The intercom clicked off before anyone moved.
Vincent stared at the ceiling speaker.
“Who has access to that system?”
The nurse beside Luca answered carefully.
“Administration, security, nursing supervisors. Maintenance too.”
Vincent looked at his security chief.
“Shut it down.”
“We already locked external access.”
“Then someone inside this building just spoke.”
Walter still held Vincent’s sleeve.
His hand was trembling now.
“Nico,” he repeated.
Luca buried his face against the nurse’s shoulder.
Vincent crouched in front of him.
“Who calls you that?”
The boy hesitated.
“Uncle Danny used to.”
Something passed across Vincent’s face.
Not surprise.
Something heavier.
Daniel Marino had been Vincent’s younger brother.
Two years earlier, Daniel’s car had gone through a guardrail during a winter storm in Vermont.
There had been no funeral viewing because of the condition of the body.
Vincent stood.
“Take Luca somewhere without electronic access.”
The security chief nodded.
“No elevator.”
Walter suddenly shook his head.
“Not stairs either.”
Everyone looked at him.
He pointed toward a fire door.
“Man waited there before.”
“When?”
Walter closed his eyes, fighting through the fog in his memory.
“Tuesday.”
The nurse frowned.
“You never told us that.”
“I did.”
Walter’s voice cracked.
“You said I dreamed it.”
The nurse looked down.
Vincent said nothing, but the silence around him became uncomfortable.
They moved Luca into an unused treatment room and posted two guards outside.
Vincent stayed with Walter.
“Tell me everything you remember.”
Walter rubbed his palms against his hospital trousers.
“He came three times.”
“The same man?”
Walter nodded.
“He never wore the same clothes.”
Vincent glanced toward the security cameras.
“But you knew him.”
“His shoes.”
Vincent waited.
“Always brown. Little cut near the heel.”
It was such an ordinary detail that nobody spoke for a moment.
Walter continued.
“He asked about the boy.”
“What did he ask?”
“When nurses changed shifts. Which door his father used. Whether the boy slept after medicine.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“And you answered?”
Walter looked ashamed.
“First time.”
The old man lowered his eyes.
“I thought he was family.”
Vincent pulled a chair across from him.
“Why?”
Walter swallowed.
“He had your photograph.”
That landed differently.
“A photograph of me?”
“No.”
Walter looked toward the treatment room where Luca had disappeared.
“Of Luca.”
Vincent leaned forward.
“What kind?”
Walter struggled again.
Then he mimed holding something small between his fingers.
“School picture.”
Vincent stopped breathing for a second.
Luca attended a private academy with strict security.
Student photographs were distributed only to parents.
Vincent’s phone vibrated.
His security chief stood ten feet away, staring at his own screen.
“Sir.”
“What?”
“We checked every entrance recording for the last month.”
“And?”
“There is no unidentified man matching Walter’s description.”
Vincent’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s impossible.”
“No, sir.”
The chief turned the screen toward him.
“He isn’t unidentified.”
A staff photograph filled the display.
Walter saw it and recoiled so violently his chair scraped backward.
“That’s him.”
The photograph belonged to Dr. Nathan Cole, the rehabilitation center’s deputy medical director.
A man who had shaken Vincent’s hand every morning for three weeks.
A man who had personally recommended moving Luca into Saint Matthew’s after the boy’s surgery.
Vincent rose slowly.
“Where is Cole?”
Nobody answered.
Then the treatment-room door opened.
One of the guards stepped out, pale.
“Sir, Luca’s gone.”
Vincent crossed the corridor in three strides.
The room was empty.
One window stood open six inches.
On the bed lay Luca’s hospital bracelet.
Beside it was a small brown leather shoe with a cut across the heel.
Walter stared at it.
Then he whispered something Vincent almost missed.
“That isn’t his shoe.”
Vincent turned.
Walter’s face had changed.
“He left it for you.”
“Why?”
Walter looked toward the silent intercom speaker.
“Because he wanted you to stop looking for the man who took Luca.”
Vincent’s voice dropped.
“What are you saying?”
Walter met his eyes.
“The man you’re hunting isn’t the one who planned this.”