Read Identity Crisis for Free Online Page B

here.”
    “Thanks. Where do you live?”
    “In Lower Haight.”
    Haight Ashbury was an eclectic area of the city with trendy shops and restaurants. Lower Haight was a bit grittier. She could see Ethan fitting in there.
    “Do you own a condo there?”
    “Rent an apartment. I spend half my nights in safe houses, so why bother buying. It’s a place to sleep. I don’t need a home.”
    “Everyone needs a home.”
    “I don’t.”
    How sad was that? All she’d ever wanted was a normal home. She’d worked hard to make her condo cozy and homey, so it felt like she’d lived there for years, which she planned to do.
    Ethan scanned the front of the fridge. An Eiffel Tower magnet held a list of phone numbers for restaurants that delivered in a two-mile radius. A photo of a Tahitian hut she’d torn out of a travel magazine in case she ever decided to take a vacation. “You like opera?”
    She glanced over at the two opera tickets to
Carmen
. “I was taking my dad for his birthday at the end of the month.” She popped a pod in the top of the coffee maker.
    “I’m sorry.”
    She nodded, unable to meet his gaze. If his eyes were as gentle and sincere as his voice, she’d start crying, and she didn’t want to put Ethan in the position of having to comfort her. If he didn’t, she’d feel like a complete idiot. Especially since she wanted him to wrap his arms around her and guarantee her everything would be all right.
    She hit the on button and the coffee machine gurgled to life, filtering water into its system.
    “Who’s that?” Ethan pointed at a photo of her and Luc.
    She hadn’t packed it away with the others when they’d broken up almost a year ago because it had been taken at her gallery’s most successful exhibition. A year with Luc, a French art critic, had been a new record for her. He’d moved back to Paris, and she hadn’t wanted to tag along. Even if she had loved him, she couldn’t have left her dad or gallery, which consumed every ounce of her energy. Besides, she’d never really fit in with Luc’s close-knit family. Not being French, they’d made her feel like an outsider the three times she’d met them. At least she wanted to blame them that she hadn’t clicked with their family. When Luc had approached his mother with this fact, she’d denied it and didn’t speak to him for weeks. Olivia wasn’t going to be responsible for tearing apart his family.
    “A friend from Paris.” She inhaled a deep breath, the aroma of coffee relaxing her.
    He nodded faintly, appearing to question the “friend” thing. “Does he need to know you’re leaving town and supposedly coming to Paris?”
    “No. Nobody besides Rachel needs to know.”
    If she disappeared, nobody besides Rachel would likely care. She’d miss her condo, job, clients, and artists, but outside of her business partner, she had no friends or family to break ties from. Everything she’d be leaving behind, besides her condo, was job related. Even Rachel. She could almost vanish without a trace.
    “Probably best if you don’t have a neighbor pop in to water plants or get your mail. The fewer people who know you’re gone, the better.”
    She’d lived there three years and even if she knew her neighbors well, she couldn’t imagine entrusting one with a key to her apartment or her mailbox.
    She handed Ethan a coffee mug.
    “Thanks,” he said as his phone went off at his waist. He glanced down at the display and answered it as he headed into the living room. “What’s up?”
    She started another pod of coffee brewing and a few minutes later hazelnut coffee was filtering through her system when Ethan headed back into the kitchen.
    He took a gulp of coffee. “I’ve gotta run. Emergency. My partner Mike will be here any minute with your new I.D. He’ll stay with you ‘til I get back around nine. Our flight’s not until twelve-thirty, but I have a stop I need to make on the way to the airport.” His eyes darkened and his fingers