messages twice.
The first had been sent five weeks earlier.
Piper seems much happier with you. Have you ever considered taking her during the school week?
The second was more direct.
Grant travels too much. She needs consistency.
By the fourth message, Nadine had asked whether Claire would consider becoming Piper’s guardian “if things became complicated.”
Grant looked up.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Claire folded her arms.
“I tried.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“I told you Nadine kept asking questions about Piper living here.”
“You said she was trying to push into family decisions.”
“That’s what she was doing.”
Grant remembered the conversation.
He had been standing in his garage cleaning out Rachel’s old gardening tools.
Claire had said Nadine was making her uncomfortable.
Grant had accused Claire of never accepting his remarriage.
Claire had left furious.
Now he sat at her kitchen table at one in the morning and understood the argument differently.
“You should’ve shown me these.”
“I should have.”
The admission stopped him.
Claire looked toward the stairs.
“But you should’ve wanted to hear me before I had evidence.”
Grant lowered his eyes.
That was harder to dismiss.
After Rachel died from complications following an aggressive cancer, Grant had spent almost two years moving through life as if efficiency could substitute for recovery.
Meals.
Daycare.
Bills.
Work.
Bath.
Bed.
Repeat.
When he met Nadine at a charity 5K organized by his company, she seemed calm where Grant felt chaotic.
She remembered preschool forms.
She organized the pantry.
She knew when Piper needed new shoes.
Most importantly, she did not treat Grant like a widower made of glass.
They married fourteen months later.
Claire thought it was too fast.
Grant thought Claire wanted him permanently loyal to grief.
Both had been partly right.
At breakfast, Piper ate half a waffle and refused to sit anywhere unless Grant was beside her.
When he stood to refill his coffee, she immediately grabbed his sleeve.
“I’m right here.”
“You promise?”
Grant sat back down.
His phone rang.
Detective Mason.
The laundry sack had come from the Mercer mudroom.
Police had found matching household linens in another identical sack.
More troubling was Piper’s backpack.
Officers had found it hidden behind storage bins in the garage.
Inside were pajamas, socks, two juice boxes and her stuffed rabbit.
Grant stared at the wall.
Someone had packed his daughter to leave.
This had not been a moment of anger.
Someone had prepared for it.
Detective Mason asked whether Nadine had ever discussed Piper living somewhere else.
Grant looked at Claire’s phone.
“Yes.”
“How recently?”
“Apparently for over a month.”
When the call ended, Claire watched him carefully.
Grant said, “This was planned.”
Claire nodded once.
May you like
Then she asked the question Grant had been avoiding since the hospital.
“Why would Nadine need Piper gone before you came home?”
