Chapter 1 - THE MARK ON THE WINDSHIELDThe man everyone feared did not ask me whether I was certain.
He did not tell me children sometimes imagined danger.
He did not look across the street, see an ordinary gray sedan, and decide that ordinary things could not be evil.
Dominic Moretti simply looked down at my hand gripping the sleeve of his black coat.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Leora Hale.”
“And how long has that car been following you?”
“Eight days.”
His expression did not change, but something cold moved behind his dark eyes.
“Has the driver spoken to you?”
“He knows my name.”
The restaurant behind him had fallen silent.
A moment earlier, silverware had been touching porcelain, waiters had been carrying wine, and men in expensive suits had been speaking in low voices. Now every person near the windows was staring at the gray sedan across the street.
The driver’s door remained slightly open.
A man sat behind the wheel, watching us.
Dominic gently removed my fingers from his sleeve.
“Stay beside the doorman.”
“No.” My voice cracked. “Please don’t leave me.”
He studied my face for one second.
Then he held out his hand.
“Come with me.”
His hand was large, warm, and steady. Mine disappeared inside it.
We stepped off the curb together.
The gray sedan’s engine started.
Dominic did not hurry.
That frightened me more than if he had drawn a gun.
He walked as though the entire street belonged to him and the car had made the mistake of forgetting.
Halfway across the road, he reached inside his coat. The driver immediately pulled the door shut.
Dominic removed a small transparent evidence bag.
Inside it was a jagged piece of gray metal.
A line of dark red paint ran along one edge.
Dominic stopped beside the sedan.
The driver stared straight ahead.
Dominic placed the evidence bag beneath the windshield wiper.
Every person on the block went silent.
Shop owners froze in their doorways. A delivery driver lowered the box in his hands. Two men outside the bar across the street turned pale and walked backward inside without taking their eyes off the car.
I did not understand.
The driver did.
His face lost all its color.
Dominic leaned close to the glass.
“You should have replaced the door,” he said.
The driver’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
Dominic pointed to the deep scrape across the rear passenger door.
“The paint sample in that bag came from a vehicle seen leaving the Belladonna warehouse three years ago.”
The driver finally turned his head.
He was older than I had imagined. Maybe fifty. His hair was thin, his cheeks hollow, and a pale scar crossed his chin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he whispered.
Dominic’s voice became softer.
“That warehouse was where my younger brother was murdered.”
The driver reached for the gearshift.
Three black vehicles rolled into the street at the same time.
They blocked the sedan from the front and the rear.
Men stepped out.
None of them raised a weapon.
They did not need to.
The sedan driver looked at me through the window.
His expression was not angry.
It was desperate.
“Leora,” he said through the glass. “Your mother lied to you.”
Dominic struck the roof with one open hand.
The sound exploded through the street.
The driver flinched.
“You will not speak to her,” Dominic said.
“She deserves to know.”
“Know what?”
The driver smiled, but terror trembled beneath it.
“Ask Mara Hale why she changed the girl’s last name.”
My stomach dropped.
My mother’s name was Mara.
I had never told Dominic that.
The driver knew her.
Dominic noticed my face.
He opened the driver’s door and pulled the man from the car so quickly that the driver’s shoes scraped across the pavement.
The man did not fight.
He kept staring at me.
“She was supposed to be gone,” he said. “Both of them were supposed to be gone.”
Dominic’s men surrounded him.
“Take him downstairs,” Dominic ordered.
The man laughed once.
It was a broken, frightened sound.
“You think I’m the danger?” he asked. “I’m the warning.”
One of Dominic’s men pushed him toward a black vehicle.
The stranger twisted around.
“They found you, Leora!” he shouted. “They know where you live now!”
Dominic’s fist struck him across the mouth.
The man collapsed against the car.
Dominic crouched beside him.
“Who found her?”
The stranger spat blood onto the pavement.
“You already know.”
Dominic grabbed the front of his jacket.
“Say the name.”
The man looked past him at me.
“The Black Council.”
Every adult within hearing distance reacted.
Some lowered their eyes.
Others stepped away.
Dominic released him slowly.
I had never heard of the Black Council, but I saw what the words did to the people around us.
They frightened men who carried guns.
The stranger was forced into one of the vehicles.
Dominic turned to me.
“Where is your mother?”
“At work.”
“Which hospital?”
“St. Gabriel’s.”
He looked at one of his men. “Send a team.”
My fear became sharper.
“Why?”
“Because if that man knew your route, someone may know hers.”
He led me toward the restaurant.
“What did he mean about my last name?”
Dominic did not answer.
“Mr. Moretti?”
He stopped.
Most adults lied to children by softening their faces first.
Dominic did not.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Are you going to hurt him?”
“If he came to harm you, he will not be allowed to try again.”
That was not an answer.
But it was the first honest thing an adult had said to me in days.
Inside the restaurant, a woman in a dark blue suit rushed toward us. She had a silver streak in her black hair and carried a tablet beneath one arm.
