When His Mistress Ran Down My Daughter

The rain came down in sheets. I stood on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street, one arm raised for a cab that wouldn't come, the other wrapped around a girl who was dying in slow motion against my chest.

Rylie's fever had spiked somewhere over the Atlantic. By the time we landed at JFK, she was at 104. Now, three hours later, she was worse. Her skin burned through the thin blanket I'd wrapped around her. Her breath came in shallow, rattling gasps. Her fingers clutched my coat with a grip that should have been impossible for someone so weak.

"Está tudo bem," I whispered into her hair. It's okay. I'd been saying it in Portuguese for ten months. It was the first language she'd trusted. "Quase em casa." Almost home.

She didn't answer. Her head lolled against my shoulder.

I scanned the street. Yellow cabs streamed past, all occupied. Black cars ignored my wave. The rain soaked through my jacket—the same wrinkled travel coat I'd been wearing for thirty-six hours straight. My hair hung in wet ropes down my back. I knew what I looked like. Hollow-eyed. Gaunt. A woman who'd spent ten months in places that didn't show up on tourist maps.

I didn't care.

I just needed to get Rylie to a hospital.

Then I heard the screech.

Tires on wet asphalt. Too fast, too close. I turned and saw the white Porsche fishtail around the corner, clipping the bumper of a parked sedan with a sharp crack of metal on metal. The Porsche lurched to a stop three feet from where I stood.

The driver's door flew open.

She stepped out in heels that had no business on a rain-slicked street. Stilettos. Red-soled. Her dress was cream silk that probably cost more than most people's rent. Her hair fell in perfect waves over bare shoulders. And at her throat—

I stopped breathing.

The Starlight Crescent.

The necklace was unmistakable. Custom Cartier, platinum and diamonds, shaped like a crescent moon cradling a single sapphire star. It had been commissioned by Oscar Scott's grandmother in 1947. It was given to the wife of the eldest Scott son on her wedding day. It had been locked in the family vault for three years, waiting for the day Mitchell would present it to me.

And this woman was wearing it.

"Do you have any idea what you just did?" She stalked toward me, voice sharp enough to cut glass. "Look at my car! Look at it!"

I didn't move. Couldn't. Rylie's weight was dead in my arms. The necklace glinted in the streetlight.

"Are you deaf?" The woman stopped two feet away, eyes raking over me with open contempt. "God, you look like you crawled out of a dumpster. Get out of my way."

"I need—" My voice came out hoarse. I hadn't used English in weeks. "I need to get to a hospital. This girl—"

"I don't care." She stepped closer. "You're going to pay for the damage to my car, you filthy—"

She reached out and shoved me.

I went down hard. Knees on wet asphalt. The impact jolted through my legs but I kept my arms locked around Rylie, twisting my body so she wouldn't hit the ground. Pain shot up my spine.

The woman leaned down and grabbed my jacket, yanking at the collar. "Look at you. Homeless trash. How did you even get to this neighborhood?"

Rylie stirred weakly in my arms. Her eyes fluttered open—glassy, unfocused. She reached one trembling hand toward the woman, maybe asking for help, maybe just confused.

The woman looked at Rylie's outstretched hand. Her lip curled.

Then she shoved Rylie's shoulder, hard, knocking the girl's arm away. "Don't touch me. You're disgusting."

Something in my chest went very still.

I looked up at the woman. At the necklace resting against her collarbone. At the face I'd never seen before but now would never forget.

"Who are you?" I asked quietly.

She laughed. "Who am I? I'm Brittany Lynch. And you're nobody."

Footsteps splashed through puddles behind me. Fast, purposeful. A man's voice cut through the rain.

"Britt! Are you okay? I saw the—"

The voice stopped.

I didn't turn around. I didn't need to. I knew that voice the way I knew my own heartbeat. I'd listened to it every night for three years. I'd heard it whisper promises in the dark. I'd heard it say my name like it was the only word that mattered.

I turned my head.

Mitchell stood five feet away, umbrella in one hand, phone in the other. He wore a charcoal suit that I knew cost eight thousand dollars because I'd approved the tailor's invoice. His hair was perfectly styled. His shoes were Italian leather, unscuffed.

He looked at me.

His eyes passed over my face without recognition. Without even a flicker of pause.

"What's going on?" he asked Brittany.

Not me. Brittany.

"This crazy woman ran into my car," Brittany said, stepping back toward him. "She won't get out of the way."

I stayed on my knees. Rylie's breath rattled against my collarbone. The rain ran down my face.

"Mitchell," I said.

He glanced at me. Impatient. Annoyed.

"Mitchell, it's me."

His brow furrowed. "Do I know you?"

The words hit like a fist to the sternum.

"It's Elaine," I said. My voice cracked. "Your wife."

He stared. For three seconds, maybe four, something flickered behind his eyes—confusion, maybe the beginning of recognition.

Then Brittany laughed. High and bright. "Oh my God. Is this her? The one you told me about?" She turned to Mitchell, looping her arm through his. "Baby, I thought you said she left months ago."

"I did," he said slowly. His eyes stayed on me, narrowing. "Elaine?"

"I found her." I shifted Rylie's weight in my arms, tilting her face toward the light. "Mitchell, I found Rylie. This is your sister. I brought her home."

He looked at Rylie. At her fever-flushed face, her half-closed eyes, her tangled hair.

Then he looked back at me.

And he laughed.

It was a cold sound. Sharp-edged. "You're insane," he said. "My sister's been missing for fifteen years. You think you can just show up with some random sick kid and—"

"She's not random." My hands were shaking. "I've been looking for her for ten months. I found her in Bucharest. Mitchell, look at her. Look at her face. She has your eyes. She has your—"

"Enough." He cut me off with one raised hand. "I don't know what kind of scam you're running, but it's over."

He pulled his phone out. Tapped the screen. Held it up so I could see.

"My lawyer's going to send you divorce papers in the morning," he said. "Sign them. Stay away from me. Stay away from Brittany."

He wrapped his arm around Brittany's waist.

And turned his back on me.

I knelt there in the rain, holding his sister in my arms, and watched him walk away.

Brittany looked back over her shoulder. She smiled.

Then she slid into the driver's seat of the Porsche.

The engine roared.

I saw it happen in slow motion. The way her hands tightened on the wheel. The way her eyes locked onto Rylie. The way her foot slammed down on the accelerator.

The car surged forward.

I threw myself sideways, trying to pull Rylie with me, but the girl's weight was dead and my legs were numb from kneeling and the car was so fast—

The impact sounded like thunder.

Rylie's body flew out of my arms. She hit the pavement ten feet away and skidded, limbs loose, head snapping back against the asphalt. Blood bloomed dark and fast beneath her.

Someone screamed.

I crawled toward her. My hands found her face, her neck, the hot wet spreading across her chest. Her eyes were open. Staring at nothing.

"No," I whispered. "No, no, no—"

I pressed both hands against the wounds. Blood pulsed between my fingers. Hot. Too much.

Around me, voices rose. Phones lifted. Cameras flashed.

I looked up.

Mitchell stood on the sidewalk, frozen, umbrella still open above his head.

Brittany sat in her car, engine idling, watching me through the windshield.

And something inside me—something that had bent and bent and bent for three years—finally snapped.

I reached into my coat pocket.

Found my phone.

And pressed the button I swore I'd never use.