Chapter 1 - The Woman Who Came Back
“Ronaldo, get down!”
Elsa Bennett ran across the warehouse floor as Ronaldo Falcone found a silver keycard lying beside an overturned black folder.
Three numbers had been scratched into its back.
2:47.
Ronaldo suddenly knew her disappearance had never been voluntary.
He had less than a second to understand anything else.
Elsa crossed the remaining distance between them.
Four steps.
That was all.
Four ordinary steps across gray concrete inside a warehouse along the Calumet industrial corridor.
Ronaldo would remember every one of them.
He would remember the loose strand of blonde hair across Elsa's cheek. He would remember her white blouse, wrinkled as though she had slept in it. He would remember that one sleeve was rolled higher than the other.
He would remember her eyes most of all.
She wasn't looking at him.
She was looking behind him.
“Move!”
Ronaldo turned.
Elsa hit his chest with both hands.
The first sharp crack echoed through the warehouse.
Her body jerked.
Ronaldo caught her elbow.
The second came almost immediately.
Her fingers closed around his jacket.
Then the third.
Elsa's knees folded.
For perhaps the first time in Ronaldo Falcone's adult life, he had no idea what to do.
He caught her.
“Elsa.”
Her face had gone pale.
“Elsa.”
Salvatore Greco was shouting somewhere behind them.
Men moved.
A door slammed.
Someone yelled that the east entrance had been secured.
Ronaldo heard none of it clearly.
Thirty-one days.
For thirty-one days, he had trained himself not to say her name.
Now he said it again.
“Elsa.”
Her eyelids fluttered.
She looked at him.
That somehow made everything worse.
“You came back.”
It was an absurd thing to say.
Elsa's mouth moved.
Ronaldo lowered his head.
“What?”
“I never left you.”
Then her eyes closed.
Ronaldo stared at her.
Something inside him became perfectly still.
Not calm.
Still.
There was a difference.
“Sal.”
Sal was beside him immediately.
“Ambulance is coming.”
“Who?”
“We don't know yet.”
Ronaldo slowly looked across the warehouse.
Three men were being held near the loading area. Two belonged to the warehouse. One Ronaldo didn't recognize.
Victor Marchetti stood farther back.
Victor had been with the organization for years.
He was staring at Elsa.
Not with surprise.
With recognition.
Ronaldo saw it.
Only for a fraction of a second.
But Ronaldo remembered everything.
“Take care of her,” Ronaldo said.
Sal stared at him.
“Ronaldo—”
“Take care of her.”
Ronaldo gently transferred Elsa into Sal's arms.
Then he stood.
His black suit was dusty at one knee.
His tie had shifted.
He straightened it.
Victor began walking toward him.
“Ronaldo, listen—”
Ronaldo raised one hand.
Victor stopped.
The warehouse went silent.
“What did you know?”
Victor's expression barely changed.
“About what?”
Wrong answer.
Ronaldo looked down.
The silver keycard remained near his shoe.
He picked it up.
2:47.
The numbers had been carved into the plastic by hand.
Elsa had disappeared at 2:47 in the morning.
That was when the call had come.
Ronaldo slipped the card into his pocket.
Outside, sirens approached.
Victor watched him.
And for the first time in years, Ronaldo saw fear behind the man's polite smile.
Thirty-one days earlier, Ronaldo had received a call from a voice he couldn't identify.
Elsa was gone.
She was tired.
She wanted another life.
She wanted to become nobody again.
He had believed it because believing it was the only way to respect what he thought was her decision.
He had ordered Sal to find only three answers.
Was she alive?
Was she where she wanted to be?
Had she left Chicago on her own two feet?
They had never found the third answer.
Now Ronaldo understood why.
Paramedics rushed through the warehouse entrance.
Ronaldo moved aside only when they demanded it.
One knelt beside Elsa.
Another opened equipment.
Ronaldo watched her disappear behind moving hands and medical bags.
Sal stepped beside him.
“We found something.”
Ronaldo didn't look away from Elsa.
“What?”
“Not here.”
Ronaldo turned.
Sal's face told him enough.
“What did you find?”
Sal lowered his voice.
“The call you got the night she vanished.”
“What about it?”
“It didn't come from outside.”
Ronaldo stared at him.
Sal continued.
“The routing was disguised.”
A stretcher rolled past.
Elsa was placed onto it.
Ronaldo followed automatically.
Sal caught his arm.
“Ronaldo.”
He stopped.
Sal had known him twenty-two years.
He had almost never touched him without permission.
“The call originated inside your Wacker building.”
Ronaldo's eyes shifted toward Victor.
Victor was gone.
The place where he had been standing was empty.
Ronaldo reached into his jacket for his phone.
Before he could remove it, another phone rang.
Not his.
Elsa's.
The sound came from beneath the overturned folder.
Sal picked it up.
The screen was cracked.
One message had appeared.
UNKNOWN NUMBER.
Ronaldo took the phone.
The message contained six words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED GONE, ELSA.
A second message appeared.
Ronaldo read it.
His expression didn't move.
Sal looked over his shoulder.
The message said:
HE STILL DOESN'T KNOW WHO CALLED.
Then a third notification appeared.
This one contained a photograph.
Ronaldo opened it.
The photograph had been taken thirty-one days earlier.
2:46 a.m.
Elsa stood inside the parking garage beneath the Wacker building.
Someone was standing behind her.
Ronaldo enlarged the image.
He recognized the man's coat.
He recognized the watch.
Then he saw the face.
The warehouse door behind him clicked shut.
May you like
Ronaldo looked up.
Someone had locked it from the inside.
