<< Go Back

Convenient Lies (Hidden Truth Book 1)

By Robin Patchen

Order Now!

There were only two people Rachel Adams trusted. One was twelve days old, and the other had mysteriously quit answering her phone. At least Gram could be counted on to stand by her side, assuming Rae could get in touch with her. And Jean-Louis? The baby didn’t know any better.
The betrayers were too many to count. Julien, though. His betrayal was the most recent, and the most brutal.
Rae pretended to sleep as his lips brushed her forehead, leaving behind the scent of his cologne. She didn’t move as she listened to the snap of the lock, kept still while she imagined Julien making his way down the staircase to the first floor and across the black and white tiles in the foyer. The heavy carved door slammed one story below.
Hector would fall in step beside him. Rae had asked Julien once why he didn’t have his guard pick him up in the car outside their building.
“And miss the morning walk through my favorite city? Never.”
She could almost hear his teasing tone. Always with a smile. Always with that look in his eyes that made her feel so loved.
Would he nod to the men he left behind to guard her and Jean-Louis? Or did they stay in the shadows the way they did when she left the building? For her protection, or so he’d said.
Julien would stride down the street past the patisserie, which would just be opening for business, the scent of freshly baked croissants and yeasty loaves wafting around him.
A few minutes ticked by. Surely Julien was in his car, out of the parking garage, and on his way to his early morning meeting by now. And yet she waited. Last week, he’d left for a meeting only to return ten minutes later for one last kiss on his infant son’s forehead. She couldn’t chance that happening again, especially when he’d told her he might not make it home tonight. When fifteen minutes had passed and he hadn’t returned, she flipped back the covers and jumped out of bed.
After a quick shower, she dressed and pulled her hair into a bun. She grabbed the clothes she’d need and shoved them into her suitcase. She spared one fleeting thought for the wardrobe filled with designer clothes back in Tunis, but she shook it off. What use would she have for those things now?
When she finished, she tiptoed into Jean-Louie’s room and grabbed a handful of outfits for him. Not too many. He’d grow out of them in a few weeks, anyway.
The messenger bag she’d use as a carry-on was more suited for her laptop, but Julien had made her leave that back in Tunis when she’d been ordered to bedrest. “No more work for you, young lady.” His charming smile hadn’t set her at ease when he’d taken the laptop and her smart phone and handed them to one of his servants, who’d bowed quickly and disappeared. Julien had given her a cheap flip phone for emergencies. “Our child needs all your attention.”
That’s when she’d started to worry. Did he know she’d discovered his secrets?
The messenger bag was already packed with the baby gear she’d need on the long trip. She lifted the interior flap and pulled out a manila envelope. She felt the flash drive she’d slid into it, along with a handful of photocopies. Maybe they’d save her. Maybe not.
She unlocked the ornately carved box on the top of her bureau, removed the jewelry from their protective boxes, and dropped them in a paper bag. Who would store thousands of dollars’ worth of gemstones in a sack from the market? It looked like a pile of trinkets one might buy at a kiosk at the mall.
Finally, Rae dug a box from deep in the closet. She’d owned these items for years, worn them in Africa to fit in where western women often wouldn’t. She hated them. She’d seen what the clothes meant for women all over the world. She despised them. They would be the perfect disguise. Julien’s guards would never suspect it was she who hid beneath.
She pulled the loose-fitting black abaya over her jeans and T-shirt, then fastened on her baby carrier. She added the wide black scarf around her shoulders and positioned it over the baby’s sling. Yes, that should work as long as Jean-Louis kept quiet.
She pulled the note she’d written from her bedside drawer and reread it, just to be sure. The hospital called. Gram’s taken a turn for the worse, and she’s not expected to pull through. Forgive me, but I have to see her. I’ll call when we change planes this afternoon. Love, Rae.
Love, Rae. Those last two words had been the hardest to write, not because they weren’t true, but because, on some level, they still were.
She left the note on Julien’s bedside table. No going back now.
She grabbed the second note and walked to his office. He kept the door locked, but the old fashioned locks were easy enough to pick. She’d done it enough, it took less than a minute to get the door open. She opened the file cabinet and slipped the note into a file containing information on his other business, the one he’d kept from her. When Julien realized Rae wasn’t where she said she’d be, he’d check his files. Then he would know. Either he would leave her alone because she could expose him, or he would hunt her down. She hoped he would choose the first. She glanced at the photograph of Julien and Jean-Louis on the desk, the one she’d snapped a week earlier. The love that shone in her husband’s gaze was unmistakable. Tears stung her eyes. At least she knew that wasn’t a lie. Maybe Julien loved his son enough to let him go.
She wouldn’t count on it.
In the bedroom, she fastened the niqab around her head so only her eyes showed. After she dragged her suitcase to the front door, she returned to the baby’s room, where she changed his clothes. His eyes blinked open, and she kissed his cheek. “Shh, baby. Go back to sleep.”
He scrunched up his little face as if he were about to cry. At least his cry wasn’t that loud yet. At two weeks old, his little lungs could only make so much noise. She lifted him and rocked him until he relaxed against her shoulder.
As she eased him into the sling, he barely stirred. She draped the scarf over him, placed the messenger bag on top of the suitcase, and slipped out.
She lugged her suitcase down the stairs, through the center courtyard, and out a side door, where the tiny cab she’d ordered the night before waited for her in the alley. The taxi driver hefted her suitcase into the trunk while she glanced left and right, straining to see in the dim light of dawn. Julien’s guards were nowhere in sight. The morning was quiet. Free of weapons and violence, for now.
“Charles de Gaul, s’il vous plait.”
The drive to the airport seemed to take forever. Rae didn’t relax until her flight’s wheels lifted off the runway.
She kissed Jean-Louie’s tender head, wiped the tears that had dropped onto his thin spray of hair, and whispered, “We’re safe, for now.”

Nearly nine hours later, Rachel pulled her suitcase to the curb at Logan International Airport. She dropped the abaya, scarf, and niqab, along with the remaining airline ticket, into the trash can, and climbed into a beat-up yellow cab. The taxi slid onto the highway and was quickly engulfed in the chaos of the traffic headed to downtown Boston.
Rachel Adams had disappeared.

Order Now!

<< Go Back