Chương 4
Richard stood.
“Names.”
The woman looked at him. “Excuse me?”
“Your names.”
“Officer Dana Ruiz. This is Officer Bennett.”
“Precinct?”
Ruiz told him.
Richard held out his hand. “Identification.”
Bennett’s eyebrows rose.
Ruiz studied Richard, then produced her department identification without argument.
He checked it.
Lucy watched every movement.
Richard returned the wallet.
“Thank you.”
Ruiz looked toward Lucy. “Are you her guardian?”
“No.”
“Parent?”
“No.”
“Who is she?”
“My granddaughter.”
Lucy looked at him sharply.
It was the first time he had said it aloud.
Ruiz caught the contradiction.
“You just said you’re not her guardian.”
“I met her twenty-five minutes ago.”
Bennett muttered, “Jesus.”
Ruiz shot him a look.
Richard said, “That’s approximately what I thought.”
They separated Richard and Lucy, though not fully. Ruiz spoke with Lucy near the counter while Bennett took Richard’s statement.
Richard watched too much.
Bennett finally said, “Sir, I need you to look at me.”
“I can hear you while watching her.”
“You’re making her nervous.”
“She was nervous before you came.”
“That’s not what I said.”
Richard turned.
Bennett was younger than Anna would have been now. Mid-thirties, maybe. No arrogance in his face. Some impatience.
Richard lowered his voice.
“She believes a police officer helped abduct her mother.”
Bennett’s expression changed.
“Why?”
“She says she saw a badge.”
“That could mean anything.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t make it worse by treating us like suspects.”
Richard stared at him.
Bennett immediately regretted the wording.
Richard said, “Anyone who resents being treated cautiously by a frightened child is not useful to her.”
“I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant.”
Ruiz finished with Lucy and walked over.
“Mr. Vale?”
“Yes.”
“She says her mother was taken from their residence last night. She says she escaped through a basement laundry window this morning.”
Richard looked at Lucy.
She had not told him that.
Ruiz continued. “She spent most of the day trying to find you.”
“How?”
“Her mother had your name and this café written on the back of the photograph.”
Richard looked toward the picture, now lying on the counter.
Ruiz held it by the edges.
On the back, in blue ink, were five words.
RICHARD VALE. FOURTH AND MERCER.
The café sat at Fourth and Mercer Street.
Richard had been coming there most weekdays for six years.
Anna had known.
That knowledge hurt in a different place.
Ruiz said, “We’re checking the apartment now.”
Richard’s phone rang.
Walter.
He answered.
“Tell me.”
Walter’s voice was flat.
“The apartment lease is under Anne Mercer. Signed three years ago. Emergency contact listed as Lucy Mercer. No other adults.”
Richard closed his eyes.
“And Cole?”
“I found a Daniel Cole tied to a private investigations company called Northbridge Compliance. They do corporate internal investigations, insurance work, background services, the usual. Cole’s managing partner.”
“Age?”
“Forty-three.”
The man in the black coat had looked forty-three.
“Description?”
“Six-one, two-ten, brown hair.”
“Photo?”
“I’m sending it.”
Richard’s phone vibrated with the image.
He looked.
Same man.
He turned the screen toward Ruiz.
“This is him.”
Ruiz took the phone.
“Where did you get this?”
“My investigator.”
“You have an investigator?”
“Former.”
Bennett said, “Of course he does.”
Ruiz ignored him.
Richard asked Walter, “Anything connecting Northbridge to Anna?”
“Maybe. I’m still working.”
“How maybe?”
“Northbridge did contract work nine years ago for Halcyon Medical Systems.”
Richard knew the company.
Everyone in the city knew it.
Halcyon owned medical software, hospital billing platforms, secure data-storage services, and half a dozen subsidiaries no ordinary person could name. Ten years earlier, Richard’s office had prosecuted a procurement fraud case involving one of its regional vendors. Halcyon itself had not been charged.
“What does that have to do with Anna?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Richard remembered the photograph.
Chain-link fence. Industrial background.
“What was behind her in the picture?”
Lucy looked at him from across the café.
Ruiz said, “Mr. Vale?”
He walked toward the photograph.
“May I?”
Ruiz handed it to him.
He studied the background.
A gray building. Loading dock. Part of a sign cropped by the edge.
Only three letters visible.
HMS.
Halcyon Medical Systems used those initials.
Walter said through the phone, “You there?”
“Yes.”
“Richard, I need you to hear something else before you decide what story this is.”
“I’m listening.”
“Anna Mercer has a death certificate.”
The café seemed quieter.
Richard said, “I know.”
“No. Not the old declaration. A legal death certificate filed eight years ago in Nevada under Anna Vale.”
Richard stopped.
His daughter had been declared dead after seven years missing. That process had been initiated by Richard himself. There had been no body.
Walter continued.
“But Anne Mercer has a full identity trail starting about eleven years ago. Tax records, rentals, employment. Clean enough to pass normal checks.”
“Fabricated.”
“Maybe.”
“Someone created a new identity.”
“Or she did.”
Richard looked at Lucy.
The child was watching Ruiz now, answering another question.
“What kind of employment?”
Walter hesitated.
“Health data quality contractor.”
“For whom?”
“Halcyon.”
Richard looked again at the photograph.
“Find everything.”
“I’m trying.”
“Faster.”
Walter went quiet.
Then: “You haven’t changed.”
Richard almost snapped back.
Instead he said, “No.”
Walter’s voice softened.
“That wasn’t a compliment.”
“I know.”
He ended the call.
Ruiz approached.
“Mr. Vale, we have a problem.”
“What?”
“The officers at the apartment found signs of a struggle.”
Lucy went still.
Ruiz glanced toward her and lowered her voice.
“Blood.”
“How much?”
“Enough to collect. Not enough to assume fatal injury.”
“Anything else?”
“Broken phone. Furniture overturned. Front door lock damaged from inside.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we don’t know yet.”
Richard disliked uncertainty more than most people disliked bad news.
Lucy had heard anyway.
“My mommy’s blood?”
Ruiz crouched to her level.
“We don’t know whose it is.”
“It’s hers.”
“We don’t know.”
“I do.”
“How?”
Lucy’s mouth tightened.
“She cut her hand.”
“When?”
“Last night.”
“Before the men came?”
Lucy nodded.
“On what?”
“The doll.”
Richard’s attention shifted.
May you like
Lucy hugged it closer.
Ruiz looked at the doll.
