Chapter 2 - THE FIRST CRACK
The guard’s name was Marcus. Leah learned that later. Right then he was just the wall between her and the aisle, holding the puckered foil pouch he’d pulled out of a bag that seemed to contain things no normal security guard carried.
The disc went in. The pouch went into his jacket.
“Tracker,” he said.
“From my system?” the father asked.
“No.”
“Then whose?”
Marcus turned the disc over in his fingers before it disappeared. “No manufacturer mark. Not commercial. Somebody built this.”
Leah stepped back toward the curtain.
The baby’s crying had changed. Still upset. But thinner. Like something running out.
The father looked down at his son, then at the pouch, then at her.
“You said you’ve seen one.”
“I think so.”
“Where?”
She looked through the curtain toward premium economy. Maya was still asleep, rabbit under her chin, exactly where she’d left her.
Her whole body answered before her mind did. Protect her. Say nothing. Get back to the seat.
Get to Rome.
The man noticed the silence. When he spoke again, it wasn’t softer exactly. Just less like an order.
“Kid.”
“My name is Leah.”
“Leah.” He glanced toward the curtain. “Is someone traveling with you?”
“My sister.”
“Your parents?”
She said nothing.
That was enough. His eyes sharpened.
“How old are you?”
“Ten.”
“Your sister?”
“Three.”
Marcus’s expression changed. The father stared at her a moment too long.
“You’re flying internationally alone with a three-year-old.”
“We have permission.”
That was technically true. Her mother had signed the travel letter months ago, for a trip that never happened. It was not permission for this.
The man sat down slowly. Julian was still restless against his chest, tiny fists opening and closing.
Leah pointed. “Take off his jacket.”
He looked at her. “What?”
“He’s hot.”
The flight attendant touched the baby’s neck. “She’s right.”
He removed the little cashmere jacket, and Leah saw the shirt underneath was damp.
“Hold him against you.”
“I am holding him.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You’re carrying him.”
He looked almost offended. “There’s a difference?”
“Yes.”
For a moment nobody spoke. The senator’s newspaper hadn’t moved in ten minutes. The actress had stopped pretending to sleep.
Then, unbelievably, he listened.
He opened his suit jacket, shifted the baby higher, pressed him against his chest instead of cradling him stiff in one arm.
“Like this?”
Leah nodded. “Talk to him.”
“What do I say?”
“Anything.”
Marcus looked away. Probably because the most frightening man on the aircraft had just gone completely helpless in front of him.
The father looked down. “Julian.”
The baby cried.
“I’m here.”
The cry weakened.
His face changed. “Julian. I’m here.”
Again. Slower.
The baby’s fists loosened. His whole body sagged, the way a knot lets go when someone finally pulls the right end of the string.
Leah watched. “Keep going.”
“You’re very bossy for ten.”
“My sister says that too.”
One corner of his mouth moved. Then Julian turned his face into his father’s shirt, and the crying broke into hiccups, and then into nothing at all.
Eighty-seven minutes of noise, and then silence so complete the cabin felt bigger.
The flight attendant pressed a hand to her mouth. “So he wasn’t hungry.”
“He might be later,” Leah said. “Right now he was scared. And uncomfortable.”
The father looked at the pouch in Marcus’s jacket. “Because of that?”
“Maybe.”
Marcus shook his head. “A tracker shouldn’t make a baby scream.”
“No.” Leah looked at the blanket. “Unless it was scratching him.”
The attendant lifted the fabric.
A faint red mark ran along Julian’s side, where the edge of the disc had rubbed against him every time he moved.
The father’s face went cold. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just dangerous.
“Who packed his things?”
Marcus answered. “Nanny team at the hotel.”
“Who had access?”
“Six people.”
“Get names.”
“Already doing it.”
Leah backed toward the curtain. This was exactly what she didn’t want. Security. Questions. Adults noticing her.
“Leah.”
She stopped.
The father was holding his son now. Really holding him – palm flat, breathing slow, the baby’s ear against his sternum.
“What happened at your house?”
“Nothing.”
“You recognized the tracker.”
“I said I think I did.”
“You ran away four days ago.”
Her throat closed. “I didn’t say that.”
“No.” His eyes moved down over her borrowed sneakers, over the backpack that had once been her mother’s, over the way her body was angled toward the curtain even now.
“You didn’t have to.”
Then the black disc in Marcus’s hand blinked.
Once.
A tiny green light, gone as fast as it came.
Marcus looked at it. “That thing is active.”
The father’s eyes went flat. “Meaning?”
“It may still be transmitting.”
Leah stopped breathing.
Her kitchen table. The wood grain. The cold tile.
She had found the first disc after she heard voices downstairs, two days after her mother left, when the house had gone quiet in the wrong way. A second one under the hall cabinet. Then she’d stood at the top of the stairs and listened to her stepfather’s office door, and heard him arguing with someone through a speaker.
Money. Addresses. A child.
Then Maya’s name.
That had been enough to make her pack.
The father was watching her face, and whatever he saw there made him stand up.
“Leah. What’s your last name?”
She hesitated. “Bennett.”
He froze.
Marcus turned his head toward him. “Adrian.”
The man didn’t move. “Your mother’s name.”
“Rachel.”
Every trace of color left his face.
Marcus said, very quietly, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Leah’s heart started hitting her ribs. “You know her?”
Adrian Vale looked toward the curtain.
Toward Maya.
May you like
Then back at her.
“Yes.”
