“Okay, stop,” I said. I had pried into the man’s hidden past, uncovering his shame and hurt. For nothing more than curiosity.
He smiled at me, a joyless, angry smile. “Didn’t you want the truth? Then listen to all of it. After we signed, he healed her body. And then he left, leaving her asleep. She never woke up. Her body is a husk. Her soul is gone, stolen. I had signed it off. That’s the real prize. My soul was worthless, the soul of a jaded, angry man. Her soul was pure. And in my stupidity and cockiness, I had given it away.”
His face was deflated, suddenly tired and sad. “Are you done with your questions? I didn’t steal your crystal, Lou Vitalis.”
I nodded, hating myself. I retrieved a fix-it-all from my pocket and approached him with it. “Drink this,” I said, my voice hoarse. “It’s an antidote to the truth serum.”
He took it from my hand, taking care to avoid touching me. He uncorked it and drank the contents, his eyes never leaving mine.
We both stood, looking at each other. Slowly, his eyes swam into focus, the truth serum’s effect fading.
“Get the hell out, Vitalis,” he said. “Leave me alone.”
Perhaps I should have apologized, but forcing him like that suddenly felt too intrusive for a simple apology. Instead I walked to the door. I took out my phone on the way out, more as a way to avoid Kane’s eyes than anything else. One new message from Breadknife. An image. I opened it, stared at it, trying to understand what was in front of my eyes.
Then I stumbled, the strength seeping out of my muscles. I grabbed the door handle, trying to steady myself, the phone tumbling from my fingers, facing up. Smoke began curling from my palms, a flicker of a flame.
“What is it, Vitalis?” Kane’s cold voice asked behind me. “Need help opening the door?”
“Breadknife.” My voice was hollow, empty of the turmoil in my gut. “He kidnapped my daughter.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
I sat beside Kane in his car, numb, bereft of words. My eyes were glued to the phone screen, staring at the image. My daughter, standing in a stark, gray-walled room, her eyes wide and scared. The text in the message simply said, I want the box. You have 24 hours.
I tried to convince myself that it was a clever image editing trick. He had taken a photo of Tammi in the street and changed it. Perhaps he had used a filter called kidnapped, or maybe he had one of his computer kids change it with Photoshop. Wasn’t there a strange difference in the image lighting, as if my daughter and the background didn’t match? Didn’t her face appear unnatural, as if the image had been manipulated?
But I knew the truth. Her face seemed unnatural because I’d never seen her scared before. The background didn’t match because I couldn’t imagine my daughter in such a place, held by this monstrous man.
“Here it is,” Kane said, his tone grave.
I had asked him to take me to my daughter’s address, hoping to see her already back from school. I had intended to knock on the door, throw caution to the wind, just to make sure everything was all right. But there was no need. There were two police cars parked in front of the house. In the window, I caught sight of Jane, Tammi’s adoptive mother, staring outside, her face streaked with tears. Her gaze was desperate, as if she hoped Tammi would suddenly materialize in the street, unharmed.
“Drive on,” I said, my voice hoarse.
“Don’t you want to talk to the police?”
I shook my head. “ABC has informants in the police. If he finds out… if he even smells a whiff of cops…” I couldn’t finish the sentence. Couldn’t utter the possibility that my daughter would be harmed.
“Where to, then?”
“Park around the next corner. Please.”
I thought he would argue, would try to figure out what my plan was, but he didn’t. He followed my instructions, turned right at the next intersection, pulled up out of the cops’ view.
I opened my contact list. He was always on top, his nickname dictating his position in any alphabetized list. I hit the contact ABC.
Three rings, and he answered. His voice lacked any pretense of warmth, of pleasantry.
“Lou Vitalis. We had a deal.”
“I didn’t break it. I was about to deliver the box to you.”
“And instead you disappeared. Fled through the window when we knocked on your door. That was unwise, Vitalis. I don’t like betrayal. You have something precious of mine. And I have something precious of yours.”
“Don’t hurt her.” I meant it to sound threatening. A Liam Neeson moment, where I let him know that if he hurt my daughter I would find him and kill him. Instead, my words were broken, scared. I was pleading.
“You shouldn’t be worried about it at all. We can meet right now if you want. You’ll give me the box with the crystal, and I’ll give you your daughter, still unharmed.”
Still unharmed. I shut my eyes.
“I don’t have the crystal on me.”
“You sold it to someone else. That’s why you fled when we came for it.”
Once, when I still worked for him, Breadknife had found out that one of the boys had snitched. Nelson, only fourteen, had been persuaded by the police to give them a bit of information, enough to start building a case against Breadknife. However, they didn’t know that one of them was on Breadknife’s payroll. Nelson’s betrayal was exposed. ABC summoned all of us to let us know. His voice had a strange property to it, as if it was the only thing standing between us and an erupting volcano. It trembled and shook in a manner I found terrifying. And Nelson disappeared, of course, rumors of the manner of his death fueling many nights of hushed whispers.
Breadknife’s voice now had the same tremor.
“I didn’t sell it to anyone,” I blurted. “It…” What would he do if he found out it was stolen from me? Would he even believe me? What would happen to my daughter? No. He couldn’t know that. I had to buy some time. “It’s in a safe place. I was afraid the dragon would find me, so I hid it.”
“Hid it where?” The rage was still there, slightly more in control.
“I’ll get it to you,” I said. “I need more time.”
“You have until tomorrow morning, Vitalis.” The line went dead.
I breathed hard, my fingers trembling.
“We need to find Harutaka. Get the crystal back from him.”
“We don’t know where he is,” Kane pointed out. “I haven’t seen him since last night. We have no way to contact him.”
Just like he intended. “Isabel will be able to find him,” I said, desperately believing that was true. “She lives nearby.”
As I guided Kane through the streets of Roxbury, I tried to map out my course of action. If Isabel could find Harutaka, I would go to him, armed with everything I had, get the crystal back and deliver it to Breadknife. If he received his precious crystal, he would let my daughter go.
But what if Isabel couldn’t find him? Harutaka was clever, and knew of Isabel’s powers. Perhaps he could find a way to hide.