Chapter 63: Anne and Susie
One Week Later
A Hotel in Manhattan
Adam and Nora came back from dinner at a Chinese restaurant — her favorite spot, the one she'd insisted on three times in the past week alone.
Nora's expression was warm but complicated. She turned to him in the hotel lobby and said, "Adam, I have to leave tonight."
"Tonight?" He was genuinely surprised.
"My flight is at ten." She paused. "I should have left last week. I didn't plan to stay this long. But now I really have to go, or I won't be able to make myself leave at all."
Adam was quiet for a moment.
He understood what she wasn't saying. He also understood, with the clarity of someone who had observed enough of this world's particular brand of romantic chaos, that some situations were better left clean.
Nora had come to New York to see her son. She'd ended up staying nine extra days, eating Kung Pao Chicken, talking about books, and somehow letting a college freshman chip away at the careful emotional distance she'd built over the years following a marriage that had ended in ways she'd once described with the specific dry humor of someone who had made peace with something genuinely strange.
Adam respected that distance. He also respected what it had cost her to build it.
"I'll ride with you to the airport," he said.
"Random House arranged a car," she said. "You don't have to."
"There's a Chinese restaurant on the way," he said simply.
Nora looked at him for a moment. Then she laughed — a real one.
"Fine," she said.
Before they headed out, she mentioned the book. "Book went on sale yesterday. I saw the numbers. They're not good. I could make a call — or ask someone else to recommend it, if you'd prefer to keep my name out of it."
"Please don't," Adam said, shaking his head.
"Adam—"
"I'm serious." He smiled. "I already received the advance from the first print run. I'm not desperate for the money right now. And I believe in the book. If it's going to find its audience, I'd rather it happen honestly than because someone did me a favor."
She studied him. "Jack is going to use the poor early numbers to pressure you into giving up more rights."
"I know," Adam said. "He already tried during this morning's call. I said no."
"He controls the distribution channels."
"He does," Adam agreed. "And the book is good enough that readers will find it anyway. It'll just take longer."
Nora was quiet for a moment. Then she said, with something that sounded like genuine respect: "You're stubborn in an unusual way."
"I've been told."
They got into the car Random House had sent, asked the driver to stop at the restaurant on the route to JFK, and lowered the privacy partition.
A clean goodbye. Nothing left unsaid that needed to be said. Nothing said that would need to be walked back.
That felt right.
Meanwhile — The First Reader
New Jersey
A lawyer named David Holt had stumbled across Lord of the Hidden three days earlier while browsing a bookstore near his office. The cover had caught his eye, the first paragraph had caught his attention, and he'd stood in the aisle reading for twenty minutes before buying it and taking it home.
He'd stayed up most of the night finishing it.
The novel had been sitting on his desk ever since, face-up, because he kept coming back to reread sections.
He hadn't expected his ten-year-old daughter Annie to find it.
"Daddy," Annie said, appearing in his office doorway with the book tucked under her arm and her most persuasive expression in place. "I want a Susie."
"Who is Susie?"
"She's the big golden dog. She belongs to Audrey — Miss Justice Audrey — in the book. She can almost understand everything Audrey says." Annie held the book out as evidence. "She's always suspicious of strangers but she's incredibly loyal. I want one exactly like her."
David Holt looked at his daughter, then at the novel, then at his daughter again.
He'd been enchanted by the novel's layered mystery and elaborate world-building. His daughter had apparently read straight past all of that and zeroed in on the golden retriever.
He thought about Audrey — sunny, courageous, warm-hearted, the kind of character who illuminated every scene she was in. He thought about Annie — ten years old, bright, fiercely protective of the things she loved.
"Okay," he said. "But you take care of her."
Annie clapped her hands and threw her arms around him. "I'll be her best friend. I promise."
David Holt smiled, already thinking about which bookstore would have the second volume when it came out.
He had a feeling he was going to be waiting for it.
End of Chapter 63
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