Page 102 of Shatter

I stop.

Behind me, the bell jangles again as Aesir and Gunnar come through the door, and the room gets smaller.

The man at the table doesn't stand up.

He looks at me, then at the patch on my cut, and his eyes stay there for a second.

"Prospect." He reads it off the leather in a smooth, unhurried voice. "You must be the one who's been keeping my sister."

The checkering on the Glock's grip bites into my palm.

His name is Pierce.

Pierce Carrow.

He says it like he expects it to mean something, and when it doesn't, he smiles and holds out his hand.

I don't take it.

He lets it hang there a second, then lowers it without any sign of embarrassment, like men refuse to shake his hand every day of the week.

Aesir spins a chair around and sits on it backward across from him while Gunnar leans against the door with his arms folded.

I stand where I can see Pierce's hands and Anni's face at the same time.

"How did you find her?" I keep my voice level.

"I've been looking for nine months." Pierce turns his coffee cup a quarter turn on the table. "Private investigators, and every Katie in the southeastern United States."

He's lying.

Or he's telling a piece of the truth and leaving out the part where a Canadian in a suit walked into a fish plant twelve hours ago, ninety minutes from here.

"Pierce." Anni's voice cracks. "Why are you here?"

He looks at her.

For the first time since I walked in, his smooth face slips, and something raw shows underneath.

"Mom's sick, Anni." He says it low. "She's been in and out of Swedish for two months. It's her heart."

Anni's hands press harder into the glass.

"And Dad's..." Pierce stops and swallows. "The company's in trouble. There are people asking questions. Federal people. Everything's coming apart. Dad won't get out of bed, and Mom keeps asking for you."

"You're lying." Anni's voice shakes. "She wouldn't."

He pulls his phone out of his pocket.

Slowly, so we can all see it, he thumbs through something and turns the screen around and sets it on the glass case in front of her.

I look over her shoulder.

A woman in a hospital bed, thin and gray-faced, with tubes in her nose and an IV taped to the back of her hand.

Blonde hair gone dull on the pillow, and Anni's chin.

Anni makes a sound I've never heard her make, small and broken, like something tearing inside a closed box.