Chapter 2 - THE GIRL WHO NEVER RAN AWAY
“That's impossible.”
Sebastian Caruso stared at his mother.
For three years, he had lived with the belief that his daughter had chosen to disappear.
Now his seventy-two-year-old mother was telling him something that made his hands tremble.
Someone had taken Lucia.
And his own brother had lied about it.
“Grace,” Sebastian said quietly, “ask my mother whether she's absolutely certain.”
I turned toward Eleanor.
She was watching her son with an expression I couldn't bear to describe.
Not anger.
Disappointment.
I signed his question.
Eleanor immediately answered.
I SAW HIM. OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL. HE WAS WEARING A BLUE WATCH.
Sebastian glanced at the photograph on his security director's phone.
The man beside the bus wore a dark jacket.
And on his left wrist was a watch with a distinctive blue face.
“Dear God,” Sebastian whispered.
His security director, Damon Reyes, stepped closer.
“His name is Nolan Price. He's a transportation contractor. Julian approved his company six months ago.”
“Find out where he worked three years ago.”
Damon hesitated.
“Sir, I've already checked. He was employed by a private security company that serviced Lucia's school.”
Sebastian gripped the back of a chair.
Lucia Caruso had been thirteen when she disappeared.
She was sixteen now.
Her mother, Maria, had died when Lucia was nine.
According to the official story, the girl had argued with her father, left school voluntarily, and refused to return home.
Julian had produced messages supposedly written by Lucia.
He had insisted his niece needed time.
And Sebastian, a man feared throughout Chicago, had spent three years searching for a daughter everyone told him did not want to be found.
“Mother,” he said, his voice breaking, “why didn't you tell me?”
Eleanor's hands moved sharply.
I DID.
Sebastian stared.
She continued.
I WROTE LETTERS. JULIAN SAID YOU DIDN'T WANT TO READ THEM.
I translated.
Something changed in Sebastian's face.
“What letters?”
Eleanor reached into her handbag.
She removed a folded envelope, worn along the edges.
Across its front were three words written in black ink.
Return to sender.
Beneath them was the Caruso family office stamp.
Sebastian recognized the stamp immediately.
Julian controlled the office correspondence.
For a long moment, nobody spoke.
Then Sebastian took out his phone.
“Damon. Secure both buses. Keep every student safely inside the hotel. No one leaves with foundation staff. Get the police involved.”
Damon nodded and hurried out.
Sebastian turned toward me.
“Grace, I owe you an apology.”
“You owe your mother one.”
His eyes lifted.
I had just corrected one of Chicago's most dangerous men.
But I wasn't sorry.
“She has been trying to communicate with you for years,” I continued. “She wasn't confused. She wasn't embarrassing anyone. She was telling you the truth.”
Sebastian looked at Eleanor.
For the first time that evening, he seemed unable to meet her eyes.
“I thought Julian was helping her.”
I interpreted.
Eleanor's reply was devastating.
HE WAS HELPING YOU NOT LISTEN.
Sebastian sat down.
Outside, the orchestra began playing another expensive arrangement.
The gala continued.
One hundred forty wealthy guests were celebrating a scholarship program that might be sending children into danger.
And the man responsible was still giving speeches.
A few minutes later, Damon returned.
“We've stopped the buses. The drivers are being questioned. The twelve scholarship recipients are upstairs with hotel security and their guardians are being contacted.”
“What about the fifteen already aboard?” Sebastian demanded.
“They're safe. Some say they came from another training facility. They're frightened, but we're getting them into the hotel.”
“Was Lucia among them?”
Damon hesitated.
“We don't know yet.”
He handed Sebastian a tablet.
The screen displayed photographs taken through the first bus's windows.
I saw frightened faces.
Teenagers holding small bags.
One girl was wearing a gray coat.
She had dark hair and appeared about sixteen.
Sebastian leaned closer.
“That's her.”
His voice cracked.
“That's my daughter.”
Eleanor stepped forward.
She studied the photograph.
Then she shook her head.
NOT LUCIA.
Sebastian looked furious.
“Mother, I know my own daughter.”
Eleanor pointed at the girl's wrist.
A black braided bracelet hung loosely around it.
One yellow bead sat between two silver beads.
Sebastian suddenly went silent.
Lucia had made that bracelet with her grandmother the summer before she disappeared.
Eleanor had taught her how to braid the strands.
Sebastian remembered finding yellow beads scattered across the kitchen table.
“The bracelet,” he whispered.
Eleanor nodded.
Then she signed something that made my stomach tighten.
LUCIA WOULD NEVER GIVE THAT AWAY.
I translated.
Sebastian stared at the photograph.
“Then why is that girl wearing it?”
Eleanor's hands moved once more.
BECAUSE LUCIA WANTS US TO FIND HER.
And beneath the bracelet, barely visible against the girl's wrist, was a tiny folded strip of paper.
Someone had hidden a message inside it.
Sebastian looked at Damon.
“Bring that girl to us.”
Then he turned toward me.
“Grace, whatever is written on that paper, you're going to read it first.”
But when Damon enlarged the photograph, I noticed something Sebastian hadn't.
The girl wasn't looking at the camera.
She was looking directly at Nolan Price.
May you like
And she was silently forming two words with her lips.
He knows.
