Chapter 5 - TAKEN AT THREE FIFTEEN
Smoke rolled down the basement stairs so fast that for one terrible second I could not tell whether I was seeing the present or the highway twelve years earlier.
Julian grabbed my wrist.
"Back window."
I pulled away.
"Naomi first."
Naomi was already moving toward the narrow laundry window at the far end of the basement.
The smoke thickened above us.
Something popped near the stairwell.
A thin tongue of flame appeared along the doorframe.
This was not an electrical accident.
Somebody had poured an accelerant upstairs and lit it after locking us in.
Julian kicked the rusted laundry window once.
The frame bent but did not open.
He kicked again.
Glass cracked.
I grabbed a metal chair and smashed the remaining pane outward.
Cold rain blew through the opening.
"Naomi, go."
She climbed onto the dryer and squeezed through.
Julian lifted me next.
"You first."
"You are bleeding."
"Elena."
Blood ran down his knuckles where the window had cut him.
I climbed through because arguing would waste oxygen.
The alley outside smelled like wet asphalt and smoke.
Naomi grabbed my arm as I landed.
"Call 911."
I pulled out my phone.
Before I could dial, a shadow moved near the mouth of the alley.
A man in a dark raincoat was running toward a parked motorcycle.
He looked back once.
I saw the left side of his face.
A white scar cut from his temple to his jaw.
The sight stopped me cold.
I had seen that scar before.
Not in person.
In the old charity photograph.
Martin Vale had stood beside Julian with one hand turned toward the camera.
A wedding ring had hidden most of the tattoo on his finger.
The man in the alley wore the same black serpent tattoo.
"Martin Vale is dead," I whispered.
Julian crawled out through the broken window behind me.
"What?"
The motorcycle roared away.
I pointed.
"That man."
"You know him?"
"I think he was in the photograph."
Julian's face hardened.
"Martin?"
"No."
I shook my head.
"The man behind him."
We had only noticed Martin because I recognized the driver.
Now another memory surfaced.
A second security contractor in the photograph.
A younger man standing partly behind a column.
The scar had been smaller then.
"His name was Owen Pike," Julian said.
"He worked under Martin."
"Is he dead too?"
"No."
Julian looked toward the street.
"He disappeared after Martin's funeral."
Sirens approached.
By the time firefighters reached the building, the first floor hallway was burning.
My apartment was not.
The fire had been started beside the basement door, exactly where it would block our exit without destroying the upstairs units immediately.
That fact made the fire marshal's expression change.
"You got enemies?" he asked.
I looked at Julian.
"Apparently I have inherited some."
At 2:31 a.m., Naomi refused to let me return to the apartment even after firefighters cleared it.
"You need somewhere secure."
"I have nowhere else."
Julian did not hesitate.
"My place."
"No."
"There are cameras, guards, controlled access, and a panic room."
"That last part is not helping."
"You have a better option?"
I did not.
Naomi did.
"My sister has an empty apartment in Astoria."
"Does Victor Lawrence know your sister?" Julian asked.
"No."
"Does Grant?"
Naomi's expression tightened.
"He has seen her address in discovery."
Julian looked at me.
"My place."
I hated that he was right.
I hated even more that being near him felt safer than being anywhere else.
At 3:02 a.m., we entered Julian's penthouse through a private underground garage.
I had expected glass, chrome, and the sterile perfection of money.
Instead, the apartment looked lived in.
Books were stacked beside the sofa.
A pair of running shoes sat near the kitchen.
A framed photograph of Julian's mother stood on the piano.
No photograph of Conrad Cross was visible anywhere.
"Guest room is down the hall," Julian said.
"Naomi can take the office."
"I am not sleeping," Naomi answered.
"Neither am I."
She opened her laptop at the kitchen island.
"We have court in five hours."
I borrowed a sweatshirt from Julian and changed in the guest bathroom.
The fabric smelled faintly of cedar detergent.
When I looked in the mirror, I saw a woman wearing a billionaire's clothes while her daughter slept in another house because somebody had decided her past was useful.
I pressed both hands to the sink.
"Do not fall apart now."
The woman in the mirror did not look convinced.
At 3:15 a.m., my phone rang.
Grant's number.
I answered before the first ring ended.
"Grant?"
Nobody spoke.
Then I heard Lily crying.
Not loudly.
The quiet kind of crying she did when she was trying not to be heard.
"Lily?"
"Mommy."
I ran into the kitchen.
Julian and Naomi looked up.
I put the call on speaker.
"Where are you, baby?"
"I do not know."
My heart stopped.
"Where is Daddy?"
"He was asleep."
"Who are you with?"
A rustling sound came through the phone.
Then Lily whispered.
"The man said Daddy told him to take me."
Naomi was already typing.
Julian signaled his security chief on another phone.
"Lily, listen to me."
I forced my voice to stay soft.
"Can you see outside?"
"A little."
"Are you in a car?"
"Yes."
"What color?"
"Black inside."
"Can you see any signs?"
She sniffed.
"There is a bridge."
"Which bridge?"
"I do not know."
A man's voice sounded in the background.
"Who are you talking to?"
Lily gasped.
The call went dead.
I stared at the screen.
"Track it."
Julian's security chief was already working.
"The phone is moving east," Julian said.
"Queensboro approach."
Naomi grabbed her coat.
"We call police now."
