Chương 2
She pointed toward a chair against the wall. “Sit where he can hear your voice.”
“He’s unconscious.”
“Newborns hear more than we can measure.”
Vincent sat.
The chair was too small for him. His knees rose awkwardly under the edge of his coat. He placed his hands on his thighs because there was nowhere else to put them.
Through the transparent wall of the warmer, Noah’s fist shifted beneath the blanket.
Vincent leaned forward.
“Hey,” he said.
The word came out rough.
He cleared his throat and tried again.
“Hey, little man.”
The monitor continued its fast, mechanical rhythm. Carla adjusted a line at Noah’s ankle. Dr. Hart issued instructions to a respiratory therapist who had just entered.
Outside the bay, Robert’s voice rose in protest.
“I have rights.”
The curtain rings scraped again.
Vincent’s head turned half an inch.
Dr. Hart did not look up from Noah. “Stay in the chair.”
He remained seated.
That decision, more than anything he would later say to detectives, kept Robert and Diane alive through the first hour.
Detective Mara Quinn arrived before midnight with rain on her brown coat and a paper cup of coffee she never drank. She had the tired face of someone who had been called from a family dinner and had not bothered pretending she was pleased about it.
A younger detective named Ellis followed with a tablet, two charging cables, and the strained alertness of a man afraid he might miss the detail everyone else noticed.
Quinn interviewed Robert first.
She chose a consultation room near the emergency bay, not because it was private but because it had a glass wall. Robert could see people moving in the corridor. He could watch officers carry evidence bags past him. He could see Vincent sitting alone outside the neonatal unit, his black suit drying into faint gray streaks beneath fluorescent lights.
Robert asked for a lawyer before Quinn finished stating his name.
“That’s your right,” she said.
“I haven’t done anything.”
“That’s not the same question.”
He looked through the glass at Vincent. “You should be talking to him.”
“We will.”
“You know who he is?”
Quinn lifted her coffee. “A chauffeur, according to the employment information we have.”
Robert laughed once. The sound was too loud for the room.
“Ask him who he drives.”
“I plan to ask you who prepared the bottle.”
His face tightened.
“My wife may have. Emily was exhausted.”
“May have?”
“There was a lot happening.”
“Your niece and her newborn were found unconscious in a locked apartment.”
“It wasn’t locked.”
Quinn set down the coffee.
Robert’s mouth stayed slightly open.
“We didn’t tell you where they were found,” she said.
He looked toward the glass again. “I assumed.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where they live.”
“Then why did you say it wasn’t locked?”
Robert folded his hands. His wedding ring was loose and rotated when he rubbed his thumb against it.
“I want my lawyer.”
In the next room, Diane spoke for forty-three minutes before asking for one.
She talked about Emily’s difficult labor, her poor appetite, her stubbornness, the way young mothers believed internet strangers over family. She described Noah’s crying as relentless. She said Emily had refused to sleep even when offered help.
Quinn let her talk.
Diane said she had warmed a bottle but could not remember whether she had fed it to Noah. She said Robert had organized Emily’s medications after discharge because Emily was confused. She said the pills found beside the bottle might have belonged to anyone.
“Anyone in the apartment?” Quinn asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Who was there?”
“Robert. Me. Vincent came and went.”
“He was working?”
“He’s always working.”
“What kind of work?”
Diane’s gaze drifted to the dark glass.
“Driving.”
“Did Emily take the medication voluntarily?”
“I didn’t see her swallow anything.”
“Did you put anything in her drink?”
“No.”
“In the bottle?”
“No.”
“Did Robert?”
Diane’s fingers tightened around a tissue she had not used.
“No.”
“You answered that faster.”
“I know my husband.”
“Do you?”
Diane looked offended.
Then the expression collapsed.
“I want to see Emily.”
“You can’t.”
“She’s my niece.”
“She’s unconscious because somebody gave her a sedative that was not prescribed to her.”
“I said I want to see her.”
“And I said you can’t.”
Diane stood.
The officer at the door did not touch her, but he shifted enough to block the exit.
For the first time that night, the concern left Diane’s face entirely.
“You do not understand what kind of family this is,” she said.
Quinn watched her.
“I’m beginning to.”
Vincent waited nearly two hours before anyone questioned him.
He spent most of that time in the same chair. Nurses passed. Shoes squeaked against polished floors. A vending machine down the corridor dropped a bag of chips with a heavy thump that made him look up as though someone had fired a gun.
He received fourteen calls.
He answered none.
The fifteenth came from Carlo Bellini.
Vincent stared at the name until the call ended.
A text followed.
Say the word.
Vincent turned the phone facedown.
The next message arrived immediately.
We know where they’re holding him.
Vincent stood so fast that the chair legs scraped the floor.
A nurse at the station looked over.
He walked to the window at the end of the corridor, where the city spread beyond the glass in wet squares of orange and white. He dialed Carlo.
Carlo answered before the first ring finished.
“Boss.”
“Listen carefully.”
“We have people inside.”
“Pull them out.”
Silence.
“Vincent.”
“Every man. Every car. Nobody goes near Robert. Nobody goes near Diane. Nobody goes near this hospital unless they are bringing blood, food, or a clean shirt for my wife.”
“They poisoned your son.”
Vincent rested his forehead against the glass.
The cold steadied him.
“I know what they did.”
“Then why are we talking?”
“Because I am telling you what happens next.”
May you like
Carlo breathed into the phone.
Behind the breath was the noise of an engine. Vincent pictured him in the passenger seat of the gray Escalade he used when he wanted to look invisible. Carlo was forty-one, broad-shouldered, asthmatic in winter, and incapable of sitting still when angry. He had been with Vincent since they were teenagers stealing catalytic converters in Queens. He had once taken a knife through the palm rather than let go of Vincent’s coat during a street fight.
