Chapter 2
The man's hands didn't move. He held the card open between his thumb and forefinger like it might tear if he breathed on it. I stayed on my knees because I didn't know how to get up without him telling me to.
He wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking past my shoulder.
I followed where his eyes went. Across the pale stones of the plaza, past two empty cafe tables, a man stood by the low stone fountain. He wore a faded work jacket with the collar turned up even though it wasn't cold. He had his phone pressed to his ear but he wasn't talking. He just held it there and stared at the front of the apartment building like he was waiting for someone to come out.
"Where is she?" the older man had asked me a second before. His voice was lower now. "She vanished last night. The man who took her, he's right there." I'd said it with my hands still clasped because Mom told me to say the last part exactly like that and to point.
I lifted one hand and pointed. My fingers were shaking so bad I had to steady them with the other hand.
"There," I whispered. "By the fountain."
The older man's face did something I didn't expect. For a half second his mouth went tight and his eyebrows pulled down, not in surprise but like he'd just recognized a name he didn't want to hear. His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. Then all of it smoothed out too fast. He blinked and looked back down at the card.
"I don't know him," he said.
He said it flat and quick, like he'd rehearsed it. But I'd seen that first look. His breathing had changed. He'd held his spoon so tight his knuckles went white before he set it down.
"You're lying," I said. I didn't mean to say it loud. It came out small and raw. "You know him."
He stared at me. His silver watch caught the gray light. For a second I thought he was going to tell me to leave, the way grown-ups do when you catch them.
Instead he pushed his chair back. The legs scraped loud on the pavement. He didn't step toward the man by the fountain. He stepped around the little round table and put himself between me and the plaza. He put one hand on my shoulder and pulled me up. My knees hurt from the stone. I stumbled and his grip tightened.
"Get up behind the table," he murmured, not looking at me, eyes still locked across the plaza. "Stay behind me."
His voice wasn't stern anymore. It was low and careful. He slid the folded card into the inside pocket of his navy jacket and patted it once, like he was making sure it wouldn't fall out.
Across the plaza the man by the fountain had noticed us. He lowered his phone an inch. He wasn't pretending anymore. He looked straight at our table, at the old man standing with his hand on a dirty kid's shoulder, and his whole body went still. I could see his face clearly now. He was maybe forty, with short dark hair and a cut on his cheek that wasn't new.
He didn't wave. He didn't come toward us. He slipped his phone into his work jacket pocket and started walking. Not fast. Just steady steps across the plaza stones, past the fountain, toward the gap between the stone building and the coffee shop where the parking lot was. He looked back once over his shoulder.
The older man's hand pressed harder on my shoulder.
"Don't look at him," he said under his breath. "Look at me."
But I looked anyway. The man in the work jacket kept walking. He wasn't running, but he wasn't staying. He was leaving before anyone could get close enough to ask him a question.
"You knew him," I said again, and my voice cracked. "Mom said you'd know."
The older man's face was gray. He kept his body turned so the table was between me and the direction the man was going. A woman at the next table was staring at us. The server who'd brought his food stood in the cafe doorway, drying a glass, watching.
"He's going," I whispered.
"I see him," the older man said. His hand was still on my shoulder and I could feel it shaking a little. He didn't let go. He didn't chase.
The man in the work jacket reached the edge of the plaza. He glanced back one last time, then turned the corner toward the parking lot and was gone from view. The fountain kept running behind where he'd stood.
May you like
The older man finally let out his breath. He didn't move his hand.
"We're going inside," he said quietly. "You're staying with me."