"Yes," I said.
Julian did not argue.
For all my fear of corruption, a missing child erased caution.
At 3:19 a.m., I called 911 and said the sentence no mother should ever have to say.
"My seven-year-old daughter has been taken."
Within fourteen minutes, detectives were at Grant's mother's house.
Grant met them in pajama pants and bare feet.
He claimed he had fallen asleep on the couch at one.
His mother claimed she heard the front door around three but assumed Grant was taking Lily home early.
The security camera above the porch had been disabled at 2:47.
Grant's phone showed an outgoing call at 2:52 to a prepaid number.
He swore he had not made it.
The detective on speaker asked him to come to the precinct.
Grant's voice rose.
"My daughter was kidnapped and you are treating me like a criminal?"
Naomi leaned toward my phone.
"Because the child told Elena that the man said you sent him."
Silence.
Then Grant said something that made my skin crawl.
"That is impossible."
"Why?" Naomi asked.
"Because she was supposed to be asleep."
The line went dead.
Naomi and I stared at each other.
Julian's security chief entered from the private elevator.
His name was Malcolm Reed.
He was in his forties, compact, calm, and carrying two phones.
"We have the last tower hit from Lily's device."
He placed a map on the island.
The location was not east anymore.
The phone had crossed back into Manhattan and stopped near Pier 76.
"Could be dumped," Malcolm said.
"Could be a handoff."
Julian picked up his coat.
"We are going."
Naomi blocked him.
"Police first."
"Police are already moving."
"Then let them."
"Every minute matters."
I was already putting on shoes.
Naomi looked at me.
"Elena."
"You can stay and prepare for court."
"There may not be a court hearing if you get yourself killed."
"There will definitely not be a court hearing that matters to me if Lily disappears."
That ended the argument.
At 3:37 a.m., we were in an armored SUV heading south.
Malcolm coordinated with detectives while Julian sat beside me in silence.
I watched streets blur past and tried not to imagine Lily in the back of another car.
At 3:44, Malcolm received a message.
"Her phone just came back online."
"Where?" I asked.
"Pier 76."
"Moving?"
"No."
We reached the waterfront six minutes later.
Police cruisers were approaching from the opposite direction without sirens.
Rain had thinned to mist.
The river looked black.
Malcolm pointed toward a row of maintenance containers.
"Signal is there."
I ran before anyone could stop me.
"Elena!"
Julian followed.
We found Lily's pink phone lying on the wet pavement beside a storm drain.
The screen was cracked.
A child's silver bracelet lay next to it.
I knew that bracelet.
I had fastened it around Lily's wrist on her seventh birthday.
My knees nearly gave out.
Then a voice came from behind the nearest container.
"Mommy?"
I turned.
Lily stepped into view.
She was wearing purple pajamas beneath a man's oversized coat.
I ran to her and dropped to my knees.
She crashed into me so hard we both almost fell.
"Baby."
I held her face, her arms, her shoulders.
"Are you hurt?"
She shook her head.
"The man left."
"What man?"
"The one with the white line on his face."
Owen Pike.
My blood chilled.
"What did he say?"
Lily buried her face against my neck.
"He said he was sorry."
"For what?"
She looked toward Julian.
Her eyes widened with recognition from the videos.
Then she whispered.
"He said he took me because if he did not, the other men would."
A detective approached slowly.
"Lily, did he tell you where he was going?"
She nodded.
"He said he had to get something before Mr. Lawrence did."
I felt Julian go still behind me.
"What thing?" I asked.
Lily reached into the coat pocket.
She pulled out the brass key that had been stolen from my mother's jewelry box.
Taped around it was a small strip of paper.
At the precinct, Lily refused to let go of my sleeve while the detective photographed the brass key.
"Can Mommy keep it?" she asked.
The detective crouched beside her.
"For right now, we need to keep it safe."
Lily frowned.
"Mommy keeps things safe."
I looked away because I did not deserve how certain she sounded.
The detective placed the key in an evidence envelope and asked Lily to describe Owen again.
She remembered details adults would have missed.
He smelled like peppermint gum.
He called her "kiddo" once and then apologized because she said only her teacher called her that.
He drove with both hands on the wheel.
He cried at a red light.
That last detail stopped everyone.
"He cried?" I asked.
Lily nodded.
"He looked at my bracelet and said his girl had one like it."
Julian glanced at Malcolm.
"Owen had a daughter?"
Malcolm checked his phone.
"One child."
"Hannah Pike."
"Age?"
"Would be twenty-nine now."
"Would be?"
Malcolm's face changed.
"She died at seventeen."
The same age I had been on the highway.
"How?"
"House fire."
Nobody said anything for a moment.
A dead seventeen-year-old daughter did not excuse kidnapping another man's child.
But it explained why Owen had looked at Lily and changed plans.
Maybe he had spent twelve years making compromises for men like Victor and finally found one line he could not cross.
The detective asked Lily whether Owen had mentioned anyone else.
She squeezed my hand.
"He said the bad man has pictures of Mommy."
"What bad man?"
"Mr. Lawrence."
My pulse jumped.
"Did Owen say where the pictures were?"
Lily nodded.
"In a room with no windows."
Months later, federal agents would find that room in Bedford.
At the time, all I knew was that a stranger who had carried my child through the night seemed to know more about my life than I did.
On the paper were four words.
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