Chapter 4: The Men at the Gate

Nathan Cross had approved the medical-information form six weeks before Claire gave birth.

She was still looking at the date when June called from the front window.

“Claire. Come here.”

A black SUV had stopped across the street. The driver remained behind the wheel. A second man stood on the sidewalk, holding his phone toward June’s house.

Claire stepped away from the window before he could see her.

“Do you know him?” June asked.

“No.”

The man lifted the phone to his ear. A moment later, Claire’s screen lit up with an unfamiliar number.

She declined the call and sent Tessa a photograph June had taken through the curtain.

Then she called Adrian.

“Did you send someone to my aunt’s house?”

“No.”

“There’s a man outside it with one of your company cars.”

Adrian was silent for half a second. “I’ll find out.”

“Tell him to leave now.”

“He will.”

Claire watched through the narrow gap in the curtain. The man turned toward the house, as if he knew exactly which window she was standing behind.

“You told me the search was over,” she said.

“I called my men off.”

“Then someone gave a new order.”

The baby girl began to cry in the next room. Claire wanted to go to her, but she kept her eyes on the car.

“I’m calling the police if he doesn’t leave,” she said.

“You should.”

That answer stopped her.

Adrian added, “Take down the plate. I’m doing the same from the company records.”

The man outside went back to the SUV. It drove away before Claire had finished speaking with Tessa, but June had the plate in her photograph.

Tessa called back within minutes.

“Don’t open the door if they return. You can report the vehicle. I’m sending a written demand that Adrian’s company and anyone acting for it stop seeking your location.”

“Adrian says he didn’t send them.”

“That may be true. We’ll address the conduct regardless of who ordered it.”

Claire went into the sitting room. June had lifted the girl from her bassinet and was pacing slowly. The boy slept through everything.

“Was it them?” June asked.

“Someone from the company.”

June passed Claire her daughter. “You can move to my friend’s place tonight.”

“If I keep moving every time they find an address, they choose where we live.”

“Then what do you want to do?”

Claire had spent three years letting Adrian’s staff solve problems before she saw them. The house was warm because someone set the temperature. A driver appeared because someone tracked her calendar. Security took photographs of visitors and told her afterward whom they had turned away.

She looked down at her daughter.

“I want a record of every person who came here,” she said.

That afternoon, Claire and June filed a police report about the vehicle. Tessa preserved the photograph and sent formal notices to Adrian, Nathan, and the company’s outside counsel. Claire also changed the twins’ follow-up appointment through the medical office, asked for a review of their privacy preferences, and removed the company number that had been listed as a secondary contact.

Each call took longer than she expected. By the last one, she was tired enough to forget what she had dialed for.

June set a sandwich beside her.

“Eat it before you make another decision,” she said.

Across Boston, Adrian walked into Nathan’s office without knocking.

Nathan looked up from a conference call and held up one finger. Adrian waited just long enough for him to end it.

“Who sent a car to June Bennett’s house?” Adrian asked.

Nathan stood. “Claire’s aunt?”

“You know whose house I mean.”

“I asked our security vendor to confirm the children were safe.”

“Claire already confirmed it.”

“With a text message.”

“She also spoke to me.”

Nathan spread his hands. “Then the driver should have stayed in the car. I’ll have a word with him.”

“He shouldn’t have been there.”

“You’re exhausted,” Nathan said. “You found out your children were born from a message, and you’re letting an attorney tell you to sit quietly.”

Adrian stepped closer to the desk. “Show me the order you gave the vendor.”

Nathan’s expression changed. “You’re taking her side?”

“She is their mother.”

“She took your children.”

“She took them to a hospital. After I failed to answer the phone.”

Nathan looked away first. “I arranged a welfare check. Nothing more.”

“Give Owen the order and every communication about it. Claire’s lawyer gets copies.”

“You have no idea what that will do to us.”

“I’m finding out what you already did.”

Adrian left before Nathan could reply.

That evening, a letter arrived from Tessa containing proposed temporary terms. Adrian read them alone at his kitchen table.

He would receive written updates about the twins’ health. He could ask for a meeting through counsel. Neither his employees nor company contractors would approach Claire, June, the children, or their medical providers. The document also proposed an independent account for the babies’ immediate expenses, managed without company access.

He signed the instruction stopping company contact at once. He sent the expense proposal to his own family attorney for review, with a note asking that it be resolved quickly and without conditions on Claire.

Then he called Ben Calder.

“Who gave Nathan June’s address?”

“I did,” Ben said.

Adrian stared at the dark window. “How did you get it?”

“From the hospital contact inquiry. Nathan said he needed it for the welfare check.”

“Was the inquiry authorized?”

“I thought he had cleared it with you.”

“You should have asked me. I should have made it clear no one was to look for her.”

Ben said nothing.

“Send Owen everything,” Adrian said. “Then tell me whether anyone contacted the hospital after Claire left.”

“I’ll check.”

Adrian ended the call. Across the table lay a note Claire had sent through Tessa. It contained two sentences about the babies. The boy was feeding well. The girl’s temperature had remained steady.

He read it several times, wanting more and knowing he had no right to demand it that night.

At June’s house, Claire received confirmation that the SUV belonged to the vendor Nathan had contacted. She was relieved to have an answer until Tessa called again.

“Nathan is telling the board Adrian has become unreliable,” Tessa said. “That is company business, but it may affect how they respond to our requests. Preserve anything you receive directly from them.”

Claire settled into a chair. “He sent a car to my house, and now he’s using Adrian’s objection against him?”

“That appears to be what he’s doing.”

Claire thought of Nathan at their wedding, standing beside Adrian like a brother.

“Then we need the rest of the records before he decides they’ve gone missing,” she said.