36

I stared at the phone for a moment. I hadn’t had a single moment of contact with Luca. He was wanted now in connection with the fire atThe Blue Orchid, even if his testimony—that I was a fraudster—was still about to drag me to court. There was an APB on Luca, his bank accounts were canceled, and his passport had been frozen. Could it be…?

I picked up the phone, and answered it.

There was nothing for a moment, only some light static.

“Hello?” I said.

“Hello, ‘Lex.”

It was Luca.

“This is a surprise,” I said. “I thought you’d be halfway across the world by now.”

“Couldn’t resist watching you go to jail, ‘Lex.”

I sighed. “I ran into someone the other day. My dad, as a matter of fact.”

“Your dad? What a nice surprise.”

“Well, hardly,” I drawled. “After all, Luca, he’d come to get a good look at me. After you blackmailed him into screwing me over.”

“I didn’t blackmail anyone,” said Luca quickly. Even though his Caller ID was blocked, he was taking care not to say too much that could be incriminating. “If I did employ your father for anything, I can promise you that the work was well-paid.”

“All I want to know is, how’d you figure out he could do it?”

“It’s amazing what you find looking through old records and documents. I knew I had something to use against you the minute I found a couple of your father’s old forgeries.”

“And what have you got now, Luca?” I said confidently. “Now that I’ve found out what you did and how you did it, and everyone’s closing in on you.”

“I’m so glad you asked, ‘Lex,” said Luca, and then in the background, I heard something.

It was just a muffled noise. But it sounded like a whine, a little cry. Immediately, I thought of Linda.

“What have you done?” I said, in amazement.

“I always wondered why you were so protective of Linda Ryder. And then I found her kid’s birth certificate. Like I said, it’s amazing what you can find. I bet the wedding was her idea. Hoping to reunite her baby with her baby-daddy, no doubt…”

“What have you done with her?” I belLindend. What was he even talking about? I was shaking. Linda’s little girl, the little girl with the blue eyes—

Wait.Blue eyes. I thought of my father.

Then I thought of Macy.

It can’t be.

“Give her back!” I said.

“I will. But I want something in return. Five million dollars, to be exact. In unmarked bills, in a suitcase. Call me when you get hold of it—shouldn’t be hard for a rich guy like you, huh? Catch you later, ‘Lex.”

“You’re a monster,” I said.

“Oh,” said Luca, “one more thing. I do hope you don’t manage to alert the police to what’s going on. Otherwise little Macy….well,” he sneered. “Otherwise your baby girl might not make it to seven. And how would Mrs. Linden feel about that, huh?”

He put the phone down, and I stood there, feeling my whole world as it fell apart.

I didn’t have time to get a driver and I wouldn’t have gotten one if I did. I sped into Queens through the rain, which was heavy now, verging on a thunderstorm. When I got to Linda’s apartment, I sat in the driver’s seat, shaking with rage and something else. So this was fear, true fear. The fear of losing the things in the world which matter most to you.

I slipped inside through the open door and bolted up the stairs. But when I got there, I could see the door to Linda’s friend’s apartment was open.

I went inside, and what I saw made me feel sick. The upturned table, the crayons on the floor. Little pictures of a happy sun smiling down on a house. A drawing of a lady with red hair that saidMommynext to it in childish, curly handwriting.

Linda and Sara were on the sofa, shaking. From the looks of it, they’d only just got back. Another man was standing by the entrance. When he saw me come in, he fumbled with the shotgun in his hands.

“NO!” I said, raising my hands. “No, no, no. I’m a friend. I’m a friend of hers,” I said, pointing at Linda.

She looked up at me. But there was nothing there I could do, nothing I could say which was going to calm her down. All I could see in Linda’s eyes was a dark look of disappointment.

“I’m going to help,” I said. “Luca’s just called me. We’re going to get her back.”

I thought Linda would scream. That she would shout and call me a bastard, that she would tell me I was nothing but a no-good scumbag who didn’t deserve her. And she would have been right about all those things. But instead, she frightened me with how calm she was. How evenly her voice chimed in the room, while her hands and her shoulders shook.

“You’re not going to do anything,” Linda said. I looked at her, shocked by the quietness with which she spoke.

“What do you mean?” I said. “We’ve got to pay it if we want to get her back.”

“This is your fault,” said Linda. “And I don’t want you to do anything.”

“What do you mean?” I said. “We can go to O’Rourke. We can tell him everything, he can stop all of this.”

“No, Axel,” said Linda, and I could see the dark circles under her eyes, from the sleepless night I’d just inflicted on her.

“He says if we go to the cops, he’ll…” said Sara, before her voice was choked by more sobs.

“Why are you doing this?” I said.

“You don’t trust me, right?” said Linda. “Never did. Well, here’s something I should have told you a long time ago, Axel. This is your fault.”

I felt like I’d been slapped.