Chapter 1 - THE WOMAN BEHIND THE SERVICE DOOR.
The guard opened the hidden service door, and a weak voice called from the dark.
“Elena? Did he finally come?”
Adrian entered with two staff members and found Adelaide Mercer, his eighty-one-year-old grandmother, seated safely on a narrow cot with water, medicine and a wool blanket. He had been told she was recovering at a private clinic in Switzerland.
Adelaide looked at Vivian. “She put Elena on her knees and put me behind a wall.”
Vivian called the room a protected medical suite. Elena lifted the dirty apron with shaking hands.
“Protected people are allowed to leave.”
Adrian ordered the passage secured and every camera preserved. Vivian laughed bitterly.
“You crossed the country for a maid who married above herself.”
Adrian wrapped his coat tighter around Elena.
“She is my wife.”
Adelaide reached beneath her blanket and produced a sealed envelope.
“Not according to the divorce Vivian filed in Elena’s name.”
Elena stared at the signature.
May you like
“I never signed that.”
The witness was Adrian.
