Four Seconds to Lose

Miami.”

“Sam Arnoni?” The Sam that I talked to that day on the phone?

Heroin?

Fuck, Charlie!

“Yeah. There were some other names included. First names: Bob, Eddie, Manny. Street names, no doubt. Useless.” He pauses. “But I started looking into this Sam Arnoni guy and . . .” Dan’s head falls back. “Cain, you have the worst fucking luck in the world.”

I feel my brow pull together tightly. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“‘Big Sam’ Arnoni has been on the FBI’s radar for years, but they can’t nail him.” Rifling through the folder, he pulls out a small bundle of papers affixed together with a paper clip. He tosses it onto my desk without ceremony. “The guy has enough completely legitimate businesses—some inherited, some built by him from the ground up—to make it easy for him to launder his money and hard for the Feds to catch him. Plus, he’s smart. Smarter than most of these lowlifes. He’s kept his organization small. There’s no grandstanding, no Godfather power-trip crap.

“Six years ago, the Feds thought they finally had an in. A guy by the name of Dominic was ready to turn. But he disappeared before they got any concrete information. Showed up dead a few months later. After that, this Sam guy buckled down even more.”

Picking up the stack, I begin flipping through the pages. Mostly candid shots of a large, graying man in slacks and a leather jacket. “So, he’s small-time mob, basically?”

Dan gives a half-nod, half-shrug. “Except I wouldn’t say small-time. Not anymore, by the sounds of it.”

I keep flipping, looking for something of value to me. “And how is Charlie involved in this? Are you saying she’s—” My words die as I land on a picture of the same man with his arm around a young blond girl as they walk down the sidewalk. She can’t be more than ten, and she’s smiling wide up at the man, an ice-cream cone in her hand.

Dan pulls out a second stack of papers from the folder. “Sam Arnoni married a woman by the name of Jamie Miller twelve years ago. The picture on the top is her. She used to work at The Playhouse in Vegas.”

The small hairs lift at the back of my head. That’s where Charlie said she had worked. I study the picture of the woman in a skimpy silver dress and instantly see the resemblance—same blond curls, same wide mouth, same doll face, hidden by layers of heavy makeup.

Dan keeps talking, but I already know where this is going. “Jamie Miller died two years later giving birth to Sam’s son, who also died. She had a daughter.” I flip through picture after picture of Sam and the young girl. The two of them eating fries at a diner, him pushing her on a swing, him cheering her on as a medal is slipped over her neck, as she bows on a stage.

And Charlie is smiling in each and every one of them. As if she’s genuinely happy.

“So, this Sam Arnoni guy raised Charlie as his own daughter.”

Dan’s mouth twists in a grimace as he pulls out the last stack of papers, handing it to me. “Her name’s not really Charlie, Cain.”

“I know.” How many times had I cried her name out as I came? Did she even care that it wasn’t hers?

My admission earns a high-browed stare but I don’t elaborate, accepting the paperwork from Dan with a deep inhale.

What am I about to find out?

My hand falters on the first page—a candid color photo of Charlie coming out of the gym, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her face clear of makeup, her eyes shining like a meadow of violets in the sunlight. Just like she looked coming back from the gym in my building every morning, right before we showered together.

The painful lump in my throat that I removed earlier with physical violence and copious amounts of cognac is back with a vengeance. I’m about to ask Dan if I can keep this file when I see the copy of her driver’s license.

The request dies on my lips.

“Is this real?” I close my eyes tightly and reopen them, hoping for a different outcome.

Fuck.

He sighs. “At least you know she’s legal, Cain.”

“Barely.” I’m eleven years older than her? “What does this mean? That she just graduated high school a few months ago?” I don’t remember high school; it was a lifetime ago. I don’t know which shock is hitting me harder, though: the fact that she’s only eighteen or . . .

“She was a good student. Quiet, smart. Focused on gymnastics and acting. She was accepted to Tisch to start in the fall. Obviously the Feds had their eye on her but she was a minor, so tailing her was difficult. They mostly wanted to use her to gather information.” Dan is watching me carefully as he continues. “It wasn’t until the spring, after she turned eighteen, that they first suspected Sam of using her to deliver drugs. And then she just left. Apparently she had applied for a one-year deferral so she could travel to Europe. Her passport turned up being used at hotels in France, Italy, Germany . . . It looked legit. It seems Sam has really gone out of his way to hide her presence down here.”

Someone must have tipped him off. He’d have to have an in with the FBI for that to happen. “So, someone is traveling around Europe under her identity, while she’s down here, going by Charlie Rourke and . . .” I lock eyes with Dan, waiting for him to confirm my suspicions.

“She didn’t admit to anything in the note, so I don’t know her culpability. But she did explain how the drops are made, with fairly specific details.” There’s a long pause, and then I sense the air in my office shift. “How much did you know, Cain?” Dan asks slowly. “Did you know what she was doing when you brought her with you to my home? To my wife and unborn child and—”

“No!” I temper my tone quickly, because I have no right to yell at Dan. He, on the other hand, has every right to punch me. Repeatedly. “I didn’t know.” I sigh. “I started suspecting it the day before she left. And then last night—” I stop, deciding whether I want to share all of this with Dan. After what he’s shared with me, though, I owe him this much. “There’s a guy by the name of Ronald Sullivan who may be of help to you. With enough pressure, he’ll talk. I have his address.” It took a dozen hits and a few broken ribs to get him to tell me what happened the night I ran into Charlie in the cafe. How some asshole named Manny held a gun to her head, threatening to kill her, and how Ronald told her to run because she was going to get herself killed. Even thinking about it now sets fire to my blood.

“So, she’s really gone? She never mentioned where she was going?”

I throw down the stacks of paper, hearing the accusation between his words. “I’m not hiding her, Dan! I wish I could find her, but she’s gone. And do you blame her for running? She’s probably given you all that she knows and you’re looking to drag her in to interrogate her.”

“Hey!” Dan barks as he jumps off the couch. “I’m on your side here. I haven’t said a word about Charlie to anyone. No one knows she was working here, that she was dating you. If I had said anything, your life would be a circus right now.” Clearing his throat, he adds, “I could lose my job over withholding this kind of information.”

“Sorry,” I mutter, pushing my hands through my hair. “I just can’t believe she was doing this the entire time I was with her.”

“You’re not the only one. I can’t believe I had a drug trafficker in my own home and I didn’t have a damn clue.” He exhales. “Who uses their sweet little eighteen-year-old daughter like that? And who knows how long he’s been doing it! Things go wrong all the time with these transactions. Throw in a girl who looks like Charlie and it’s guaranteed that they end up raped or dead. Or both.”

Cold dread slides through my body. Had Charlie ever been raped?

“I wish I could help her, Cain,” Dan says with genuine concern in his voice, his righteous anger fading. “But I can’t if she’s gone. If I don’t know how much she really has on him. And if it’s enough.”

I tap the stack of information. “And if it is? Is there really any protecting her against someone like this? If he’s what you say he is, if he likely killed his own best friend, what’s to stop him from killing her? He obviously doesn’t value her life. As long as this guy is in the picture, she’s never going to be safe, is she?”

“Look, Cain, I know you haven’t had the best experience with it, but you have to trust in the justice system. We don’t know—”