Chương 10
Nico closed his eyes.
Elena watched him.
“You knew.”
“A little.”
“How little?”
“He told me not to ask questions.”
“And that worked for you?”
Nico opened one eye.
“You spent fifteen years not asking Dad questions.”
The accuracy of it hit harder than the accusation.
Elena stepped back.
Anthony said quietly, “Call the police.”
Teresa moved between him and the phone.
“No.”
He did not raise his voice.
“Move.”
“You call them and whoever has Michael hears sirens before anyone reaches the door.”
“Then we tell dispatch it’s a possible hostage situation and request a controlled response.”
“You think that building isn’t watched?”
“You think walking in ourselves improves the odds?”
“I know the building.”
“So do the people holding her father.”
Teresa’s chin lifted.
“Not like I do.”
Elena looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“There’s another entrance.”
“Of course there is.”
“Elena.”
“No, really, I’m starting to enjoy discovering that every building in Manhattan has a secret passage designed by my grandmother.”
“It isn’t secret.”
“What is it?”
“The neighboring storefronts shared a delivery corridor before the renovations.”
Anthony rubbed his forehead.
“That is not a plan.”
“No,” Elena said.
“It’s a way to look.”
He stared at her.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I’m not going inside.”
“That sentence has never once in human history survived contact with the next ten minutes.”
Teresa almost smiled.
It disappeared immediately.
Elena took her coat from the chair.
Anthony said, “At least let me call someone.”
“Who?”
He hesitated.
That was enough to make Elena stop.
“Who are you, exactly?”
Nico opened his eye again.
Anthony’s face changed in the tiny way people’s faces changed when they discovered the conversation had reached a door they hoped to keep closed.
“I told you.”
“You told me you were helping Nico.”
“I was.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“I do investigative work.”
“For whom?”
“Mostly attorneys.”
“Mostly?”
Teresa said, “Ask him which attorney.”
Anthony looked at her.
Elena felt another floor give way beneath the evening.
“You know him.”
“I know who hired him.”
Anthony’s jaw tightened.
“You said you’d never met me.”
“I haven’t.”
“Then stop performing.”
Elena stepped between them.
“Who hired him?”
Teresa folded both hands over the umbrella.
“Your father.”
Nico whispered, “What?”
Anthony looked genuinely surprised.
That frightened Elena.
“He hired you?”
“Not directly.”
“Then how?”
“An attorney contacted me three weeks ago.”
“Name.”
“Rachel Sloane.”
Teresa’s expression hardened.
Elena caught it.
“You know her too.”
“She represented Emilio’s estate.”
“Grandpa died twenty-four years ago.”
“She was a junior associate then.”
Anthony said, “She represents your father now.”
“For what?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“Then what were you investigating?”
Anthony looked at Nico.
“Him.”
Nico’s eyes opened fully despite the medication.
“Me?”
“Your father thought someone was using you to get access to old business records.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because then I’d be terrible at surveillance.”
“You followed me?”
“For nine days.”
Nico tried to sit up again.
The monitor protested.
The nurse appeared almost instantly.
“Absolutely not.”
“He was stalking me.”
“Wonderful.”
She pressed Nico gently back against the pillow.
“You can file the appropriate complaint when your brain isn’t trying to swell.”
Anthony looked uncomfortable.
“I wasn’t stalking you.”
“You followed me for nine days.”
“For work.”
“That is stalking with invoices.”
Elena would have laughed under any other circumstances.
Instead she stared at Anthony.
“Were you there when he was attacked?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I lost him.”
Nico gave a drugged, bitter laugh.
“Great investigator.”
Anthony accepted it.
“I followed you to Mulberry yesterday afternoon.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“You said nine days.”
“I did.”
“And you never saw me go there before?”
“No.”
Nico frowned.
“I was there four times.”
Anthony looked at him.
“What entrance?”
“The loading bay.”
“I watched the front.”
“The loading bay is on Baxter.”
Anthony’s mouth tightened.
Nico managed a faint smile.
“Great investigator.”
“Enjoy this while the morphine lasts.”
The nurse looked between them.
“I’m adding all of you to my list of reasons to change careers.”
She checked Nico’s monitor again.
“Five minutes, then everybody except one person leaves.”
Elena said, “He shouldn’t be alone.”
“He won’t be.”
Nico looked at her.
“Go.”
She hated how young he sounded.
“I’m not leaving you.”
“You’re leaving me with nurses, security, cameras, and a guy in fourteen who apparently steals government equipment.”
The nurse said, “Mr. D’Angelo and his IV pole have reconciled.”
“See?”
Nico said.
“Safe neighborhood.”
Elena looked at the bruising around his eye.
“I gave them your name,” he said quietly.
She did not answer.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No, I mean—”
“I know.”
She bent and kissed his forehead.
He smelled like antiseptic and the cheap shampoo he always bought in enormous bottles.
“Don’t leave this bed.”
“I wasn’t planning to jog home.”
She straightened.
“Call if anything happens.”
“My phone’s at twelve percent.”
The nurse reached into a drawer and produced a charging cable.
Nico looked impressed.
“I love you.”
“I hear that more than you’d think.”
In the corridor, Anthony took out his own phone.
“I’m calling Sloane.”
Teresa said, “Don’t.”
He dialed anyway.
It rang until voicemail.
He tried again.
Nothing.
Elena watched Teresa.
“You expected that.”
“No.”
“You did something with your face.”
“I have a face.”
“You have twelve faces, and I’m learning all of them.”
Teresa looked almost offended.
Then her phone vibrated in Elena’s hand.
Another unknown message.
This one contained no photograph.
YOU HAVE 40 MINUTES.
BRING TERESA.
NO POLICE.
Anthony read it over Elena’s shoulder.
“Convenient.”
“What is?”
“They know exactly where we are and who’s together.”
Teresa looked toward Nico’s room.
Elena followed her gaze.
“No.”
Anthony was already scanning the corridor.
People moved in both directions.
A woman carried flowers wrapped in plastic.
A man in scrubs argued quietly into a headset.
An elderly couple waited beside the elevators.
A hospital security officer stood at the nurses’ station filling out a form.
May you like
Any one of them could have seen Teresa.
Any one of them could have followed Elena.
