Chapter 7 - THE GIRL THEY TOOK
For the first time since Brielle met him, Dante Moretti lost control.
He did not shout.
He did something worse.
He became silent enough that every person in the hall started moving faster.
Luca checked Clara's pulse.
"Alive."
Rosa gripped the bedroom door with both hands.
"Sofia."
Dante crossed to the broken window.
A black climbing rope hung down the exterior wall.
One end had been clipped to the balcony rail.
"They didn't come through the house."
Luca looked outside.
"Roof line to balcony."
"Professional."
"How long was the power disruption?"
"Four minutes."
Brielle stared at the yellow flower on the pillow.
"They had help."
Dante turned.
"Nico."
"Maybe."
"He opened the west gate."
"And Mara just told us not to let you kill him."
Dante's face went hard.
"My daughter is gone."
"Which means anger is exactly what whoever took her expects from you."
He stepped toward Brielle.
"Do not tell me how to feel about my child."
"I'm telling you how not to make the person who took her happy."
The words landed.
Dante looked away first.
Luca rose from beside Clara.
"She's waking up."
Clara gasped and tried to sit.
"Sofia."
Rosa knelt beside her.
"What happened?"
Clara touched the back of her head.
"I heard the window."
"I turned around."
"A man was already inside."
"Mask?"
"Yes."
"Did he speak?"
"No."
"Anything else?"
Clara closed her eyes.
"He smelled like oranges."
Brielle's stomach tightened.
"Oranges?"
Clara nodded.
Brielle remembered Ashland.
Orange soda.
A man in a wet coat.
A silver ring.
She looked at Rosa.
"The man at our apartment brought orange soda."
Dante heard her.
"Same man?"
"I don't know."
"Eleven years later?"
"Smell can be cologne."
Luca looked toward the hallway.
"Or deliberate."
Brielle picked up the yellow flower with her uninjured hand.
The stem had been folded twice.
Not crushed randomly.
Folded.
She remembered Sofia holding it on the street.
"Did Sofia know about Mara's code?"
Dante looked confused.
"No."
Brielle counted the folds.
Two.
She opened the flower carefully.
A tiny piece of paper had been wrapped around the stem.
Sofia's handwriting was uneven.
TRAIN.
Dante stopped breathing.
"She wrote that?"
Brielle nodded.
"She's five."
"She knows letters."
Rosa covered her mouth.
Luca immediately opened a map on his phone.
"Closest rail access is two blocks west."
Brielle looked at the time.
10:47 p.m.
Locker 3179 at Union Station.
Go before midnight.
"They're taking her to Union Station."
Dante was already moving.
Brielle grabbed her coat.
"I'm coming."
"No."
"The key is mine."
Dante stopped.
Brielle held up the brass key.
"Maybe Sofia wasn't the target."
"Maybe they took her to make sure I bring this."
Dante's eyes went to the key.
"Then you stay here and I take it."
"Mara said no Moretti tattoos."
Luca looked offended.
"For the record, I don't have one."
"You have the face."
"Cruel."
Dante ignored him.
"Brielle."
"If they see you first, they may move Sofia."
"If they see you first, they may kill you."
"Then don't let them."
He stared at her.
Rosa stood.
"She's right."
Dante turned on his mother.
"Not now."
"Especially now."
Rosa's voice steadied.
"You are Sofia's father."
"That makes you the easiest person in the city to manipulate tonight."
Dante's jaw flexed.
"I hate this family."
Luca murmured.
"Christmas will be wonderful this year."
Dante looked at Brielle.
"You do exactly what I say once we're there."
"No."
"Then you're not going."
"I'll agree to consider what you say."
Dante stared at her for three seconds.
"That is the worst negotiation I've heard in years."
"Yet you're taking it."
They left in two unmarked cars.
Union Station was busy enough to hide a thousand secrets.
Travelers dragged suitcases beneath the high ceiling.
Announcements echoed above tired families.
A man slept against a vending machine.
Nobody looked like a kidnapper.
That was the problem.
Brielle entered alone.
Dante and Luca stayed outside the concourse where cameras could track them without making them obvious.
The brass key felt warm in her palm.
Locker 3179 was in a lower corridor near the baggage area.
Brielle found it at 11:19 p.m.
Her pulse hammered as she inserted the key.
The lock turned.
Inside sat a child's pink backpack.
Sofia's backpack.
Brielle opened it.
The stuffed rabbit was inside.
