Chapter 1 - THE MAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH
Adrian DeLuca had opened envelopes containing threats, photographs of dead men, bank records worth millions, and once the severed corner of a rival's wedding invitation.
Nothing had ever frightened him like the envelope in a six-year-old girl's hands.
He took it carefully.
“What is your name?”
“Lily.”
“Lily what?”
She hesitated.
“Mommy said not to tell anybody my last name unless you said the right thing.”
Adrian glanced toward Marco.
His security chief looked equally confused.
“What right thing?”
Lily studied Adrian's black ring.
Then she said, “Mommy said you'd know.”
Adrian looked at the envelope.
His name was written across the front.
Not Mr. DeLuca.
Not Adrian.
A.D.
Underneath were three words.
BLACKBIRD COMES HOME.
Adrian stopped breathing.
Only four people had ever used that phrase.
His father.
Adrian.
His younger brother Matteo.
And the man who had trained them.
The trainer had been dead fourteen years.
Their father had been dead nine.
Matteo had died six years ago when a warehouse burned outside Yonkers.
Adrian looked at Lily.
“Blackbird comes home,” he said quietly.
Her face relaxed immediately.
“Okay.”
She smiled.
“Mommy said that means you're really you.”
Teresa made a strangled sound behind him.
Adrian opened the envelope.
Inside was a photograph.
His fingers locked around the paper.
Matteo DeLuca stared back at him.
Older.
Thinner.
A beard Adrian had never seen.
But alive.
Definitely alive.
He stood beside a lake holding Lily when she was perhaps three years old.
Adrian turned the photograph over.
A date had been written across the back.
Eleven months ago.
For six years, Adrian had visited his brother's grave every February.
There was no body in that grave.
Only dental fragments investigators had identified as Matteo's.
Adrian forced himself to breathe.
“When did your mother give you this?”
“This morning.”
“Where is she?”
Lily looked toward the rain.
“She wasn't home after school.”
Adrian's attention sharpened.
“Who usually picks you up?”
“Mommy.”
“And today?”
“She didn't come.”
“How did you get here?”
Lily tugged one backpack strap.
“Bus. Then I walked.”
Marco swore under his breath.
Adrian crouched until he was eye level with her.
“You came alone?”
She nodded.
“Mommy practiced it with me.”
That disturbed him.
“Practiced what?”
“How to find you.”
Lily removed a folded sheet of paper from her backpack.
There were instructions written in a woman's handwriting.
BUS 14 TO MOUNT KISCO.
GET OFF AT OLD MILL ROAD.
FOLLOW THE STONE WALL.
SIDE GATE.
ASK FOR THE BLACK RING.
Adrian stared.
This wasn't panic.
Someone had prepared a six-year-old for the possibility that her mother might disappear.
“What's your mother's name?”
Lily hesitated again.
Then whispered:
“Anna.”
Adrian didn't recognize it.
“Anna what?”
Before Lily could answer, Teresa stepped forward.
“She's soaked.”
Adrian looked at the child properly for the first time.
Her lips were pale.
Her raincoat was dripping onto the stone.
He stood.
“Inside.”
Lily didn't move.
“Mommy said not to go into houses with strangers.”
Despite everything, Teresa almost smiled.
Adrian nodded.
“Smart mother.”
He opened the door wider.
“Teresa will stay with you.”
Lily looked at Teresa.
Apparently she passed inspection.
Five minutes later, the child sat at the kitchen island wrapped in a blanket, drinking hot chocolate while Marco ordered road cameras checked and every available man searched for her mother.
Adrian returned to the envelope.
There was another item beneath the photograph.
A hotel key card.
Room 417.
And a note.
ADRIAN,
IF LILY BROUGHT THIS TO YOU, THEY FOUND ME.
DO NOT TRUST THE FIRE REPORT.
DO NOT TRUST THE GRAVE.
AND WHATEVER MARCO TELLS YOU, DO NOT LET HIM TAKE LILY OUTSIDE THE HOUSE.
Adrian read the last sentence twice.
Then slowly looked up.
Marco stood across the kitchen.
His oldest friend.
His security chief.
A man who had protected the DeLuca family for twenty-one years.
“What?” Marco asked.
Adrian folded the note.
May you like
“Nothing.”
But for the first time in two decades, Adrian DeLuca looked at the man guarding his house and wondered whether the danger had already walked through the door.
