Petrov is downstairs. Two soldiers in the hallway upstairs. The brownstone is quiet.
I have not eaten since five this morning, when I had two bites of a piece of toast Theodoros made me and could not swallow the third.
I sit at the kitchen island.
I look at the phone.
Then the phone lights up.
I do not breathe.
I turn the phone over.
Lex: ‘I have her. We're coming home.’
I read the sentence three times.
I read it a fourth time to make sure the words are not rearranging.
I set the phone down on the marble. Very gently. Like, the phone might break if I put it down too fast.
I stand up and walk to the half-bath off the kitchen.
I throw up.
I rinse my mouth at the sink. I splash water on my face. I look at myself in the small bathroom mirror.
The woman in the mirror is the woman who has been holding the line at the brownstone for thirteen hours and forty-six minutes, and she’s also the woman whose daughter is alive, and she’s also the woman who is going to need to be at the door ofthis house when the SUV pulls up because the daughter coming home is going to need her mother at the door.
I come out of the bathroom.
I pick up the phone.
I type back: ‘Drive safely.’
Chapter 23
Lex
The Hunt
Earlier That Morning
Ileave the brownstone at 6:32 AM.
Maeve is at the kitchen island in a borrowed sweater. Eleni is in the guest room with Theodoros. Cormac is in the SUV at the curb. Declan is en route from the warehouses. Petrov is in the basement running the federal-side surveillance. The day is mine to use. I have, I estimate, twelve hours before whoever has my daughter starts losing patience with whoever is holding her, which is the window in which I will need to find her.
I put on my coat. I check my Sig. I check the second Sig in the ankle holster I have not worn in three months. I clip the knife to my belt. I take a third magazine for the Sig and a fourth for the second Sig. I don’t say goodbye to Maeve, because the word goodbye is not a word the day will tolerate.
I touch her shoulder once at the kitchen island.
She nods without lifting her head.
I leave. Cormac drives.
"Talk to me," he says.
I tell him the architecture in nine sentences. The breach. The compromised camera loop. The federal access required. The Marshals' rotation, Andreev proposed. The text. The photograph. The phrase ‘we will be in touch.’ Cormac listens.
