Chapter 4 - SIX DAYS IN THE DARK
The abduction was terrifyingly efficient.
It happened forty-eight hours after the Harbour Club gala. Nora was walking home from the late bus stop on a desolate stretch of dockside pavement near Pier 14 when a black Mercedes van pulled up silently beside her. Before she could scream, two men in heavy canvas jackets grabbed her arms, slapped a wet, chemical-soaked rag over her nose and mouth, and dragged her into the suffocating darkness of the vehicle.
When she woke up, time had lost all meaning.
She was lying on the freezing, oil-stained concrete floor of an abandoned fish-packing warehouse near Baltimore Harbor. The air tasted of salt, rust, and old decay. Her wrists and ankles were bound tightly with thick industrial hemp rope that had already rubbed her skin raw, drawing thin lines of dark blood that crusted over in the damp chill.
Six days.
That was how long she calculated she had been down here, based on the rhythmic pounding of the distant foghorns and the rare slivers of pale grey light that filtered through the cracked, boarded-up windows near the ceiling.
Six days without sunlight. Six days without water, save for the few drops of condensation she managed to lick from a rusty pipe near her head. Six days of wondering if Caleb was sitting by Mrs. Adler’s window, clutching his dented tin box, crying because his big sister had broken her unbreakable promise.
"Nora. Can you hear me, you little kitchen rat?"
The heavy iron door of the warehouse screeched open, letting in a blinding shaft of grey afternoon light. Footsteps clicked sharply against the concrete.
Evelyn Sterling stepped into the dim space, her designer boots pristine against the filthy floor. She wore a white cashmere trench coat that looked sickeningly out of place among the rotting fish crates and rusted winches. Behind her stood two heavy-set men in dark suits—the same muscle that usually guarded her father's estate.
Evelyn crouched down beside Nora, her diamond earrings catching the weak light from the doorway. She smiled, her expression as bright and cheerful as if she were greeting a guest at a brunch party.
"Any last wish before leaving?"
Her voice was gentle enough for a wedding vow.
Nora lay on the freezing floor, too weak to sit up, her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth from severe dehydration. Her lips were cracked and bleeding. But inside her chest, a stubborn, desperate fire refused to go out.
Caleb.
Caleb is waiting.
Evelyn leaned closer, smelling of perfume and malice. "Come on," she whispered. "Surely a woman like you has one final request. A message to a friend? A prayer to whatever god you people pray to down in Highlandtown?"
Nora forced her swollen lips apart, tasting copper and salt. She dragged air into her burning lungs.
"Tell Caleb…"
Her voice broke into a dry, agonizing rasp.
"Tell him I didn’t leave him."
For the first time since Nora had known her, Evelyn’s smile became entirely real, stretching wide across her face with a terrifying, sadistic glee.
"Oh, sweetheart," Evelyn whispered, patting Nora’s matted, dirty hair with a gloved hand. "By tomorrow, everyone in Baltimore will believe you did. They’ll think you ran off with some dockworker down in Virginia. A classic ghost story."
Evelyn stood up, brushing a speck of dust off her expensive coat. "Finish it," she told the two guards. "Make sure she's weighted down properly before you drop her in the channel. The tide goes out at midnight."
Neither Evelyn nor the guards saw the shadow beneath the warehouse door.
Neither heard the heavy, calculated footsteps that had approached through the fog, or the man standing on the other side who placed one massive, leather-gloved hand flat against the cold steel of the warehouse door.
May you like
Roman Calder had ruled Baltimore’s waterfront for fourteen years. He had survived ambushes, federal RICO indictments, cartel hits, and turf wars that had erased entire families from the city’s underworld. His heart was a fortress of scar tissue and calculated survival.
But when he heard Nora Hayes apologize for disappearing from a child’s life, something inside him cracked with a violence no bullet or knife had ever caused.
