Chương 2
The call went to voicemail.
He ended it and tried again.
Mara’s lower lip shook.
“She always answers me.”
“What time did the man come?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think about what was on television.”
“We weren’t watching television.”
“What were you doing?”
“Homework.”
“What subject?”
She looked angry for the first time.
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
The answer came too quickly and too hard. Mara stepped back.
Adrian softened his voice.
“It tells me what time it was. That’s all.”
“Spelling. I was writing sentences.” She rubbed her dirty palm against her dress. “Mom said I’d used the word unpleasant three times because I was being lazy.”
“What word were you on when the bell rang?”
“Necessary.”
Adrian checked the time. Celia usually made Mara begin homework at four-thirty. Spelling came after math. If the routine had held, the doorbell had rung between five-fifteen and five-forty.
It was now seven twelve.
“How did you get here?” Victor asked.
Mara looked at him, then at Nolan.
Victor stepped away from the captured guard. He removed his own jacket and held it out, but Mara did not take it.
“The man put me in a room,” she said. “There were boxes and a metal door. He kept asking if I understood what Adrian had done.”
She rarely called her father by his first name when she spoke to him. She did it when she wanted distance, or when she had spent several days listening to her mother complain about him.
“What did he say I had done?” Adrian asked.
“He said you hurt people and paid everyone to pretend you didn’t.”
Nolan’s eyes closed.
Victor noticed.
“So you do know something,” he said.
“No.”
“You reacted.”
“I reacted because that’s insane.”
Mara shook her head.
“He said more than that.”
Nolan looked at her.
It was brief. Less than a second. But he looked.
Adrian saw it.
“What else?” he asked.
“He said my mother had finally learned the truth.” Mara’s voice thinned. “Then someone called him. He left the room. I heard him arguing.”
“With whom?”
“I don’t know.”
“A man or a woman?”
“A woman.”
Nolan pushed away from the wall. Victor put him back without visible effort.
Mara continued.
“The door didn’t close all the way. I waited, then I ran. He caught me near the stairs.”
Her hand rose toward her swollen eye and stopped before touching it.
“He hit you there?”
She nodded.
“Once?”
“Twice.”
The control left Adrian’s eyes without leaving the rest of his face. The change was slight, but Victor saw it and moved closer.
Mara noticed too.
“You can’t kill him,” she said.
No one had mentioned killing.
Adrian looked at her.
“I’m not going to.”
“You say things that don’t sound like lies, even when they are.”
Emil lowered his gaze. The busboy behind him stared at the tray.
Adrian folded the pocket square so the clean side faced Mara’s skin.
“Then watch what I do.”
Sirens approached from somewhere beyond the darkened front windows.
Victor looked at him.
Adrian had not called the police.
Mara had.
She took Celia’s phone from the pocket of her dress. The screen was cracked at one corner and smeared with dust.
“I called when I got outside,” she said. “Before I came here.”
Adrian held out his hand.
Mara kept the phone.
“I told them everything.”
A muscle moved near his temple.
“That was the right thing to do.”
“You don’t sound happy.”
“I’m not happy.”
“Because I called them?”
“Because somebody made you need them.”
The sirens stopped outside the restaurant.
Nolan began shaking.
Victor removed a plastic restraint from beneath his jacket.
“You don’t have the authority to detain me,” Nolan said.
“You’re carrying an unregistered phone with instructions concerning an injured child,” Victor replied. “We can debate authority when the officers arrive.”
Nolan twisted his head toward Adrian.
“I was paid to turn off a camera. That’s all.”
Victor paused.
Adrian did not.
“Who paid you?”
“I don’t know.”
“You accepted money from someone whose name you didn’t know?”
“It came through a consulting company.”
“What company?”
Nolan hesitated.
Victor tightened the restraint around his wrists.
“North Quay Strategic.”
The name settled over the table like dust.
Adrian knew it. Victor did too.
North Quay Strategic had performed political-risk work for Vale Holdings five years earlier. Officially, the firm no longer existed. It had been dissolved after a subcontractor was accused of bribing a customs official in Baltimore. Adrian had ordered every agreement terminated.
The person who had managed the termination was Lydia Crane.
The front doors opened.
Two uniformed officers entered first, followed by a woman in a charcoal coat with a badge already in her hand. Detective Juno Park was in her mid-forties, with tired eyes and rain spots on her shoulders. She took in the room before anyone could shape it for her.
An injured child.
A restrained security guard.
A powerful man standing between them.
A blood-smeared piece of gold on the table.
Park looked at Mara.
“Are you the one who called?”
Mara nodded.
Park crouched several feet away. She did not reach for her.
“My name is Detective Park. An ambulance is outside. Are you hurt anywhere besides your face and knees?”
“My wrist.”
Park saw the crest.
“Did someone burn you?”
“It’s ink.”
“Did they put it there?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where your mother is?”
“No.”
Park stood and looked at Adrian.
“I need everyone to stop touching everything.”
Adrian removed the cloth from Mara’s face. The bleeding had slowed.
Park pointed at the cufflink.
“Who moved that last?”
“I did,” Adrian said.
“And before you?”
“My daughter.”
“And before her?”
“The man who took me,” Mara said. “I pulled it off him.”
Park’s eyes returned to her.
“You pulled it off?”
“He held my dress when I ran. I grabbed his sleeve.”
“What did he look like?”
“He wore a black mask.”
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“Could you see his eyes?”
“Brown. Maybe gray.” Mara seemed ashamed of the uncertainty. “The room was dark.”
