---- Chapter 17 The initial, explosive wave of joy was quickly followed by a cold, sobering tsunami of reality. He spread the other photos and the brief report across his desk. Ellen Strong, owner and sole proprietor of The Strong Anchor Café in Astoria, Oregon. Arrived five years ago. Lives in a small apartment above the shop. Quiet. Respected by her neighbors. Has no close relationships, but is friendly with everyone. She lives a simple, peaceful, solitary life. She had done it. She had escaped him completely. She had faked her own death to get away from him. The depth of her desperation, the sheer force of will it must have taken to orchestrate such a thing, was staggering. She hadn't just wanted a divorce; she had wanted to erase her very existence from his world. And she had succeeded. While he had been rotting in his self -made prison, consumed by a grief he thought was for a dead woman, she had been out in the world, breathing, living, healing. Rebuilding. The photo of her smiling was a knife in his gut. It was a genuine smile, calm and content. A smile he hadn't seen on her face in years. A smile that had absolutely nothing to do with him. ---- He was a ghost to her. A nightmare from a past life she had successfully buried. The realization was a new kind of torture. His grief had been, in a twisted way, a comfort. It was a connection to her. But this? This knowledge that she was alive and happy without him, that her peace was predicated on his absence? It was a far crueler punishment. But he had to see her. He didn't care about the consequences. He didn't care if she hated him, if she screamed at him, if she threw things at him. He just had to see with his own eyes that she was real. He had to breathe the same air. He took his private jet to Oregon, landing in a small nearby airfield. He didn't take a limousine. He rented a simple, unremarkable sedan. He checked into a small hotel in a neighboring town, using a false name. He drove to Astoria and found her café. It was just as it looked in the photos-charming, welcoming, with flower boxes overflowing with colorful blooms. The sign, "The Strong Anchor," hung above the door. It was a testament to her resilience. To her strength. He didn't go in. He couldn't. He parked across the street, in a spot with a clear view of the front window. And he watched ---- For three days, he sat in his car from sunup to sundown, an anonymous, unseen voyeur. He watched her move through the thythms of her new life. He saw her in the morning, unlocking the door, a small, focused frown on her face as she set out the pastries. He saw her greet her customers, regulars who she knew by name, her smile warm and easy. He saw her wiping down tables, her movements efficient and graceful. It was a simple life. A small life. A world away from the gilded cage he had kept her in. And she was thriving in it. She was glowing with a quiet, inner peace that he had stolen from her and that she had painstakingly reclaimed for herself. He, on the other hand, was a wreck. He hadn't slept. He had barely eaten. He was unshaven, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was wearing the same clothes he'd had on for three days. He was a creature of darkness, a specter of misery, looking in on a world of light he had no right to enter. He was afraid. For the first time in his life, Blake Wallace was truly, profoundly afraid. He was afraid of shattering the fragile peace she had built. He was afraid of the look he would see in her eyes if she saw him-hatred, fear, or worst of all, indifference. On the fourth day, a storm rolled in from the Pacific. The sky turned a dark, bruised purple, and a torrential rain began to fall. The streets emptied as people scurried for cover. He saw Ellen through the café window, looking out at the rain, a thoughtful expression on her face. She stepped outside, ---- under the small awning, to pull in a sign that had been knocked over by the wind. She was only fifty feet away from him. And then she turned. Her eyes, by pure chance, swept across the street. They passed over his car, then flickered back. They paused. And they met his. The world stopped. Time, sound, motion-it all ceased to exist. There was only the rain, the glass of his windshield, and her eyes. He saw the moment of recognition. Her eyes widened, just for a fraction of a second, in pure, unadulterated shock. The color drained from her face. It was a look he would never forget. It was the look of someone seeing a ghost. A monster from a nightmare they thought they had escaped. His own body was frozen. His heart felt like it had seized in his chest. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't move. He could only stare, his soul laid bare, his five years of agonizing penance culminating in this single, shattering moment. The shock in her eyes lasted only a second. Then it was gone. It was replaced by something much, much worse. Her expression smoothed over. Her eyes became cool, calm, and ---- utterly, completely empty. She looked at him not with hatred, not with fear, but with the mild, detached curiosity of someone looking at a stranger who had parked their car in a strange place. There was nothing there. No emotion. No recognition. Nothing. And that utter, absolute indifference was the most brutal judgment she could have possibly delivered. It told him everything he needed to know. He was nothing to her. Less than nothing.