Chapter 3 - The Closing Net
Meline didn't think. Survival instinct took over every logical faculty in her brain.
She bolted across the small apartment, grabbing her heavy winter coat, her worn leather purse containing her cash savings, and her passport under the alias of Clara Evans.
The back exit, she thought frantically. The alleyway leads to the rail line behind the bakery.
She threw open the back door of the basement unit, stepping out into the freezing Boston alley just as heavy, measured footsteps echoed down the front stone stairs of her building.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound of Dominic’s leather shoes hitting the concrete outside her front door was like a countdown clock.
Meline clutched her swollen belly with one hand, her purse with the other, and ran down the narrow, trash-strewn alleyway through the pouring rain. Her boots slipped on the wet cobblestones, sending a jolt of sharp pain through her lower back, but she forced herself forward, biting her lip so hard she tasted copper.
She rounded the corner toward the commuter rail station just as a northbound train hissed to a halt against the platform, its doors sliding open with a pneumatic sigh.
Thank God.
She scrambled up the metal steps, panting heavily, her pregnant frame drawing sympathetic glances from a pair of elderly commuters near the door. She shoved a twenty-dollar bill into the automated ticket machine, grabbed a slip to nowhere, and collapsed into a hard plastic seat near the back carriage just as the doors slid shut.
Through the rain-streaked window of the train, as the engine groaned and began to pull away from the platform, she saw him.
Dominic stood at the edge of the station platform.
He wasn't wearing a hat. The rain soaked his dark hair, plastering it against his forehead, and his long charcoal coat was drenched. He didn't look angry; he looked desolate, his dark eyes sweeping the departing train with an expression of such raw, desperate anguish that it made Meline’s breath catch in her throat.
He had seen her.
As the train accelerated into the dark railway tunnel, plunging the carriage into shadow, Meline pressed her forehead against the cold glass and let the tears finally fall.
He hadn't stopped looking. He hadn't forgotten.
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And worse—as she looked down at her heavy winter coat struggling to contain her six-month pregnant belly—she realized a terrifying truth:
Running was no longer an option. Sooner or later, he wouldn't just find her apartment; he would find his child.
