“I took a drive,” I say. “And returned a message.”
Her mouth tightens, something between a smile and a scowl. “Did you leave her on her feet?”
“On her feet,” I say.Less sure of them.
She nods once. Marco insists candy eyes for gingerbread men make them a force. Lila tells him candy eyes are a decoration. They may join but not lead. He disagrees and says Halloween. She counters with last Christmas. She slides gingerbread shapes onto the sheet while Marco narrates a battle plan that involves cookie sleds and a snow fort made from stale bread ends that Maria saves for stuffing. I do not belong in this kitchen, and I belong here. Both are true.
I do a slow walk of the rooms, a hand on trim, an eye on latches, the small checks that say nothing and mean everything. Then I climb to my room. The chair at the window gives me the alley, the bend of the river, the slice of the square that matters. My men do not call.
Maria hands me a simple plate of buttered chicken and noodles. Relief is a thing not to be trusted. It may visit, but it does not stay. I push the food and keep the rest of my mind where it needs to be—on corners, on doors, on the way sound changes when the night folds into full dark. The house settles in layers. Downstairs,the sink sings once, then stops. A car rolls by outside and does not pause. I sit by the window and let the frame carry the cold.
At some point, the edges blur into a shallow drift where dreams are only shapes. The side table gives a small shiver that climbs into the chair and into my ribs. My eyes open as if pulled. The clock says 3:00.
My phone rests on the table beside the tray, facedown, obedient. When it trembles, the movement is small but carries through the metal like a pulse against the bone. The code is wrong. Three beats, pause, one beat. The wrongness lands before the meaning does. My people. The skin in the nape of my neck bristles in anticipation. The perimeter is no longer a line on a map in my head. It is a living thing under my feet, awake, disturbed. I flip the phone and flick the screen.
The message is short and exact.
Lost one. Inside the perimeter.
23
LILA
Iblink at the dark ceiling, find the lock screen glow on my phone, and squint at the time. It’s too early for bakers, which means it’s early for everyone else. It isn’t a noise that wakes me, but a voice, low and deliberate, the kind that carries a secret. It draws me down the stairs toward the kitchen.
“…no gaps on Mill,” Matteo tells someone, voice steady. “You rotate on the diner corner. Eight-minute check-ins. If it goes quiet, you shrink the circle, not stretch it.”
I sit on the stairs and pull my sweater tighter. The room holds the kind of silence that houses do when they are thinking. The light over the kitchen counter glows. Matteo stands there with his phone to his ear, a county map spread open, a pencil poised in his hand. He listens more than he talks. The pencil circles the map while he listens. He rubs a thumb along his temple, then writes a single word on a scrap of paper and underlines it.
“Petro, status at the hall,” he says and falls quiet before picking up the beats. “Inside sweep only. Kitchen corridor, boiler room,florist alley, rear of the pharmacy. Start at the church. Eight minutes between marks. If you lose sound, you tighten.”
He glances toward the landing as if he feels me there. I step back, then decide against hiding and pad down the last three steps. He moves away from the open room and goes up to his room so the voices do not rise through the house. I follow and stop at the doorway. He paces once, movement economical, then plants his hand on the dresser on his pad.
He tilts his head, absorbing whatever comes through the line. The pencil taps, then stops. “Nico’s last check was twenty-nine minutes ago. You retrace his loop. Do not enter blind. You call first. Two rings, then text. If his phone rings near you, you freeze and wait on my word.”
A pause stretches. He nods, jaw set. “Yes. The Lantern stairs. You hold that alley. No lights.”
I step into the room and lean against the wall. The lamplight splits him, one side pale, the other shadowed. My mouth shapes a question without sound. He meets my eyes, sees I won’t move, and cups a hand around the phone.
“Hold,” he tells the caller, then lowers his voice. “You should sleep.”
“I tried,” I say. “You’re in my house. And something happened to your men.”
“One of my men is missing.” He exhales through his nose. Not a sigh, just a slow collapse of air. His brown eyes have lost their shine.
“Who’s missing?” The words leave me before I plan them.
He doesn’t turn right away. One hand stays on the phone while the thumb of the other drags across a name written and underlined twice. When he finally looks up, his eyes are darker than the room.
“Nico,” he says.
I wait. He straightens a corner of the map that doesn’t need straightening.
“He was on the inside check,” he murmurs. “Twenty-nine minutes out. No call, no signal, no trace.” He goes back to the phone.
“Which car? Plate.” A beat.
“Silver Honda Accord. Albany paper tag. Rear passenger dent. Last four eight seven Q. Good.” He writes cleanly, quickly.
