Marco took his phone. One message remained on the burner thread. *PACKAGE TO PIER 19. CONFIRM DROP BY 1:30.*
Pier 19 was a dead freight terminal in Red Hook, owned through four companies by Victor Kane.
Lucia arrived in the cellar wrapped in a black shawl. “It is a trap,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why go?”
Gabriel looked at the wet grass still on his shoes from where Annie’s bear had been found. “Because she ran across a room full of killers to save my life,” he said. “Now I save hers.”
PART 3
At Pier 19, Annie woke in a windowless room that smelled of concrete and cigar smoke. Her wrists were bound with plastic cuffs. In her arms sat a new teddy bear, stiff and brown with a red ribbon. It was not hers.
The door opened. Victor Kane entered in a black overcoat, silver hair combed back, gold ring shining on his smallest finger.
“What a small girl,” he said softly, “to ruin such a large plan.”
Annie did not answer.
Kane sat across from her. “Gabriel Moretti will come. When he does, you will tell him you only saw Adrienne. No man at the back door. No envelope. No one else in the kitchen.”
“No.”
Kane’s kind expression disappeared. “Your mother is sleeping because I allowed it. Do you understand?”
Annie’s eyes filled, but her voice stayed steady. “I’m still not lying.”
For the first time, Kane looked truly irritated. After he left, a woman stepped inside carrying warm milk in a glass. She was older than Adrienne, with gray at her temples and tired eyes.
“My name is Camille Kane,” she said. “Victor is my husband.”
Annie looked at the milk. Camille noticed and pushed it slightly away from her. “Don’t drink it,” she whispered. “Break it.”
Annie stared.
Camille bent closer. “I made a promise once that I would never harm a child. I have broken many promises in this house, but not that one. When you hear noise, use the glass on the cuffs. The door will not be locked.”
“Why are you helping me?”
Camille’s face changed, not into kindness exactly, but into something that had survived too much. “Because someone should have helped me when I was small.”
Then she left.
Fifteen minutes later, gunfire cracked below like fireworks trapped indoors. Annie knocked the glass to the floor. It shattered into bright pieces. She picked the largest shard and sawed at the plastic cuff until her thumbs bled and the band snapped.
The door opened when she turned the handle. She ran through a concrete corridor, counting doors the way Gabriel had once told her to count exits when frightened. Three doors left. One stairwell. One black steel door.
At the corner, Camille waited. “Straight ahead,” Camille whispered. “Push hard. Don’t look back.”