Chapter 6

Otto caught the earliest flight back to Harbor City without stopping to rest.

The first thing he did was go home. He stood at the front door of the villa he’d shared with

Ann, and for a long moment, he couldn’t move.

He could almost see her there, the way she’d looked when they first moved in, her whole face

lit up with joy.

“We finally have a home. Thank you for giving me a real home.”

He’d met Ann during a summer in Harbor City.

She’d been impossibly thin, crouched on the side of the road feeding a stray cat. That single

image had lit up eighteen years of gray.

Love at first sight. The best words he’d ever known.

He’d fought his entire family to be with her. He’d been willing to live in a rental if that was

what it took. Harbor City University, the law firm, every chapter of his life had her in it.

When he found out she was the long-lost daughter of the Henson family, he’d been nothing

but happy for her.

At what point had he started feeling like she’d changed?

He pushed open the front door. There was one person inside, but it wasn’t her.

“Cora, where’s my wife?”

Cora Lambert stopped mid-sweep, confusion crossing her face.

“Mr. Sanchez, what are you doing back? Mrs. Sanchez said the house was sold. She told me

to clean up and then I could go.”

His heart skipped. “She sold the house?”

Ann loved him. She couldn’t have sold this house. There was no way.

“That’s right. She said she wouldn’t be staying in Harbor City anymore. The realtor already

brought people by to view it today.”

Otto tore upstairs and threw open the bedroom door.

Spotless. Empty. Every trace of her was gone.

The matching couple’s mugs she always kept on the nightstand. The stuffed animal she liked

to hold when she slept. Every photo of the two of them together. All of it, gone.

He wrenched open the closet. Even her clothes were missing.

Ann was really gone.

He slid to the floor, a hollow ache ripping through his chest. The feeling was suffocating.

His phone rang, sharp and insistent.

It was the firm. He answered immediately.

“Mervyn, tell me where Ann went!”

Mervyn didn’t answer his question. Instead, his voice came through clipped and tight.

“Otto, I need to ask you one thing. The bombing case three years ago. Did you fabricate

evidence?”

His pulse slammed.

His hands started to shake.

“The front of the office is swarming with reporters. They’re demanding answers about the

forged evidence, and they’re even saying you committed marriage fraud!”

The bombing case. Only Ann had known the details.

If it had gotten out, there was only one explanation. She’d leaked it herself.

“Mervyn, hold them off for me. I have to find Ann.”

A long sigh came from the other end of the line.

“Otto, you’re not going to find her. She’s made up her mind.”

Otto rushed out the front door and ran straight into a wall of paparazzi camped at the gate.

They swarmed him instantly, microphones and cameras closing in, questions flying like

shrapnel.

“Attorney Sanchez, as lead counsel at Harbor City’s top firm, did you fabricate evidence to

reduce a defendant’s sentence?”

“Regarding the posts circulating online, is it true you abandoned the girlfriend who stood by you for years and married the Henson family’s second daughter instead?”

Otto’s jaw tightened, frustration and fury boiling over. He snapped.

“Get out of my way!”

The press had no intention of letting him go. They kept pushing.

A figure stepped in front of him.