mother’s concentration.
After five minutes of searching in vain, I realize I have to call the police. I prosecuted several kidnaping cases in Houston, and I learned one thing from the FBI agents who worked them. The first hour is the best chance of finding the victim, and every lost minute can mean disaster.
As I run across the street to use our neighbor’s phone, a ripple of noise like the roar at a football stadium rolls through the crowd. I turn back to our house, expecting to see the roof collapsing, the spectacular climax of residential fires. But it’s not the roof. The crowd parts like the Red Sea, and my mother comes running through the open space.
She’s carrying Annie in her arms.
Relief surges through me with such force that I nearly faint for the second time. But I run forward and hug them both as tightly as I dare. Annie’s face is white with terror, and her chin is quivering.
“Someone dropped her off at Edna Hensley’s,” Mom gasps. “Edna answered her door and saw Annie standing there crying.”
A heavyset, blue-haired woman I faintly recognize has appeared behind my mother, wheezing from her exertions. Edna Hensley.
“Where do you live?” I ask her.
“About a half mile away. You’ve been there before, Penn. When you were a little boy.”
“Who dropped her off?”
Edna shakes her head. “I didn’t see anyone. Not a car, not anything.” Her gaze darkens. She reaches into her pocket, pulls out a folded sheet of construction paper, and hands it to me.
I unfold the paper with shaking hands. Printed on it in magic marker are the words: THIS IS HOW EASY IT IS. LAY OFF, ASSHOLE.
Livy braces me from the side, making sure I keep my feet.
I am back in Houston, watching Arthur Lee Hanratty’s brother carry Annie out of the house, a tiny bundle about to disappear forever. It’s as though I missed him that night, and he has returned to try again. But he can’t. He’s been dead for four years. His youngest brother is alive, but this isn’t his work. Whoever kidnapped Annie today could easily have killed her, and the last surviving Hanratty would have done so, taking his revenge for his two brothers. This is something else entirely. This is a warning. This is the Del Payton case.
“Mom, take this piece of paper to the Lewises’ house and put it in a Ziploc bag. I’ll take care of Annie.”
She is reluctant to go, but she does. I thank Edna Hensley, then carry Annie through the crowd to Livy’s borrowed Fiat and sit in the passenger seat, hugging her against me, rocking slowly, murmuring reassurances in her ear. She is still shivering, and her skin is frighteningly cold. I need to find out everything she can remember about her kidnapper before she starts blocking out the trauma, but I don’t want to upset her any more than she already is.
“Annie?” I whisper, lifting her away from me enough to look into her hazel eyes. “It’s Daddy, punkin.”
Tears spill down her cheeks.
“Everything’s all right now. I love you, punkin.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but her quivering chin ruins the words before they emerge.
“Honey, who took you to the lady’s house? Did you see?”
She nods hesitantly.
“Who was it? Did you know them?”
“Fuh… fire. Fire man,” she stammers. “Fire man.”
“A fireman? With a red hat?”
She shakes her head. “A black and yellow hat.”
“That’s good, punkin. He was just making sure you were all right. Did you see his face?”
“He had a mask. Like a swimming mask.”
A respirator. “That’s good. Did he say anything to you?”
“He said he had to get me away. Get me safe.”
“That’s right, that’s right. He was just getting you away from the fire. Everything’s fine now.”
Her face seems to crumple in on itself. “Daddy, I’m scared.”
I crush her to my chest, as though to protect her from the threat that has already passed. “I love you, punkin. I love you.”
She shudders against me.
“I said, I love you, punkin.” I pull her back and look into her eyes, waiting.
“I love you more,” she says softly, completing our ritual, and my anxiety lessens a little.
Livy climbs into the driver’s seat, squeezes Annie’s shoulder, then takes her silk scarf from the glove compartment and begins wiping soot from my face.
“Where do you want to go?” she asks.
“Let’s just sit for a minute.”
“Do you think it’s safe here? Your mom told me about the note.”
Instead of answering her question, I lift the Fiat’s cell phone, call Information, and ask for the number of Ray Presley. Livy takes her hand from my knee and watches me with apprehension. Presley’s phone rings twenty times. No one answers.
“Is he there?” she asks in a quiet voice.
“No.”
Her face is strangely slack. “Penn, why did you call Ray Presley?”
“There’s no time to go into it now.”
“Penn? Where are you, son?”
It’s my father. “Over here, Dad!”
Livy looks back over the trunk of the convertible. “He’s seen us. He’s coming.”
“Olivia!” Dad cries, rushing up to the car. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, it’s Penn and Annie who need help. I’m so sorry about this, Dr. Cage. It’s just unbelievable.”
Dad leans over the passenger door and hugs Annie and me. Annie keeps her head buried in my neck.
“Is she all right?”
“I think so. Considering what just happened. Somebody-”
“I already heard. The story’s spreading like-” He laughs bitterly. “Like wildfire. Where’s your mother?”
“I told her to go across the street and put the note in a Ziploc. There might be fingerprints.” I reach up and take his hand. “I should have listened to you. You told me they’d stoop this low.”
He squeezes my hand hard. “It’s just a house. We’ll build another one.”
“I was crazy to get involved in this case.”
He shakes his head, his eyes on the great column of smoke rising into the sky. “Gutless sons of bitches… laid hands on my granddaughter. If I find the man who did this, I’ll flay him alive.”
“Do you know anything about Ruby’s condition?”
He sighs heavily. “They carried her to St. Catherine’s Hospital. Peter Carelli’s in the ER with her now. It doesn’t look good. Massive third-degree burns, a broken hip. The helicopter’s on its way from Jackson. I’m about to go over there.”
“We’ll follow you as soon as Mom gets back.”
He nods absently, watching the water pour onto the ruin that sheltered our family for thirty-five years.
“Dad, the library-”
“I know. No point thinking about it now. Right now we worry about the living.” He looks down at me, his eyes flinty and cold. “This is the crossroads, son. We back off or we go forward. It’s your call. I’ll back you either way.”
Go forward? After this? “Let’s just find Mom and get to the hospital.”
He nods. “I’ll see you there.”
The treatment room in the ER is crowded but quiet. The muted beeps of monitors punctuate the hushed voices like metronomes. Ruby lies at the center of the room, a technological still life surrounded by doctors, nurses, a respiratory therapist, and my father. I move closer, straightening the scrub shirt a nurse brought me to replace the shirt I lost in the fire. Two large-bore IV lines are pouring fluids into Ruby’s arms, and oxygen is being pumped into her lungs through a mask. Her mostly nude body is exposed to the air, the parts ravaged by fire-her right arm,
