Chương 3
Lucy’s anger failed in the presence of hot bread.
She stared at it.
Mara put the plate down. “Take it with you if you’re leaving.”
“I don’t have money.”
“It costs one dollar.”
Richard looked at Mara.
She looked back. “New children-in-danger discount.”
Lucy reached into her coat pocket.
Her fingers came out holding two coins and a crumpled bus transfer.
Mara selected a dime.
“Perfect.”
“That’s not a dollar,” Lucy said.
“Inflation’s complicated.”
Richard was watching the hallway.
The man had not returned.
“Elise?”
No answer.
Mara turned.
At that moment, something metal crashed in the kitchen.
Lucy jerked so hard the chair legs scraped.
Richard stood.
“Elise!”
She appeared from behind the counter, wide-eyed. “I’m fine.”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Service door?”
She nodded.
“He shoved past me.”
Mara grabbed the phone.
Richard said, “Call now.”
Lucy sprang up. “No!”
“Lucy.”
“You promised.”
“I promised nothing.”
“You said—”
“I said I heard you.”
Her face closed.
It was immediate and severe.
Richard recognized it.
Anna had looked at him that way the night she left home at nineteen.
Not angry anymore.
Done.
Lucy grabbed the photograph.
Richard caught the edge before she could pull it away.
“Let go.”
“No.”
“It’s mine.”
“It’s my daughter.”
“She’s my mother.”
They stared at each other across the wet photograph.
Mara was speaking to emergency dispatch in a low voice, giving the address and describing the man.
Lucy pulled harder.
The paper began to tear at one corner.
Richard released it.
She stumbled backward.
For one terrible second, he saw exactly what he had done with Anna for years. Turned fear into authority. Turned love into possession. Made a person choose distance merely to prove she still belonged to herself.
Lucy shoved the photograph inside her coat.
“I shouldn’t have come.”
“You were right to come.”
“No.”
She moved toward the door.
Richard stepped into her path.
She backed away from him too.
That hurt more than it should have.
“Lucy. Listen.”
“You listen.”
“All right.”
Her breathing shook.
“He said police help bad people too.”
“Who said that?”
“Mommy.”
“Why?”
“Because one police man helped them.”
Mara stopped speaking for half a beat, then continued with dispatch.
Richard looked at Lucy.
“Did she tell you his name?”
“No.”
“Did you see a uniform?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know he was police?”
“He had a badge.”
A badge could be real. It could be fake. It could be from a private security firm, a detective bureau, an old department retirement wallet, or a movie prop bought online.
Richard had once trusted badges as shorthand for the institution behind them.
He had stopped doing that even before retirement.
“Okay,” he said.
Lucy blinked.
“Okay what?”
“Okay, we don’t assume everyone who shows up is safe.”
Mara lowered the phone.
“They’re sending officers.”
Lucy’s eyes flashed.
Richard said, “We stay here until I know who they are.”
“You can know?”
“I can know more than we know now.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He almost told her not to be smart.
Anna had heard that phrase from him enough.
Instead he said, “No. I can’t know for certain.”
Lucy considered that.
It appeared to be the first answer she believed.
Richard sat again.
“Eat.”
She did not.
“You need food.”
“You can’t tell me what to do.”
“True.”
That surprised her.
He gestured toward the sandwich.
“But being right about that doesn’t make starvation a good plan.”
Lucy remained standing for another moment, then sat.
She took one bite.
Then another.
Within thirty seconds she was eating with both hands.
Richard looked away to spare her the embarrassment of being watched.
The café had emptied except for an elderly couple near the pastry case and a young man wearing headphones who had either failed to understand the danger or decided it was less interesting than whatever was on his laptop.
Richard picked up his phone.
Lucy stopped chewing.
“I’m calling someone I trust.”
“You said—”
“Not police.”
“Who?”
“My former investigator.”
“You were police?”
“No.”
“What were you?”
“A prosecutor.”
She chewed slowly.
“That’s like police.”
“Not exactly.”
“Mommy said lawyers make lies sound official.”
Richard rubbed one thumb along the side of the phone.
“She was not entirely wrong.”
He called Walter Greene.
Walter answered after four rings with, “If this is about dinner, I’m still not eating anything described as deconstructed.”
“It isn’t dinner.”
Something in Richard’s voice erased the joke.
“What happened?”
“I have a child with me. Seven years old. She says she’s Anna’s daughter.”
Silence.
Then, quietly, “Don’t do that.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Richard.”
“She has a photograph.”
“So do you.”
“She knows Margaret’s name.”
“Public records.”
“She knows Anna was called Annie.”
Longer silence.
“Where are you?”
Richard told him.
“I’m coming.”
“Check an address first.”
He gave Lucy’s apartment address.
Walter said nothing for a moment.
“Whose place?”
“Supposedly Anna’s.”
“Richard—”
“Check it.”
“Fine.”
“And a name. Cole. Male. Connected to Anna.”
“First name?”
“Unknown.”
“That gives me half the state.”
“Start with property records around the address. Business filings. Criminal cases tied to Anna’s old identity.”
“You’re assuming she kept the surname?”
Richard looked at Lucy.
“What’s your mother’s last name?”
“Mercer.”
Walter heard.
“Mercer,” Richard said.
“I heard her.”
“Good.”
Walter exhaled.
“I’ll call back.”
The line went dead.
Lucy finished half the sandwich and wrapped the rest in a napkin.
“You don’t trust him much.”
“Walter?”
“You told him what to do.”
“That’s how we talk.”
“He sounded mad.”
“That’s also how we talk.”
“Is he your friend?”
Richard looked at the phone.
“I suppose.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m not good at categories.”
Lucy frowned as if this were either suspicious or stupid.
Probably both.
Police arrived eleven minutes later.
Richard hated that he noticed the response time.
May you like
Two officers entered. One was a woman in her late thirties with rain on the shoulders of her uniform jacket. The other was a younger man whose eyes immediately moved to Lucy.
The girl set down the sandwich.
