Updated Oct 29, 2025 • ~10 min read
Five months later, Jane Mercer had become real.
She had a studio apartment above a bakery in Seabrook Bay—a tiny coastal town in Maine where tourists came in summer and left ghosts behind in winter. She had a job at Chapter & Verse, the bookstore on Main Street that smelled like old paper and lavender tea. She had a routine: open at nine, lunch break at noon, close at six, walk to the beach as the sun set.
She had a new name, a new life, a new story.
The locals thought she was a widow. She’d never said it explicitly, but the assumption had formed on its own—young woman, visibly pregnant, no ring, sad eyes. Mrs. Gallagher who owned the bakery had asked once, gently, and Jane had just looked down at her growing belly and said, “It’s just us now.”
Mrs. Gallagher had patted her hand. “You’re strong. You’ll be okay.”
And somehow, improbably, Jane was starting to believe it.
The pregnancy had progressed beautifully despite everything. Twenty-two weeks now. The morning sickness had finally faded. Her belly was unmistakably round under the oversized sweaters she wore. And yesterday—yesterday she’d felt something.
A flutter. Like butterfly wings against the inside of her skin.
The baby. Moving. Real.
She’d been shelving books in the poetry section when it happened, and she’d frozen with her hand pressed to her stomach, tears suddenly streaming down her face.
“You okay, Jane?” Marcus, her boss, had called from the register.
“Yeah,” she’d managed. “Just… the baby kicked.”
Marcus had grinned—he was sixty, gruff, had owned the bookstore for thirty years and treated her like a daughter he’d never had. “That’s good. That’s real good. Means they’re strong.”
Strong.
She hoped so. God, she hoped so.
Now, walking down the beach path as November wind whipped off the Atlantic, Jane pulled her coat tighter and breathed in salt air. The beach was empty this time of evening—too cold, too dark, too unforgiving for anyone but people like her.
People who needed the ocean to make sense of things.
She’d chosen Seabrook Bay deliberately. Small enough to disappear. Far enough from Connecticut that no one would think to look. Close enough to the water that she could remember who she used to be.
Her grandmother had loved the ocean. Had grown up on Cape Cod, spent every summer swimming and sailing and collecting sea glass.
“The ocean doesn’t lie to you,” she’d told young Celeste once. “It’s exactly what it is. Powerful and beautiful and dangerous. Be like that, darling girl. Be exactly what you are.”
Jane sat down on a weathered bench—her bench, she thought of it now, the one she came to every evening—and watched the waves crash against the rocks. The sun was setting, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple and deep, bruised blue.
She put both hands on her belly and waited.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Do it again. Let me feel you.”
Nothing at first. Then—there. A tiny bump against her palm. Unmistakable.
Jane laughed, the sound catching in her throat. “Hello, baby. Hello.”
Another bump. Stronger.
“I don’t know if you’re a boy or a girl yet. Won’t know for another few weeks. But I know you’re brave. You survived that crash. You’re surviving all of this.” She traced circles on her stomach. “Your father—” The word tasted wrong. “Your biological father is a terrible person. But you don’t need him. We don’t need anyone.”
The lie felt necessary. Protective.
Because the truth was, some nights Jane lay awake in her studio apartment and felt the crushing weight of loneliness. Felt the terror of doing this alone. Felt the ghost of who she used to be—Celeste Ashford who had family and friends and resources—haunting the edges of Jane Mercer who had nothing.
But she couldn’t go back.
Going back meant David. Meant Vivienne. Meant becoming pathetic again.
“We’ll be okay,” she told the baby. Told herself. “I promise. We’ll—”
“Celeste?”
The voice came from behind her.
Male. Deep. Shocked.
Jane’s entire body went rigid.
No one here knew that name. No one anywhere knew that name anymore because Celeste Astor was dead, presumed killed in a car accident, memorial service held six weeks ago according to the brief news article she’d found online.
Beloved wife. Devoted philanthropist. Tragically taken too soon.
She’d cried reading it. Not for herself, but for the lie of it. For the fact that even in death, they’d made her into what they wanted.
Slowly—so slowly—Jane turned around.
A man stood ten feet away on the beach path. Tall, dark-haired, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. Staring at her like he’d seen a ghost.
Because he had seen a ghost.
Gabriel Astor.
Her dead husband’s brother.
Jane’s mind raced. Run. She should run. But her legs wouldn’t move, and running would only confirm what he clearly already knew.
“Oh my God.” Gabriel took a step closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “Celeste. You’re—you’re alive.”
She stood up carefully, one hand instinctively moving to protect her belly. “I think you have me confused with someone else.”
“Don’t.” He stopped moving, held up both hands like she was a wild animal he didn’t want to spook. “Please don’t. I know it’s you. I—” His eyes dropped to her stomach, visible even under the coat. His face went pale. “Jesus Christ.”
They stared at each other as the wind howled and the waves crashed and Jane’s carefully constructed new life crumbled around her.
