Chapter 3 - The Little Girl Who Wasn’t Taken
Roarke had three SUVs moving before Adeline reached the elevator.
She barely remembered leaving the hotel.
One moment she was gripping her phone inside the penthouse. The next she was in the back seat of a black armored SUV racing through rain-slicked Manhattan streets.
“Call her again,” Roarke said.
“I have.”
“Again.”
Adeline dialed.
Mrs. Hart answered.
“Have you found her?”
“No. I checked the bedroom, bathroom, closet—”
Adeline closed her eyes.
“Look under my bed.”
“What?”
“Posy hides there when she's frightened.”
Footsteps sounded through the phone.
Then silence.
“Oh, thank God.”
Adeline nearly collapsed.
“You found her?”
A child's frightened voice came through.
“Addie?”
Adeline covered her mouth.
“Posy.”
Roarke watched something break across her face.
Not weakness.
Relief so violent it looked painful.
“I'm coming home, baby.”
“There was a man.”
Every muscle in Roarke’s body tightened.
Adeline went still.
“What man?”
“I don't know.”
“What did he do?”
“He knocked. Mrs. Hart was downstairs getting my medicine. I didn't open it. Then I heard somebody trying the handle.”
Roarke held out his hand.
“Put her on speaker.”
Adeline did.
Roarke’s voice changed when he spoke to the child.
Still controlled, but softer.
“Posy, my name is Roarke. I’m with your sister. I need you to tell me exactly what you heard.”
“Are you police?”
“No.”
“Then what are you?”
Adeline almost laughed despite her terror.
Roarke paused.
“Someone making sure the man doesn't come back.”
Posy considered this.
“Okay.”
“Did he say anything?”
“No.”
“Did you see him?”
“Through the crack under the bed.”
“What did you see?”
“Shoes.”
“What kind?”
“Black.”
Roarke glanced toward the front seat.
His security chief was already making notes.
“Anything else?”
Posy hesitated.
“He dropped something.”
“What?”
“I don't know.”
When they arrived, Adeline ran.
The building was old, narrow, and badly maintained. Roarke followed with two security men.
Mrs. Hart opened the apartment door.
Posy flew past her.
Adeline dropped to her knees and caught the child.
For several seconds, nothing else existed.
Roarke stopped in the hallway.
He had witnessed men reunited with sons after kidnappings, wives receiving husbands home from wars, families learning someone had survived an assassination.
Yet there was something about the way Adeline held Posy that unsettled him.
She wasn't merely hugging the child.
She was checking her.
Hands through her hair.
Across her shoulders.
Listening to her breathing.
Confirming she was whole.
Only then did Adeline begin crying.
Posy touched her cheek.
“I'm okay.”
“I know.”
“You're crying.”
“I’m allowed.”
“You always say crying doesn't fix things.”
“Tonight I'm making an exception.”
Posy noticed Roarke.
Her eyes widened.
“Is that him?”
Adeline glanced back.
“That’s Roarke.”
“The scary one?”
One of Roarke's guards coughed to hide a laugh.
Adeline looked horrified.
“I did not call him scary.”
“You said everybody is scared of him.”
Roarke stepped inside.
“That's slightly different.”
Posy studied him seriously.
Then she nodded.
“You look scary.”
“Posy.”
“What? He does.”
For the first time in years, Roarke Castellano nearly laughed in front of his men.
Then his security chief called from the bedroom.
“Boss.”
Roarke entered.
Something lay beside the window.
A silver cuff link.
Engraved with an M.
Adeline appeared behind him.
“Does that mean something?”
Roarke picked it up with a cloth.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Before he could answer, Silvio entered the apartment.
Roarke’s eyes moved immediately to his cuffs.
Both were present.
Adeline noticed.
So did Silvio.
“What happened?” Silvio asked.
“Someone entered.”
Silvio looked at Posy.
“Was anything taken?”
Adeline suddenly turned.
She rushed to a kitchen cabinet.
Inside was an envelope containing eighty-seven dollars.
Still there.
She checked her mother's jewelry box.
Untouched.
Nothing valuable was missing.
“They weren't stealing,” she said.
Roarke nodded.
“They were searching.”
“For what?”
“That’s what we need to determine.”
Silvio examined the cuff link.
“M could belong to anyone.”
“Yes.”
Something passed between the two men.
Adeline saw it.
Distrust.
Small but unmistakable.
Roarke turned to her.
“Pack enough clothes for a week.”
“No.”
“Adeline.”
“You don't get to order me around.”
“Someone entered your apartment.”
“And your solution is to move us into the home of the man whose stolen ledger caused this?”
“My estate has armed security.”
“That sentence isn't comforting.”
“It wasn't intended to be.”
Posy tugged Adeline's sleeve.
“Addie?”
Adeline crouched.
“What?”
“I don't want to stay here tonight.”
That ended the argument.
Forty minutes later, they left.
Posy carried a faded purple backpack and her stuffed rabbit. Adeline carried one suitcase containing most of what mattered in their lives.
Roarke noticed.
One suitcase.
Two people.
Everything they owned that mattered could fit inside the trunk of his car.
At the Castellano estate, Posy stared through the window.
“Is this a house?”
“Yes.”
“It looks like a museum.”
Roarke stepped out.
“My grandmother says the same thing.”
They entered through the main hall.
A silver-haired woman waited at the top of the staircase in a robe, holding a cane like a weapon.
“Roarke!”
He looked up.
“You should be asleep.”
“And you should stop bringing armed men into my house after midnight.”
Her gaze shifted to Adeline.
Then Posy.
Lucia Castellano’s expression changed.
“So this is the woman.”
Adeline blinked.
“You know about me?”
Lucia looked at Roarke.
“He called me twenty minutes ago.”
“You called your grandmother?”
“She owns half the estate.”
Lucia descended carefully.
When she reached Posy, she studied the child's stuffed rabbit.
“What is his name?”
“Mr. Pickles.”
“A ridiculous name.”
Posy's face fell.
Lucia continued, “I approve.”
Posy smiled.
Adeline looked at Roarke.
Maybe, just maybe, this arrangement could work.
Then Lucia turned toward her.
“You were studying nursing?”
“Yes.”
“Why did you quit?”
“My sister needed me.”
Lucia nodded once.
“Good answer.”
Roarke's phone rang.
He moved away to answer.
Adeline couldn't hear everything.
Only fragments.
Hotel.
Camera.
Ten fourteen.
Then Roarke looked toward Silvio.
His expression became unreadable.
“Send it to me.”
A moment later, a security photograph appeared on his phone.
A man entering the penthouse corridor.
His face was hidden beneath a cap.
But his wrist was visible.
And on it was a watch.
Roarke knew that watch.
May you like
He had given it as a gift ten years earlier.
To Silvio Marchetti.
