“I saiddon’t.”
The noise stopped.Two seconds later, it started up again.
“Persistent,” sneered Cox.“It must be love.”
What do you know about love, Kate thought.But she kept quiet, slowed at a crosswalk, heart pounding.“If I ignore him, he’ll raise every alarm in New York.It’s better if I speak to him, Cox.I’ll keep it clean.I won’t say a word that puts my mom in danger—you know I wouldn’t.”
Silence on the line.She could hear his breathing—measured, deliberate.
Without waiting for permission, she thumbed the green icon, spoke into her neck.“Marcus.”
“Kate?Jesus, where are you?Are you safe?”
“I’m fine,” she said, forcing calm.“I can’t tell you where I am.Listen carefully.You mustn’t look for me.Repeat that back—donotlook for me.Stand down.Please.”
“What the hell are you—”
“Stand down.”
She clicked off.
Cross’s voice returned almost tenderly.“Good girl.Now, east two blocks, then right.Don’t look behind you.”
Kate felt the phone in her pocket, her jaw tight.It was buzzing softly; bound to be Marcus trying another means of contact.Every instinct screamed at her to run, but she forced herself to move at an even pace.
She thought some more about the phone—its weight, its warmth against her thigh.About the patterns her thumb would make if she were typing blind.She pictured the muscle memory of it, the rhythm of the on-screen keys.She used the thing, what?Five or six times a day, minimum.She didn’t need it in front of her face.
The trick was—almost—to stop thinking so hard.Let the grooves take over, the channels worn in her neurons by repeated use.Some days, some nights, she spent so much time typing and texting that she caught her mind continuing to do the work, long after she’d switched her bedside light off.If only she could trick herself back there.
Back there, but in the daylight.Upright, on a Saturday morning, in Manhattan, with unknown quantities of hostiles watching her every move.With her mom, in Maine, in the gunsights of a maniac.And Cox, breathing in her ear.
***
Torres barked into the phone, one hand gripping the receiver, the other scribbling notes on a yellow legal pad already drowning in arrows and scrawls.
“Run it again,” she said.“I don’t care if you have to brute force the triangulation—just give me the nearest mast she pinged when that call went through.Yes, I’ll hold.”
Across the room, Marcus sat slumped at a desk, elbows pressed to his knees, staring at his phone like it was an open wound.The text had come through two minutes ago.
From Kate.
He turned the screen toward Torres.“Look at this.”
A mess of symbols filled the screen:;:.=@@)(/!-08:;>-)—a jumble that made no sense, like someone had rolled their palm across the keys.
“She wouldn’t just—” He stopped, unable to finish.
Torres raised a hand for silence, still on the line.“Yeah, got it.Good.Send the coordinates to my screen.”She hung up and exhaled through her nose.“Okay.Her phone’s last tower connection was the one at the top of the Manhattan Detention Center.That puts her somewhere within a few blocks.Downtown, relatively central.Helpful but not very.”
She straightened, eyes flitting to the tech desk at the far end of the bullpen.“But we might finally catch a break—CCTV ops are back online.I can get Manhattan’s feed up in five.And if she’s on foot, she’ll be moving relatively slowly.”
Marcus didn’t answer.He was frowning at the string of characters again, thumb hovering over the screen as if it might rearrange itself into meaning.
“What are you doing?”she asked.
“There’s got to be something in it.Code, maybe?Numbers-as-letters?It’s too random otherwise.”
Torres crossed to his desk, leaning over his shoulder.The text glowed between them.For a long moment she just stared.Then her expression changed—sharp, sudden understanding.