“How did you find me?” Her voice came out steadier than she felt. Jane Mercer’s voice, not Celeste’s. “Are you—did David send you?”
“What?” Gabriel looked genuinely shocked. “No. God, no. I’m here for work. Architecture consulting for a resort development—I didn’t even know—” He ran a hand through his hair, looking shaken. “Everyone thinks you’re dead. There was a memorial. David gave this whole speech about—” He stopped. “You know what, fuck David. Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
The concern in his voice sounded real.
Jane didn’t trust it.
“I’m fine. And I need you to leave.” She started walking, moving past him on the path.
Gabriel turned, following. “Wait. Celeste—”
“That’s not my name anymore.”
“Okay. Okay, what do I—what should I call you?”
“Nothing. You should call me nothing and forget you ever saw me.” She walked faster, her heart pounding. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not when she’d finally started to feel safe.
“I’m not going to tell anyone.” He was keeping pace beside her, voice urgent. “I swear to God, I won’t tell David or anyone else that you’re alive. But you need to tell me what happened. Why everyone thinks you’re dead. Why you’re—” He gestured helplessly at her belly. “Why you ran.”
Jane stopped walking. Turned to face him on the darkening path, streetlights beginning to flicker on around them.
“You want to know why I ran?” Her voice was sharp, all the rage she’d been holding back for three months suddenly surfacing. “I overheard your brother and my sister fucking in his study. Planning their future together. Laughing about how pathetic I was, how desperate, how glad they’d be when they could finally stop pretending. And then—” Her hands were shaking. “Then someone ran me off the road. Someone in a truck, in the middle of nowhere, who didn’t stop to help. Who just drove away and let me die.”
Gabriel’s expression shifted through several emotions—shock, anger, something that looked like guilt.
“The accident,” he said quietly. “The one on Route 7. That was you.”
“Obviously.”
“And you think David—” He stopped. Closed his eyes. “Fuck. Of course you do. Of course he would.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Gabriel looked at her, really looked at her, and Jane saw something raw in his face. Something that had been there all along, she realized, at all those family dinners and holidays when he’d barely spoken, barely stayed, barely acknowledged her existence.
“It means,” he said slowly, carefully, “that I’m not surprised. It means I know exactly what my brother is capable of. And it means—” His voice dropped. “It means I should have done something a long time ago.”
“Done what?”
“Protected you.”
The words hung between them in the salt air.
Jane’s throat tightened. “Why would you protect me? You barely know me. You never—we never even talked. At family events you acted like I didn’t exist.”
“I know.” Gabriel’s jaw clenched. “Because it hurt too much to watch you trapped in that marriage. Hurt to see you disappear a little more every year. And I couldn’t—” He stopped. Started again. “I couldn’t help you without making it worse. David would have—” Another pause. “It doesn’t matter now. What matters is you’re alive. And you’re pregnant. And you need help.”
“I don’t need anything from an Astor.”
“Fair.” He didn’t move closer, didn’t push. Just stood there in the growing dark, looking at her like he was trying to memorize her face. “But I’m not leaving town. I’m here for three weeks on this project. And I’m not going to tell anyone where you are. I swear on—on anything you want me to swear on.”
Jane studied him. Tried to read deception in his face and found only sincerity.
Which could be a lie. He was David’s brother. Blood. Family.
But something in her gut—the same instinct that had told her to run, that had kept her alive this long—said he was telling the truth.
“Jane,” she said finally. “My name is Jane Mercer. I’m a widow. I work at a bookstore. That’s all anyone needs to know.”
Gabriel nodded slowly. “Jane Mercer. Got it.”
“And if you tell anyone—anyone—that I’m alive—”
“I won’t.”
“—I’ll disappear again. And you’ll never find me.”
“I believe you.” He pulled a business card from his pocket, held it out. “My number. In case—I don’t know. In case you need something. Or want to talk. Or—” He seemed to struggle with words. “In case you’re in danger.”
Jane didn’t take the card. “I was in danger. Then I left. Now I’m safe.”
“Are you?” Gabriel looked pointedly at her stomach. “Because from where I’m standing, you’re alone and pregnant and living under a fake name because someone tried to kill you. That doesn’t sound safe.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Jane hated that he wasn’t wrong.
She took the card. Didn’t look at it. Just shoved it in her coat pocket.
“Stay away from me, Gabriel.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” But he didn’t move as she walked away. She could feel his eyes on her back, all the way down the path, all the way to the street that led to her apartment.
When she finally glanced back, he was still standing there on the beach in the dark.
Watching. Waiting. Like a guardian or a ghost.
Jane climbed the stairs to her studio, locked the door, and sank down against it.
Her hands were shaking again. The baby was kicking—upset by her stress, probably. She rubbed her belly gently, trying to calm down.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “He won’t tell. He won’t—”
But even as she said it, doubt crept in.
Because Gabriel Astor had found her.
And if he could find her, who else might?
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