Chương 2
ELENA RUSSO.
Vincent stopped breathing normally.
Marco noticed before he said anything.
"You know that name."
Vincent stared at the frozen pixels.
"Get me the clearest image of the girl."
"Vincent."
"The girl."
Marco worked silently.
A traffic camera had caught Sophie waiting at a corner.
Her face was turned upward toward the pedestrian signal.
Blonde curls escaped a crooked ponytail.
Her nose was small and slightly upturned.
Then there were her eyes.
Gray at first glance.
Green beneath that.
A ring of darker color around each iris.
Vincent felt the hospital room contract.
His mother had called them storm eyes.
His father had hated the phrase.
Vincent had inherited them.
So had his sister Lucia.
Lucia had been dead eleven years.
"How old is she?" Vincent asked.
Marco didn't answer.
"How old?"
"I don't know."
"Find out."
Marco looked at the girl's image, then at Vincent.
Something uncomfortable passed across his face.
"There's an easier question."
Vincent knew what he meant.
He did not ask it.
Elena Russo had been twenty-eight when Vincent met her.
She worked evenings at a small accounting office in Astoria and corrected his grammar even when doing so was dangerous.
Especially then.
She had once thrown his twelve-hundred-dollar phone into a bowl of soup because he answered it during dinner.
He had laughed.
She hadn't.
For fourteen months, she had been the only person in his life who seemed unimpressed by the machinery surrounding him.
Then Vincent's father died, three men began fighting over territory that should have transferred cleanly, and somebody put a bullet through the windshield of Elena's car.
She survived because she had gone back upstairs for her umbrella.
Vincent sent her away.
He told himself it was protection.
He accomplished it by being cruel enough that she would never come back.
The memory arrived with the smell of hospital disinfectant and the soft electronic pulse beside his bed.
You were entertainment, Elena.
Nothing more.
He had watched her face empty.
Then she left.
Seven years had passed.
Marco finally spoke.
"The pharmacy has a customer profile."
Vincent turned toward him.
"Don't tell me how you got it."
"I wasn't planning to."
"Sophie Russo."
Marco swallowed.
"Six years and four months old."
Vincent looked again at the screen.
Arithmetic had never frightened him before.
This time it did.
Three days later, against medical advice and with a portable cardiac monitor hidden beneath his shirt, Vincent stood in the hallway of a fourth-floor walk-up in Queens.
The building smelled of fried onions, laundry detergent, and somebody's cigarette smoke.
Marco waited downstairs because Vincent had ordered him to.
Vincent regretted that decision the moment he reached apartment 4C.
A child had taped a drawing beside the door.
It showed two stick figures holding hands beneath an enormous orange sun.
One figure was labeled MOM.
The smaller one was labeled ME.
There was no father.
Vincent raised his hand to knock.
Coughing erupted inside.
Not ordinary coughing.
It was deep and relentless enough to make him lower his hand.
"Mommy?"
Sophie.
"I'm okay."
The woman's answer was thin.
"You're not."
"I've been informed that mothers are allowed to lie twice a week."
"You used both yesterday."
A weak laugh followed.
Vincent closed his eyes.
Elena's laugh had changed.
He still knew it.
Then Sophie said, "Do I call Mr. Chen?"
"No, baby."
"But you're shaking."
"I'm fine."
"That's another lie."
"Sophie."
A pause.
Then Elena whispered, "Please, sweetheart."
Vincent knocked.
Everything inside became quiet.
Small footsteps approached.
The door opened three inches against a chain.
Two gray-green eyes looked up at him.
Recognition came instantly.
"You're the sidewalk man."
Vincent had faced guns with steadier hands.
"Yes."
Sophie considered him.
"You look better standing up."
"I've had professional assistance."
"Did they fix your heart?"
"Apparently it's a work in progress."
She nodded as if this were reasonable.
Behind her, something struck the floor.
Sophie spun around.
"Mommy?"
Vincent pushed the door instinctively, forgetting the chain.
It snapped tight.
"Elena."
Silence.
Then he heard her voice.
Not weak now.
Terrified.
"Vincent?"
He stood motionless in the hallway.
Sophie looked from the room behind her to the stranger outside.
"You know my mom?"
Vincent couldn't answer before Elena appeared.
She had one hand against the wall.
Seven years had changed her more than he was prepared for.
Her hair was shorter.
Her cheeks were hollow.
A knitted cap lay abandoned on the floor behind her.
The oversized gray sweatshirt could not hide how much weight she had lost.
But her eyes were still brown, still sharp, still capable of making him feel as though every excuse he had ever made was cheap.
She stared at him.
Then she looked at Sophie.
The fear on her face answered the question Vincent had carried across the East River.
He looked at the little girl again.
At his eyes in her face.
Elena reached for the door.
"Go."
"Elena."
"Go now."
Sophie frowned.
"Mommy, he was sick."
"I know."
"He fell down."
"I said I know."
"Why are you mad at him?"
Elena's fingers tightened around the door.
"Because sometimes adults have very old arguments."
Sophie considered this with visible dissatisfaction.
"That's dumb."
Despite everything, Vincent almost laughed.
Elena did not.
"Goodbye, Vincent."
"Is she mine?"
The words escaped before he could make them gentler.
Elena went perfectly still.
Sophie looked between them.
"What's mine?"
Vincent hated himself immediately.
Elena's face changed from fear to fury.
"Get out."
"Elena, I need—"
"You don't need anything from us."
"I need the truth."
"You had the truth seven years ago."
Her voice cracked.
She recovered quickly.
"You decided what to do with it."
Sophie touched her mother's sleeve.
"Mom?"
Elena looked down.
The anger vanished from her face so fast it seemed painful.
"Go get your coloring book, sweetheart."
"But—"
"Please."
Sophie didn't move.
Vincent saw suspicion forming in those familiar eyes.
Then Elena swayed.
Her knees buckled.
May you like
This time Vincent reached her before she hit the floor.
Elena's weight shocked him.
