Chapter 1 - The Man Who Never Drank His Coffee
The man in the tan coat slid his hand inside his jacket.
Every instinct I'd developed during nineteen years on the streets screamed at me to move.
"Marco," I said quietly.
My right-hand man stepped in front of Clara, his fingers disappearing beneath his suit jacket. Across the street, the stranger watched us without blinking. His paper coffee cup remained perfectly upright in his other hand.
Then he smiled.
It was a small, almost polite smile, the kind a man might offer a neighbor while collecting his mail.
Somehow, that frightened me more than a threat would have.
"Get Clara into the car," I ordered.
Marco took one step toward her.
"No!" Clara screamed.
The sound stopped everyone.
She clutched my hand with both of hers, her frightened eyes fixed on the stranger. "He wants you to put me in the car. That's what the other man did in Austin."
My blood turned cold.
"What other man?" I asked.
Before she could answer, the stranger withdrew his hand.
He held a photograph between two fingers.
Even from across the street, I recognized the woman in it. Dark hair. A narrow face. A faint scar above her left eyebrow.
The photograph showed Clara's mother.
The stranger lifted it toward me.
Then a black SUV roared around the corner.
Its tires screamed against the wet pavement. The passenger door flew open, and a man in a gray suit leaned out, pointing directly at Clara.
"THAT'S THE GIRL!"
Marco shoved us behind the parked car.
A gunshot shattered the restaurant window.
Clara screamed into my coat. Glass scattered across the pavement, and people inside the Raven dropped beneath their tables.
I pulled Clara down behind the car while Marco returned fire.
The stranger in the tan coat didn't run.
Instead, he stepped directly into the street and fired twice at the SUV.
The vehicle swerved, struck a newspaper stand, and sped away.
For several seconds, I heard nothing except Clara's frightened breathing.
Then the stranger lowered his weapon.
"Dominic Moretti," he called. "You need to listen to me."
I emerged from behind the car, keeping Clara behind my shoulder.
"Give me one reason not to put a bullet through your forehead."
He reached inside his coat again.
Marco raised his gun.
"Slowly," I warned.
The stranger produced a badge and held it where I could see.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Special Agent Daniel Mercer.
"I've spent six months looking for that girl," he said. "And the people chasing her aren't going to stop because you own a few blocks of this city."
I glanced at Clara.
She was staring at the badge with an expression that wasn't relief.
It was recognition.
"No," she whispered. "That's not your real badge."
Mercer's expression changed.
Clara stepped forward just enough for me to hear her next words.
"Mama showed me your picture."
The agent's hand tightened around the badge.
"My photograph?"
She nodded.
"She said the bad man would wear a badge if he couldn't get anyone to believe he was a bad man."
Marco looked at me.
I looked at Mercer.
Then I noticed the badge number.
The digits were identical to the number printed on a laminated card I'd found in the pocket of a murdered police captain three years earlier.
Captain Elias Reed had been investigating a trafficking ring before his body turned up in the river.
The official report called his death a robbery.
I had never believed it.
Mercer saw recognition cross my face.
His smile vanished.
"Listen carefully," he said. "You have two choices, Moretti. Give me the girl, or watch everyone you love die trying to protect her."
I pulled Clara behind me.
"Here's my choice."
I drew my gun.
"You get off my street."
Mercer backed away, never taking his eyes off Clara.
Then he called something that made the little girl go completely still.
"Tell your mother the man who killed her husband has found you."
Clara's face drained of color.
She looked up at me.
"Sir?"
"What is it?"
Her lips trembled.
"My daddy isn't dead."
Before I could question her, she reached into her red backpack and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
It was an old photograph.
I recognized the man standing beside Clara's mother.
Because I'd buried that man myself.
His name was Michael Moretti.
May you like
My younger brother.
And according to every record I possessed, he'd been dead for nine years.