So was a burner phone.
It rang.
Brielle answered.
"Where is she?"
A distorted voice replied.
"Take the envelope."
Brielle saw a brown envelope beneath the rabbit.
"Where is Sofia?"
"Take it."
"I am not playing scavenger hunt with a five-year-old's life."
A pause.
Then Sofia's voice came through.
"Brielle?"
Brielle's knees weakened.
"Sofia, sweetheart, are you hurt?"
"No."
"Can you see where you are?"
A man's voice snapped something in the background.
Sofia whispered quickly.
"Big clock."
The line cut.
Brielle looked around.
Union Station had several clocks.
The Great Hall had one enormous clock over the information area.
But Sofia had come through the station before.
She would know that.
Big clock might mean somewhere else.
The distorted voice returned.
"Open the envelope."
Brielle tore it open.
Inside was a photograph of Elena Dawson lying on the kitchen floor eleven years earlier.
Brielle nearly dropped it.
It was not a police photograph she had ever seen.
This had been taken before paramedics arrived.
Someone had stood in the apartment after her mother died and photographed the body.
Behind Elena, partially visible near the hallway mirror, was a man's reflection.
A silver ring gleamed on his hand.
Brielle stared at it.
"Who is he?"
The voice ignored her.
"Turn the photograph over."
She did.
One address had been written on the back.
An old clock tower near a closed freight yard on Canal Street.
Brielle understood.
Big clock.
"I'm going."
"Alone."
"Yes."
"If Moretti follows, the child disappears the way your sister did."
The line ended.
Brielle put the phone and photograph inside her coat.
Then she spoke quietly toward the microphone hidden beneath her collar.
"Dante, you heard that."
No answer came.
She touched the earpiece.
Static.
The signal had been jammed.
Brielle walked toward the exit.
A man in a Cubs cap brushed past her.
Something hard pressed briefly against her ribs.
"Keep walking."
She did.
The man stayed beside her.
"Phone."
Brielle handed him the burner.
"Other phone."
She gave him Dante's.
He dropped both into a trash can without slowing.
"You have the key?"
"Yes."
"Good."
He guided her toward a side exit.
A black sedan waited at the curb.
Brielle saw no sign of Dante.
She got into the back seat because she had no better choice.
The Cubs cap man sat beside her.
Another man drove.
As the car pulled away, Brielle looked through the rear window.
Dante emerged from the station thirty yards behind them.
He saw the sedan.
He ran.
Too late.
The car turned onto Canal Street.
Brielle counted intersections.
One.
Two.
Three.
The man beside her noticed.
"Stop counting."
"Can't."
"Try."
"I also count lies."
"You must be busy around Moretti."
Brielle looked at him.
"Do I know you?"
"No."
"Did you know my mother?"
He did not answer.
"Mara?"
His eyes moved toward the window.
That was enough.
"You know her."
"Be quiet."
"Is she at the tower?"
"Be quiet."
"Did Nico send you?"
He turned toward her.
"Nico is trying to keep you alive."
Brielle froze.
"Then who are you working for?"
The car stopped.
The driver looked back.
"We're here."
The old clock tower rose above a fenced freight yard.
Its four faces were dark except for one light behind the east clock.
The Cubs cap man opened Brielle's door.
"Go inside."
"Where is Sofia?"
"Inside."
Brielle stepped out.
The wind cut through her coat.
A narrow door stood open beneath the tower.
She entered.
A staircase spiraled upward.
At the first landing, she found Sofia's shoe.
At the second, the other shoe.
At the third, the stuffed rabbit's blue ribbon.
Brielle climbed faster.
"Sofia?"
No answer.
She reached the clock chamber.
Gears filled the room.
Moonlight passed through the clock face.
A chair sat in the center.
Sofia was tied to it.
Her eyes widened.
"Brielle."
Brielle ran toward her.
"Don't."
The voice came from behind the gears.
A man stepped into view.
He wore no mask.
Late fifties.
White hair.
Expensive coat.
A silver ring on his right hand.
Brielle recognized it before she recognized the face.
The same ring from Ashland.
The same hand reflected in the photograph beside her mother's body.
He smiled at her.
"You've grown into Elena's eyes."
Brielle stopped.
"Who are you?"
The man tilted his head.
"You really don't remember me."
He sounded almost disappointed.
Then he said the name her mother had screamed eleven years ago.
May you like
"Vincent Caruso."
