Chapter 1 - Whispers in the Glass TowerEvan Mercer had built towers so tall that people joked he could look down on the weather. Yet on a rainy Thursday night in Chicago, he stood barefoot in his own marble kitchen and felt smaller than the dented blue thermos in his pregnant wife’s hand.
Grace was six months along with their daughter. Evan loved the way her face changed whenever the baby kicked—as if someone knocked softly from the inside, reminding her of wonder. But for the past three months, Grace had been slipping out of their penthouse every night at 7:30 p.m. No driver, no jewelry, no explanation.
She wore old sneakers and a gray wool coat missing a button. Every night, she carried that battered blue thermos with the chipped handle. Evan noticed the signs: hushed calls from the laundry room, large cash withdrawals, and clothes smelling of soup, wet wool, and cheap coffee. Jealousy and suspicion festered in his mind like poison. Was there another man?
“Where do you go every night?” Evan asked, his voice tight as she tightened the thermos lid.
“There are things,” Grace said quietly, looking toward the city skyline, “that don’t sound right when you try to explain them from this high up.”
His phone buzzed. It was his ruthless business partner, Reid Calloway: Need your signature tonight. The St. Agnes site is the final holdout. We close this and West Harbor is ours.
West Harbor was Evan’s two-billion-dollar redevelopment mega-project. The final piece of land to demolish was an old church annex and community hall in a decaying neighborhood.
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Grace kissed his cheek carefully. “Try not to decide who I am before you know where I’ve been,” she whispered, slipping out into the storm.
Driven by fear and mounting suspicion, Evan grabbed his keys and secretly followed his pregnant wife into the dark rain.
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