We left Baltimore before sunrise.
I did not sleep.
Neither did Alessandro.
Marcus drove while another vehicle followed behind us. Logan slept beside me, curled against Captain Bear as though he hadn't just turned my entire world upside down.
Philadelphia was ninety miles away.
It felt like another planet.
Somewhere there, David had been photographed alive.
My husband.
Not a ghost.
Not ashes.
Not a memory framed on my bedside table.
Alive.
I kept reopening the photograph until Alessandro finally said, “You're going to make yourself sick.”
“I've been mourning an alive man for two years. I think we're past sick.”
He accepted that.
“What is Keene doing with him?” I asked.
“We don't know.”
“He's holding a gun.”
“We think so.”
“You think?”
“The photograph isn't clear enough.”
“I know what I'm looking at.”
Alessandro stared out the window.
“Keene was useful to Vittorio.”
“How useful?”
“He could make evidence disappear.”
“Like David's body?”
“Like someone else's body becoming David's.”
I swallowed.
“Who was buried?”
Alessandro didn't answer.
“You said you didn't know.”
“I didn't.”
“Past tense?”
He glanced at Marcus.
Marcus remained silent.
I leaned forward.
“Who did I bury?”
Alessandro sighed.
“A man named Michael Grant.”
I stared at him.
“Who?”
“A low-level courier working for Vittorio.”
“Did he have a family?”
“No one we could identify.”
“So Vittorio killed him?”
“We believe so.”
My stomach twisted.
Someone had died so I could believe David had died.
I had cried over another man's coffin.
Prayed over another man's grave.
Whispered goodbye to somebody whose name I had never known.
“We should tell his family if we find them,” I said.
Alessandro looked at me strangely.
“What?”
“You're thinking about the dead man.”
“Someone should.”
He looked away.
After a while he said, “David would say the same thing.”
We reached Philadelphia shortly after seven.
Marcus had people searching transit cameras.
It still unsettled me how many resources Alessandro controlled.
Cars.
Safe apartments.
Private security.
Contacts in multiple cities.
I had spent the previous week negotiating a payment plan on my electric bill while this man could apparently locate a missing person across state lines before breakfast.
Yet for all his power, he hadn't found David in two years.
That frightened me.
We entered a private office above a closed restaurant.
A wall of monitors showed security footage from train stations and surrounding streets.
Logan woke hungry.
One of Alessandro's men brought him pancakes and strawberries.
“Do you have syrup?” Logan asked.
The heavily tattooed man stared as if he'd been asked to build a rocket.
“Uh…”
“Because pancakes need syrup.”
“I'll find syrup.”
Alessandro almost smiled.
For thirty minutes we searched recordings.
Then Marcus pointed.
“There.”
David walked through a station corridor.
Keene followed.
Another camera showed them leaving through a side exit.
Then nothing.
I stared at David frame by frame.
He was thinner.
There was gray in his beard.
His coat looked too large.
But it was him.
“Can we track the car?”
“Trying,” Marcus said.
Logan climbed onto my lap.
“Who's that?”
I hesitated.
Then whispered, “Daddy.”
He stared at the screen.
For several seconds he didn't react.
Then he touched David's face with one small finger.
“Daddy got old.”
A laugh escaped me through tears.
“Yes.”
“Can we go get him?”
“We're trying.”
Logan looked at Alessandro.
“You have lots of people.”
Alessandro blinked.
“Yes.”
“Tell them to get my daddy.”
Nobody spoke.
Alessandro cleared his throat.
“We're working on it, young man.”
Logan nodded as though a business arrangement had been reached.
Another hour passed.
Then Marcus found the vehicle.
A gray sedan registered to a shell company had traveled toward an industrial area near the Delaware River.
We followed.
An abandoned warehouse stood between two empty factories.
Marcus refused to let me enter.
This time I didn't argue.
Not because I trusted him.
Because Logan needed one parent safely beside him.
Alessandro stayed in the car too.
His wounds made walking difficult.
Ten minutes after Marcus went inside, gunshots echoed.
I grabbed Logan.
Alessandro reached instinctively for the door.
“You can't go in there.”
“My men—”
“You were dead yesterday.”
“Technically.”
“This isn't funny.”
“No.”
More gunshots.
Then silence.
My heart pounded.
Marcus appeared at the warehouse entrance.
He waved.
I was out of the car before anyone could stop me.
“Stay here,” I told Logan.
He was with two guards.
I ran.
Inside, the warehouse smelled like oil and river water.
Marcus stood beside a chair.
Rope lay on the floor.
Blood stained one armrest.
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
My knees nearly buckled.
“How?”
“Back exit.”
“Was David here?”
Marcus pointed.
On the concrete floor lay a wedding photograph.
Mine.
David and me.
He had carried it.
For two years.
I picked it up with shaking hands.
On the back, written in David's handwriting, were four words.
Catherine, trust the bear.
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
Marcus frowned.
“Captain Bear.”
I turned toward the entrance.
Logan.
I ran back outside.
“Give me Captain.”
Logan hugged the bear.
“Why?”
“Just for one second.”
I examined it.
Old brown fur.
One eye slightly crooked.
A stitched patch along the back.
The bear had belonged to David as a child.
I remembered his mother telling me it had been repaired years ago.
I felt along the seam.
Something hard was inside.
Alessandro watched.
I tore open several loose stitches.
A small metal key fell into my palm.
Marcus stared.
“What opens that?”
“I have no idea.”
Logan looked offended.
“You hurt Captain.”
“We'll fix him.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
A sound came from behind us.
A vehicle.
A gray sedan appeared at the far end of the street.
Marcus shouted, “Move!”
