Chương 6
“Connection?” Ortiz asked.
Adrian shook his head.
The prepaid phone was locked, but an extraction team had recovered notification previews from the memory cache. One message had arrived at 4:41 p.m.
WAIT. V CONFIRMING SOUTH SITE.
Another, at 5:03:
WITNESS. MOVE NOW.
A third appeared after midnight:
VALE MEN CHECKING RIVER. DO NOT CALL.
Camille leaned forward. “Those messages indicate someone knew Mr. Vale’s search locations in real time.”
“Yes,” Ortiz said. “That’s why no one leaves without telling me.”
Rourke entered the room.
“We have more than forty men coordinating searches,” he said. “Dispatchers, drivers, security staff. Information moved constantly.”
“You oversee security?” Ortiz asked.
“Yes.”
“You maintain the search communication network?”
“Yes.”
“How many people had full access?”
“Six.”
“Names.”
Rourke looked at Adrian.
Adrian said, “Give them to her.”
Rourke listed himself, Adrian, the night operations director, two regional supervisors, and Vincent Lasko.
Maya watched Adrian.
There it was again—a stillness around the name.
“Who is Lasko?” Ortiz asked.
Adrian answered. “Chief operating officer of Vale Meridian.”
“Where is he?”
“Toronto.”
Rourke said, “He flew out two days ago for a port acquisition meeting.”
Ortiz wrote something down. “Did he participate in the search?”
“Remotely,” Rourke said.
Maya shifted in the chair.
Lucia stirred.
The child opened her eyes and looked at Rourke.
Her fingers tightened around Maya’s.
Rourke noticed.
“What is it, Lucy?” Maya asked.
The girl buried her face against the pillow.
Rourke’s expression remained blank, but color rose along his neck.
Adrian stepped between him and the bed.
“Leave the room.”
“Adrian—”
“Now.”
Rourke walked out.
Ortiz waited until the door closed.
“Lucia,” she said gently, “do you know that man?”
Lucia did not answer.
Maya touched the pink butterfly clip. “You don’t have to say anything until you’re ready.”
Adrian glanced at her, but he did not contradict her.
Lucia whispered into the pillow, “He came to the school.”
“When?” Ortiz asked.
“The day before.”
“Did he speak to you?”
“He said Papa changed the car.”
Rourke’s voice carried faintly from the hallway as he spoke to someone on the phone.
Adrian’s face hardened.
“Rourke has picked her up from school before,” Camille said. “That is not unusual.”
Lucia turned her head slightly. “He said don’t tell Ms. Amy.”
“Who is Ms. Amy?” Ortiz asked.
“My teacher.”
“Did Rourke pick you up that day?”
“No. The other car came.”
“What other car?”
“The gray one.”
Adrian placed both palms on the bed rail.
Camille said his name quietly.
He released the rail.
Ortiz stepped into the hallway with two officers. Rourke was gone.
The stairwell door at the end of the corridor swung slowly shut.
One officer ran toward it while another called hospital security. Adrian reached beneath his shirt.
Maya saw the motion.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Whatever you’re carrying,” she said. “Not in here.”
His hand remained beneath the black fabric.
Lucia watched him.
After a moment, he withdrew an empty hand.
Hospital security locked the unit. Elevators stopped. Nurses closed patient-room doors while trying not to alarm families. A toddler in the next room began wailing because his cartoon had frozen on the television.
The world did not become cinematic simply because a dangerous man had fled. A janitor kept mopping the hall. A respiratory therapist complained that nobody had returned her charger. Someone burned toast in the staff lounge.
Rourke was found twelve minutes later in the parking garage, sitting in his car with his hands on the steering wheel.
He had not tried to escape the property.
He told Ortiz he left because Adrian had ordered him out and he needed air.
The detective detained him for questioning but did not arrest him. Visiting a child’s school and leaving a hospital room were not crimes. He denied knowing Kroll or Munn. His phone showed no direct contact with either man.
Adrian wanted him removed from the search network.
Camille advised against retaliatory action.
“He may be guilty,” she said. “He may also be frightened of you.”
“He should be.”
“That is not useful.”
“It has been useful for twenty years.”
“And your daughter was still taken.”
Adrian looked toward the glass wall of Lucia’s room.
Maya pretended to be asleep.
By noon, she had given three statements, answered questions from child protective services, and been asked twice whether Adrian had offered her money. She told the truth.
The caseworker, Nora Bell, had kind eyes and a voice trained to remain calm while saying things people hated.
“We need to understand your relationship to Lucia,” Nora said.
“I met her yesterday.”
“She appears strongly attached to you.”
“She was kidnapped. I was the person who stayed.”
“That attachment can feel very intense after trauma.”
“I know.”
Nora tilted her head. “Do you?”
Maya disliked the question because the answer was complicated.
“My sister used to hide behind me when our parents fought,” she said. “For a while she thought that meant I could protect her.”
“What happened to your sister?”
“She died.”
Nora waited.
Maya looked at the plastic water cup in her hands. The lid had warped where she kept pressing her thumb against it.
“She had asthma. Our mother left us alone. There was a storm. I went to find her inhaler because it was empty. I took too long.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
“How old was she?”
“Seven.”
“I’m sorry.”
Maya nodded without looking up.
People often apologized in a way that required her to comfort them. Nora did not. She let the silence remain where it belonged.
“Have you had counseling?” the caseworker asked.
“Some.”
“Recently?”
“No.”
“Any criminal history?”
“A trespassing charge was dismissed. One disorderly conduct citation.”
“What happened?”
“My landlord put my things outside before the eviction was final. I put them back.”
Nora’s expression suggested she had read stranger case files.
“Employment?”
“I worked at Harbor View Assisted Living until two months ago.”
“Why did that end?”
“I was fired.”
“For?”
“Missing shifts.”
May you like
“Why did you miss them?”
Maya folded the cup’s rim inward.