“Police scanner just lit up,” she told Dominic. “Someone reported an attempted kidnapping outside the restaurant.”
Dominic looked back through the window.
No police cars had arrived.
“Who made the report?”
“Anonymous caller.”
“Description?”
The woman hesitated.
“They described you.”
I stared up at him.
“They said a man in a black coat took a seven-year-old girl from the sidewalk.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
The restaurant doors burst open.
Four police officers entered with their hands near their holsters.
The same kind of officers I had begged for help.
The first officer pointed at Dominic.
“Step away from the child.”
I moved closer to him.
“He didn’t take me.”
“Sweetheart, come over here.”
“No.”
The officer crouched as though I were a frightened animal.
“You’re safe now.”
“I was safe with him.”
Dominic placed one hand lightly against my shoulder.
“Leora, tell them exactly what happened.”
“The gray car followed me. That man knew my name. Mr. Moretti stopped him.”
The officer glanced through the window.
The gray sedan was still there, but the driver was gone.
“What man?”
“The stalker.”
“Where is he now?”
Dominic answered. “In my custody.”
The officer stood.
“That sounds like kidnapping.”
Dominic’s men shifted around the restaurant.
The silver-haired woman whispered, “Careful.”
The officer looked at Dominic. “Release him.”
“No.”
“Then you’re obstructing an investigation.”
“There was no investigation when this child asked for help.”
The officer’s face hardened. “You don’t get to make that decision.”
Dominic’s voice became quiet.
“Someone made a false emergency report within sixty seconds of the man being detained. Whoever called knew exactly what was happening before anyone outside this street could have known.”
The officer said nothing.
Dominic continued.
“Which means either the caller was watching us, or someone inside your department expected the driver to be stopped.”
The officer’s hand moved closer to his weapon.
Dominic smiled without warmth.
“That reaction answered more than your words could have.”
A phone rang.
It belonged to the officer.
He checked the screen, and his face changed.
“Answer it,” Dominic said.
The officer stepped aside.
The restaurant remained silent as he listened.
After several seconds, he looked at me.
Then he looked at Dominic.
“We’ve been ordered to escort the child to St. Gabriel’s Hospital.”
“By whom?”
“Deputy Commissioner Rourke.”
The silver-haired woman inhaled sharply.
Dominic’s expression became unreadable.
“Interesting,” he said.
“What?” I asked.
He looked down at me.
“Your mother works at St. Gabriel’s.”
I nodded.
“And Deputy Commissioner Rourke,” Dominic said, “was the lead detective on my brother’s murder.”
Outside, the gray sedan’s horn suddenly began blaring.
Everyone turned.
Smoke rose from beneath the hood.
One of Dominic’s men ran toward it.
The windshield shattered outward.
Flames spread across the dashboard.
The evidence bag Dominic had placed beneath the wiper curled and blackened.
The officer shouted for everyone to move back.
But Dominic remained still.
He watched the car burn.
“They destroyed it,” the silver-haired woman said.
“No,” Dominic replied.
His gaze shifted to the officer who had received the call.
“They destroyed what was inside it.”
The officer’s face went white.
Dominic turned to me.
“We are not going to the hospital with them.”
“But my mother—”
“My people will find her.”
“What if they already did?”
For the first time, fear appeared in his eyes.
It vanished almost immediately, but I had seen it.
He lowered himself until we were face-to-face.
“Leora, listen carefully. From this moment forward, you stay beside me. You do not go with anyone unless I tell you. Not a police officer. Not a teacher. Not even someone who claims your mother sent them.”
“Why?”
“Because the man in that car was right about one thing.”
My mouth went dry.
“What?”
“This is bigger than one stalker.”
A second phone rang.
The silver-haired woman answered.
She listened for only three seconds.
Then she lowered the phone.
“Dominic,” she said. “The team reached St. Gabriel’s.”
He stood.
“And?”
“Mara Hale never arrived for her shift.”
I stopped breathing.
The woman’s voice dropped.
“Her supervisor says Mara called out sick two hours ago.”
“My mother wasn’t sick,” I whispered. “She left home wearing her scrubs.”
Dominic looked toward the burning sedan.
“Find every traffic camera between Ashland Avenue and St. Gabriel’s.”
The silver-haired woman nodded.
I grabbed his hand.
“Where is my mother?”
He closed his fingers around mine.
“We are going to find her.”
Behind us, one of the restaurant windows cracked from the heat.
The gray sedan continued burning in the street.
And across the road, on the roof of an abandoned building, a man lowered a camera with a long black lens.
He pressed a phone to his ear.
“The girl is with Moretti,” he said.
A distorted voice answered.
“Then begin the second phase.”
The man looked through the lens at me.
“What about the mother?”
“Keep her alive.”
“For how long?”
May you like
There was a pause.
“Until the child remembers who she really is.”
Related Stories