Guards rushed toward us.
The sedan accelerated.
Then stopped.
The passenger door opened.
A man stumbled out.
Bearded.
Thin.
Bleeding from the forehead.
My heart knew him before my brain did.
“David.”
He lifted his head.
Across two years, across one funeral, across hundreds of nights when I had slept alone, my husband looked at me.
“Cat?”
Nobody had called me that since the day he died.
I ran.
So did he.
We collided in the middle of the road.
His arms wrapped around me.
I screamed his name.
He buried his face against my hair.
“I'm sorry.”
I hit his chest.
Again.
Again.
“You were alive!”
“I know.”
“You were alive!”
“I know.”
“You left me!”
“I didn't.”
“You let me bury you!”
“I tried to come home.”
I hit him again.
Then my fists stopped working.
I collapsed against him.
He held me.
We both cried.
Then a tiny voice came from behind us.
“Daddy?”
David froze.
I felt his entire body change.
Slowly, he turned.
Logan stood ten feet away holding Captain Bear.
David stared at his son.
The last time he had seen Logan, our boy had been six weeks old.
Now Logan was three.
David lowered himself to his knees.
His mouth trembled.
“Hey, buddy.”
Logan looked at me.
“That's Daddy?”
I nodded.
David held out his arms, but he didn't move closer.
He waited.
Logan approached carefully.
He touched David's beard.
“You got old.”
David laughed through his tears.
“So I've been told.”
“Mommy said you'd get pizza.”
David looked at me.
I covered my mouth.
He smiled.
“Then we better get pizza.”
Logan suddenly threw both arms around his neck.
David's face crumpled.
He held our son like he was afraid someone might pull him away again.
Maybe they had.
Behind me, Alessandro cleared his throat.
David looked up.
The warmth vanished from his expression.
“Alessandro.”
“David.”
“You were supposed to protect them.”
“I did.”
“You let Catherine keep working nights in a hospital.”
Alessandro looked almost embarrassed.
“I protected them from murder. Financial stability wasn't part of our arrangement.”
Even I stared at him.
“Seriously?”
“I see how that sounds.”
David almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he noticed the blood visible beneath Alessandro's collar.
“What happened?”
“Vittorio.”
David's expression darkened.
“He finally moved against you.”
“Yes.”
“And Keene?”
“Escaped.”
David shook his head.
“No.”
“What?”
“He didn't escape.”
We all looked at him.
David stood.
“Keene let me go.”
“Why?”
“To deliver a message.”
My stomach tightened.
“What message?”
David looked at me.
“Vittorio knows about Logan.”
I pulled my son closer.
“What about him?”
David's eyes dropped to Captain Bear.
“The key.”
I showed him.
“You found it.”
“What does it open?”
“A bank box.”
“What's inside?”
“The original ledger.”
Alessandro stepped forward.
“You told me the ledger was destroyed.”
“I lied.”
For the first time, I saw real anger in Alessandro's face.
“You let people die looking for something you knew still existed?”
“I kept the location secret because someone in your inner circle was leaking information.”
The men around Alessandro became still.
Marcus frowned.
“Who?”
“I never knew.”
David looked at each of them.
“That's why I disappeared.”
“You were kidnapped,” I said.
“Yes.”
“For two years?”
“Not all of it.”
I stared.
“What does that mean?”
David looked ashamed.
“They held me for seven months.”
“And after that?”
“I escaped.”
“Then why didn't you come home?”
His answer was barely audible.
“Because they were watching you.”
I stepped back.
“What?”
“I came to Baltimore.”
“When?”
“A year ago.”
My heart cracked.
“You were here?”
“I watched Logan at preschool from across the street.”
My eyes filled.
“You could see us?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn't come to us?”
“If I walked toward you, men would have followed me.”
“You don't know that.”
“I did.”
“How?”
David reached into his coat.
He pulled out photographs.
Me carrying groceries.
Logan at a playground.
Our apartment.
The hospital.
Someone had been watching us.
For months.
I suddenly felt exposed in every memory of my own life.
David spoke softly.
“I stayed away because distance was the only protection I could give you.”
I hated that I understood.
I hated even more that I couldn't immediately forgive him.
Alessandro examined the pictures.
“Vittorio?”
“Yes.”
David looked at Captain Bear.
“The evidence in that box can end this.”
“Then let's get it,” Marcus said.
David shook his head.
“There's another problem.”
“What?”
“The key isn't enough.”
I looked at him.
“What else?”
“The bank requires two signatures.”
“Yours?”
“Yes.”
“And whose?”
David slowly faced Alessandro.
“Yours.”
Before Alessandro could answer, a phone rang.
One of his men picked up.
He listened.
Then went pale.
“What?”
He handed the phone to Alessandro.
A distorted voice filled the speaker.
“Brother.”
Alessandro's face became stone.
Vittorio.
“You look surprisingly healthy for a dead man.”
“Disappointed?”
“Temporarily.”
Vittorio chuckled.
Then said, “David, congratulations on finding your family.”
David stepped closer.
“What do you want?”
“The key.”
“No.”
“I suspected you'd say that.”
A second sound came through the phone.
A woman crying.
I recognized the voice.
My supervisor.
Denise Holloway.
Vittorio said calmly, “Perhaps Catherine will be more cooperative when she understands I'm sitting inside her apartment.”
My blood turned to ice.
He continued.
“And when Logan asks why Captain Bear's old hiding place is empty, remind him that adults who break promises often lose much more than toys.”
The call ended.
David stared at me.
Alessandro stared at the phone.
And I understood something terrifying.
Vittorio wasn't trying to find us anymore.
He wanted us to come to him.