Chương 12
“What happens if you find him?”
“He answers questions.”
Celia laughed once.
“You have never in your life traveled across Manhattan for answers.”
Adrian looked at his daughter.
She stood small and bruised in hospital scrubs, the silver pendant resting against her collarbone.
“You said to watch what you do,” she said.
“I remember.”
“If you leave, I’ll know.”
The room went quiet.
Adrian’s phone vibrated in his hand. Victor’s did the same.
A message appeared from an unknown number.
COME ALONE OR OWEN DIES WITH THE BOOK.
Attached was a photograph.
Owen Mercer sat tied to a metal chair in a brick-lined chamber. Blood covered one side of his face. Behind him stood Lydia Crane.
She held a gun.
Celia moved closer.
“Is it real?”
Victor enlarged the image.
“The metadata has been stripped.”
Mara stared at Lydia’s hand.
“She isn’t wearing the ring.”
Adrian looked.
The green stone and pearls were gone.
Detective Park called.
“We received the same image,” she said. “No one moves without my instruction.”
“Lydia is inside.”
“We don’t know when that photograph was taken.”
“The generator activated four minutes ago.”
“And my officers are entering now.”
“She has Owen.”
“Or Owen has her. Or the photograph is staged. Or there is a third person. Stay where you are.”
Another message appeared.
TEN MINUTES. BRING YOUR FATHER’S BOOK.
Adrian’s eyes remained on the screen.
“I no longer have it.”
“They may not know that,” Park said. “Moreno’s office has not confirmed receipt publicly.”
“They know. Lydia accused me of giving it to them.”
“Then someone wants you to bring a copy or admit where it is.”
Victor took out his keys.
Celia stepped between him and the door.
“Neither of you is going.”
“I can reach the pier in eight minutes,” Victor said.
“You can reach traffic in eight minutes.”
Adrian looked at Park’s name on the screen.
“What do you need?”
The question silenced everyone.
Park answered after a beat.
“I need you to keep whoever is sending these messages engaged. Tell them you have a copy. Ask for proof Owen is alive.”
Adrian typed while Park remained on the line.
Send proof of life. Then we discuss the book.
A video arrived.
Owen lifted his head. His mouth was swollen.
“Adrian,” he said. “Do not bring them anything.”
Lydia struck him with the gun.
The movement was clumsy, angrier than the controlled woman Adrian knew.
Owen groaned and turned back toward the camera.
“She thinks her father—”
The video ended.
Mara stepped closer to the phone.
“She’s crying.”
Adrian replayed it without sound.
Lydia’s face was mostly in shadow, but Mara was right. A wet line reflected along one cheek.
Celia shook her head.
“Lydia doesn’t cry in front of anyone.”
“People change under pressure,” Victor said.
“No. They reveal.”
Adrian watched the video again.
Lydia held the gun in her left hand. She wrote with her right. Wore her watch on her left. Carried bags on her right shoulder. During shooting lessons at the Vale estate, she had always complained that her left wrist was weak.
“She’s holding the gun in the wrong hand,” he said.
Victor saw it.
“And Owen tells you not to bring anything.”
“He wants police to believe he’s a victim.”
Celia leaned over the phone.
“Or Lydia wants you to think he does.”
Mara pointed at the image behind them.
“The wall is wet.”
Adrian looked.
Water glistened between the lower bricks. The old pier vault sat beneath the high-tide line. According to city plans, the eastern chamber flooded first.
Victor checked the tide chart.
“High tide in twenty-six minutes.”
Park heard him through the call.
“My team is in the western access tunnel,” she said. “They encountered a welded gate not shown on the plans.”
“Eastern maintenance shaft,” Adrian said. “There was an emergency ladder from the ferry office.”
“Is it usable?”
“It existed twenty years ago.”
“Where?”
“Behind the ticket hall.”
Park relayed the information.
A third message appeared.
EIGHT MINUTES.
Adrian typed: The original book is with federal agents. I can bring copies.
The reply came immediately.
BRING THE RECEIPT.
Someone knew Moreno had given him one.
Only Moreno, Adrian, and the agents in the cafeteria had seen it.
Unless the hospital camera had been monitored.
Victor looked toward the ceiling.
“Your coat,” he said.
Adrian’s hand moved to his breast pocket.
The receipt was there.
So was a thin black disk no larger than a shirt button, pressed beneath the fold of the lining.
Victor removed it with tweezers from an emergency kit.
“Audio transmitter,” he said.
Celia stared.
“When was the last time that jacket left your sight?”
Adrian thought.
“At Sarno’s. I gave it to Emil when I went to Mara.”
“The busboy took it to the cloakroom,” Victor said.
Mara looked at him.
“The boy with the tray?”
Adrian remembered the pale young man standing behind Emil after the chair scraped.
“Who is he?”
Victor called the restaurant.
Emil answered on the second ring. The busboy’s name was Cal Foster. He had started three weeks earlier using references from a staffing agency.
He had not returned after police released the restaurant staff.
Park sent officers to his listed address.
The building did not exist.
“Someone has heard everything since the restaurant,” Victor said. “The hospital. The notebook. The pier.”
Adrian looked toward the officer outside Mara’s room.
“And every decision we considered.”
Mara touched her pendant.
“Could they hear me too?”
“Yes.”
Her face tightened. Not fear this time. Violation.
She took Adrian’s jacket from his hands and dropped it on the floor.
Then she stepped on it.
Celia nearly smiled.
Park’s voice came through the phone.
“My team found the eastern ladder. They’re descending.”
The sender wrote again.
SIX MINUTES.
Adrian removed the folded receipt from his pocket. Victor photographed it and handed the image to Park. She would send it under police direction while technical agents attempted to trace the response.
May you like
Mara watched.
“Can I write something?”
