Chương 2
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
Claire hesitated.
Victor spoke from behind her.
“She was alone when Claire entered.”
Daniel turned toward him.
“That wasn’t my question.”
Victor said nothing.
Two airport security officers appeared near reception.
Neither came running.
They approached with the deliberate caution of people accustomed to wealthy passengers who believed urgency should alter procedure.
The older officer introduced himself as Mercer.
Daniel barely heard the first name.
He handed Mercer the torn strip.
“My daughter has an injury around her wrist. This appears to have been attached to her. That man has what looks like the matching piece in his pocket.”
Mercer did not touch the strip immediately.
“Keep holding it for me, sir.”
Daniel stopped.
The officer pulled a pair of gloves from a pouch.
That small procedural act brought the room abruptly back into reality.
This was not Daniel threatening Victor in a private lounge.
This was evidence.
Possibly.
Maybe.
He had no idea what had happened.
And he had nearly acted as if he did.
Mercer accepted the fragment and placed it in a clear evidence envelope.
“Your daughter’s name?”
“Lily Hayes.”
“Age?”
“Eight.”
“Are you her father?”
“Yes.”
“Any immediate medical emergency?”
Daniel looked at Lily’s wrist.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m okay,” Lily whispered.
Mercer’s expression softened without becoming casual.
“We’ll let medical staff decide that, okay?”
Lily hid her face against Daniel’s shoulder.
The second officer was already speaking quietly into a radio.
Victor remained where he was.
Claire had not put her sunglasses back on.
“Mr. Kane,” Mercer said, “I’m going to ask you not to reach into your pockets.”
Victor nodded.
“Understood.”
“Is there an airport wristband in your jacket?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know why part of it may have been found on this child?”
Victor looked at Lily again.
Daniel shifted so his body blocked the view.
Victor noticed.
“I know how it got torn.”
Claire’s voice was suddenly sharper.
“How?”
Victor did not answer her.
Mercer raised a hand.
“Let me ask the questions.”
Claire looked offended by the sentence, then apparently remembered that normal rules had resumed.
She stepped back.
Mercer faced Victor.
“How did it get torn?”
Victor rubbed his tongue against the inside of his cheek.
“She grabbed it.”
Daniel felt Lily stiffen.
“When?” Mercer asked.
“In the service corridor.”
“Why was she in the service corridor?”
Victor took too long.
Lily lifted her head from Daniel’s shoulder.
“He told me my dad was waiting.”
Nobody spoke.
Victor’s face changed.
Not dramatically.
The muscles around his mouth simply seemed to stop working.
Daniel felt his daughter’s fingers tighten behind his neck.
Mercer looked at Victor.
“Did you tell her that?”
Victor breathed out.
“Yes.”
Claire whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
Daniel looked at her.
She was staring at Victor as though he had become a stranger while she watched.
Mercer continued.
“Why?”
“I needed to get her away from the main lounge.”
Daniel took one step toward him.
Mercer immediately moved between them.
“Mr. Hayes.”
Daniel stopped.
Lily was still in his arms.
That fact saved Victor.
Or perhaps it saved Daniel.
“What did you want with my daughter?”
Victor’s eyes met his.
“I didn’t want anything with her.”
“You took an eight-year-old into a service corridor.”
“I was trying to prevent something worse.”
Daniel laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
Claire turned toward Victor.
“What could possibly be worse?”
Victor looked at her.
“You.”
For several seconds, Claire seemed not to understand.
Then her face emptied.
“What did you say?”
Victor’s shoulders lowered.
“I was trying to keep Lily away from you.”
The absurdity of it nearly made Daniel step forward again.
Instead he felt Lily whisper against his neck.
“Dad.”
“I’m here.”
“He was scared.”
Daniel looked at her.
“Victor?”
She nodded.
That did not fit.
Nothing fit.
A paramedic arrived with a medical bag. Mercer asked whether Lily could be examined in one of the lounge’s private family rooms.
Daniel refused at first.
The word private had acquired a different meaning in the last five minutes.
“Door stays open,” he said.
“Absolutely.”
“I stay with her.”
“Of course.”
“And nobody else comes in.”
Mercer nodded.
Daniel carried Lily toward the family room.
He passed the silver suitcase where it had finally stopped beside the chair.
The luggage tag was broken.
A strip of clear plastic hung from the handle.
Daniel stopped walking.
“Lil.”
She looked down.
“When did that break?”
Her gaze found the suitcase.
“I don’t know.”
“Was it broken before tonight?”
“No.”
Victor said from across the lounge, “Daniel.”
Daniel turned.
Victor’s face had gone gray.
“Check the tag.”
Mercer looked at him.
“What about it?”
Victor swallowed.
“Check inside the tag.”
Claire stared at him.
Daniel did not move.
Mercer walked to the suitcase instead.
He photographed it before touching anything, then crouched and examined the broken luggage tag.
It was the cheap transparent kind Lily had insisted on decorating with a silver star sticker. Daniel remembered buying it at an airport shop in Denver because she had rejected the black leather one he preferred.
Mercer turned it over.
The plastic backing had been pried apart.
Inside, beneath Lily’s folded contact card, was a flat black rectangle no larger than a thumbnail.
The second officer leaned closer.
“What is that?”
Victor answered.
“A tracker.”
Daniel stared at him.
Victor looked toward Claire.
Claire’s face did not change.
But her hand closed around her sunglasses so tightly that one arm snapped.
The sound was tiny.
Daniel heard it anyway.
Mercer stood.
“Whose tracker?”
Victor did not answer.
Claire looked down at the broken sunglasses in her hand.
Then she said, “Mine.”
Daniel felt the room tilt.
Mercer turned toward her.
“Explain.”
Claire looked at Daniel.
“I can’t.”
“You’re going to.”
“No.” Her voice was quieter now. “I mean I can’t explain that because I did not put it there.”
“But you recognize it.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Claire looked toward Victor.
Victor said, “Because it came from her security inventory.”
May you like
Claire’s eyes hardened.
“You told me those were destroyed.”
