Chapter 2
He pulled out his encrypted phone.
Thomas answered on the second ring.
“Boss?”
“Get everyone.”
Thomas heard something in his voice.
“What happened?”
Victor looked toward the empty nursery.
“My wife left.”
A pause.
“The twins?”
“With her.”
“Do you know where?”
“No.”
Victor stood.
“Lock down airports, train stations, highway contacts. Quietly.”
Thomas hesitated.
Victor caught it.
“What?”
“If she left voluntarily—”
“Find them.”
His voice hardened from pain into command because command was familiar and pain was not.
Twenty-five minutes later, the penthouse had become a command center.
Men moved through rooms with equipment.
Building security records were pulled.
Garage footage was copied.
Thomas stood near the windows with two phones.
He was forty-six, broad through the shoulders, with a scar along his jaw and the patient expression of a man who had spent most of his life cleaning up other people’s emergencies.
He watched Victor instead of the screens.
“Cash untouched?”
“Yes.”
“Phones?”
“Nora’s personal phone is here.”
Victor pointed.
She had left it charging beside the sofa.
That frightened him more than anything.
Nora never forgot her phone.
She had chosen to leave it.
Thomas looked toward the nursery.
“Then she planned for tracking.”
“I know.”
The building’s night concierge arrived shaking.
Paulie had worked downstairs six years.
He looked ready to faint.
“Mr. Rinaldi, I swear, she didn’t come through the lobby.”
Victor stood close enough that Paulie stopped breathing normally.
“She left with two babies.”
“I know, sir.”
“Luggage.”
“Yes.”
“And you saw nothing?”
“The private garage elevator.”
Paulie swallowed.
“She could have gone straight down.”
Victor turned.
“Garage feeds.”
The building technician connected his laptop to the television.
Black-and-white footage filled the screen.
Victor ordered them back to two in the morning.
2:11.
Empty garage.
2:12.
A dark gray Volvo station wagon entered.
Plain.
Forgettable.
Snow packed around the rear license plate.
Victor moved closer.
“Play.”
At 2:14, the private elevator doors opened.
Nora appeared.
Victor stopped breathing.
She wore a black parka.
Her dark hair was pulled into a knot.
Leo was secured against her chest.
Mia was strapped against her back in a second infant carrier.
Two suitcases rolled behind her.
Nora looked tired.
Not hysterical.
Not confused.
Decisive.
A woman got out of the Volvo.
Heavy coat.
Knit hat.
Scarf over her lower face.
She helped load the bags.
Car seats were already installed.
Victor watched Nora unfasten each baby carefully and secure them inside.
No hesitation.
No backward glance.
No pause to reconsider the penthouse twenty floors above.
“Freeze it.”
The driver stood near the rear hatch.
Thomas leaned toward the screen.
“Can we get a face?”
The technician shook his head.
“Not from this angle.”
“Anything?”
He zoomed.
The image broke into grain.
But one detail remained.
A small patch on the woman’s shoulder.
Shield.
Two crossed keys.
Victor knew it.
St. Jude’s Medical Center.
The hospital where the twins had spent their first three weeks in the NICU.
The same hospital where Nora had been seeing a postpartum therapist twice a week.
Victor stared at the image.
“She had help.”
Thomas said nothing.
“This wasn’t a wife leaving after a fight.”
May you like
Victor’s voice became lower.
“She had an extraction.”
