Chương 5
The younger police officer saw it.
“Hands where I can see them.”
The man in the overcoat raised both hands.
“Easy.”
Marco stared at him.
“Vance.”
Sergeant Hall looked from one man to the other.
“You know him?”
Elliot Vance smiled slightly.
“I used to know a lot of people.”
Then his eyes found me.
The smile disappeared.
“Catherine.”
My name in his mouth made my skin crawl.
“You know me.”
“Yes.”
Marco took one step forward.
Vance did not move.
Sergeant Hall put herself between them.
“Everybody keeps their hands visible.”
Vance looked at Logan through the consultation-room glass.
My body moved before I thought.
I stepped in front of his line of sight.
His eyes returned to mine.
“He looks like David.”
My chest tightened.
“You saw my husband?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
Marco said, “Don’t answer him.”
I snapped, “Stop telling me what to do.”
Vance’s mouth twitched.
“You always hated that.”
I went cold.
He saw it.
“David talked about you.”
“When?”
“Frequently.”
“When did you last see him?”
Marco said, “Catherine.”
I ignored him.
Vance lowered his hands slowly after Sergeant Hall nodded.
“Sixteen months ago.”
The same time Alessandro had said David disappeared.
“Where?”
“That depends on whether you want the truth or Romano’s version.”
Marco lunged.
The younger officer drew his weapon.
Sergeant Hall shouted.
Renee pulled Logan away from the glass.
For three seconds, the corridor became a collection of raised hands, half-drawn guns, and people shouting different commands.
Marco stopped.
Vance had not moved.
That bothered me.
He had expected the reaction.
Sergeant Hall pointed at Marco.
“Against the wall.”
“He is the threat.”
“Against the wall now.”
Marco obeyed, furious.
Vance adjusted one cuff of his overcoat.
It was such an ordinary little movement that I wanted to hit him.
“You came here to see Alessandro.”
“No.”
“Then why are you here?”
“To see you.”
I stared at him.
“You had no way to know I’d be working tonight.”
“I knew your schedule.”
Sergeant Hall’s face sharpened.
“That sounds like stalking.”
“It sounds worse than it is.”
“Usually when men say that, it’s worse than it sounds.”
Vance glanced at her badge.
“Sergeant Hall, I don’t want trouble.”
“You picked a strange floor.”
He looked back at me.
“I came because Romano was shot.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
“Stop doing that.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“Doing what?”
“Talking like you own the next five minutes.”
For the first time, he looked unsettled.
Good.
I stepped closer.
“Is David alive?”
Vance looked at my face for a long moment.
Then he said, “He was forty-eight hours ago.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Marco came off the wall despite the officer’s warning.
“You’re lying.”
Vance turned toward him.
“If I were lying, I’d give her something easier to believe.”
I gripped the back of a chair through the open consultation-room door.
Forty-eight hours.
Not sixteen months.
Not two years.
Forty-eight hours.
“Where is he?”
Vance’s gaze came back to me.
“In Baltimore.”
My mouth went dry.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Marco laughed without humor.
“Convenient.”
Vance ignored him.
“David contacted me Tuesday night.”
“Why?”
“He said Romano had finally discovered the wrong leak.”
Marco’s face changed.
It was small, but I saw it.
Vance saw it too.
“There,” he said quietly.
“That’s why I came.”
I looked at Marco.
“What does that mean?”
Marco said nothing.
Vance pointed toward the operating rooms where Alessandro had disappeared.
“It means someone inside Romano’s organization tried to kill him.”
The younger officer lowered his weapon but kept his hand near it.
Sergeant Hall looked at Marco.
“Is that credible?”
Marco’s silence answered.
I turned back to Vance.
“And David?”
“He believes whoever ordered tonight’s shooting is the same person who found the safe house sixteen months ago.”
My pulse hammered in my ears.
“You said David contacted you.”
“Yes.”
“So you can contact him.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He called from a disposable phone.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
His voice softened.
“I expect you to believe David is terrified.”
That hurt because it sounded true.
David had always cracked his knuckles before lying.
He had also cleaned the kitchen when he was afraid.
At six weeks postpartum, I once found him scrubbing an already clean stove at two in the morning after Logan developed a fever.
I had laughed at him.
He had laughed too.
Then we had stood barefoot in the kitchen and watched the thermometer together.
The memory came so sharply that I had to grip the chair harder.
Vance reached into his coat.
Three weapons moved toward him at once.
He froze.
“Phone.”
Sergeant Hall said, “Slowly.”
He removed an old black smartphone and placed it on the nurses’ counter.
“The call left one thing.”
“What?”
“A voicemail.”
My heart seemed to strike my ribs.
“You have his voice?”
Vance looked at me.
“Yes.”
Marco said, “Don’t touch that phone.”
I reached for it anyway.
Sergeant Hall caught my wrist before my fingers touched the phone.
“Not yet.”
I looked at her hand and then at her face.
“That is my husband’s voice.”
“And that is potentially evidence.”
“Evidence of what?”
“I have no idea, which is why nobody is touching it.”
Vance gave a small shrug as if the problem belonged to somebody else now.
Marco’s jaw flexed.
“You bring an unsecured device onto this floor, wave it in front of her, and expect us to trust it?”
“No.”
Vance looked at me.
“I expect Catherine to recognize her husband.”
“I can recognize him without touching the phone.”
Sergeant Hall considered that.
She pulled a pair of gloves from a wall dispenser, put them on, and picked up the device herself.
“Passcode?”
“Four-two-zero-six.”
My stomach tightened.
June fourth.
Our anniversary.
Vance noticed my reaction.
“I didn’t choose it.”
Sergeant Hall unlocked the phone and opened the audio file Vance indicated.
The recording was eleven seconds long.
May you like
She played it on speaker.
For the first two seconds there was nothing except static and the low rumble of what might have been traffic.
