Tony tilted the phone in his hands, squinted at the screen. “I’ve never seen her.”
“Anywhere in the café?”
“No. I’d remember.” He pushed her phone back at her, as if holding it might make him an accessory. “You think this is serious.”
“We don’t know,” Brian said.
“Then why didn’t she text—” Tony raised his arm and suddenly punched himself in the head, the smack of knuckles on bone echoing under the living room’s high ceiling. He yelped in pain.
Rebecca sat beside him, hugged him. His body was shaking. He hadn’t laid off the punch, hadn’t pulled it at the end. If Kira was a mature nineteen, Tony was a young seventeen.
“I knew the guy was messed up somehow.”
“We’re gonna find her,” Brian said. “Let’s all get a little sleep. If she’s still not back in the morning we’ll talk to the police.”
“You want to sleep, Dad?”
“Come on, Tony,” Rebecca said. She wondered if she’d have to lead him to his bedroom like he was a child. But he pushed himself up, disappeared into the hall.
* * *
After they heard the door to Tony’s bedroom slam shut, she flopped on the couch. “You think the NSA can get a facial match?” From the pictures.
“Possible, but the hat’s a problem.”
“Twenty-five billion dollars a year well spent.”
“What about tomorrow?”
“I think if we haven’t heard anything by noon, we need to go to the cops.” They’d have an in, an FBI agent who lived here and worked with the local cops, mostly on terror cases. The threat of Islamist terror was very real in Spain. In 2017, a truck attack on La Rambla had killed fifteen people and injured 150 more. The Spanish were generally happy to trade information with the FBI.
The bureau called its liaison officers “legal attachés,” inevitably shortened to “Legats.” The Legat here was Rob Wilkerson, a twelve-year vet who’d worked on the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New York before moving here. Rebecca didn’t doubt Wilkerson would help. The bureau looked after its own.
“Okay.” Brian reached down, swung his arms under her legs and back, grunted as he picked her up.
Surprising her with his strength, his raw male stink, sweat, maybe a cigarette. Had he smoked while he was walking the streets? She appreciated what he was trying to do, distract her for a few seconds. It didn’t work, the voice in her head yelled Kira’s missing, but at least he’d tried.
He carried her into the master bedroom, with its big four-poster bed. When they’d first brought their suitcases into the room, the bed had seemed charming, sexy. She’d imagined making love to Brian in it, biting her lip so Tony wouldn’t hear. Now the idea repelled her.
Brian lowered her to the bed and she slid away from him, hoping he would understand that she didn’t want to be touched. He flopped down beside her, rested a hand on her shoulder, pulled it away. Good.
She lay beside him and stared at the ceiling until sleep somehow took her.
9
Somewhere in Spain
Kira stood on a raft, brown water all around her, swirling and foul. She didn’t belong here. She wasn’t even wearing a bathing suit, only jeans and a sweater, both dry. Sweat puddling underneath. The raft shook, tossing her toward the edge.
She fell off, opened her eyes—
To darkness. She willed herself to see. Couldn’t. The panic came then, worse than before. She’d gone blind, where was she?
Everything came back as the van slowed. She tried to sit up, pushing herself against the side wall. Anything to be a little less helpless.
The van stopped.
* * *
She reminded herself of a trick she’d used during her anorexic days. Count down by sevens from one hundred, ninety-three, eighty-six, seventy-nine… She hadn’t been this conscious of her body, herself as a physical being, since then.
Forty-four, thirty-seven… Get to two and start again. Vary the cycle, add eight or multiply by three or divide by two. Give her mind something to do. The trick worked. She could feel them waiting for her to beg, or say anything. She stayed quiet.
She heard the back doors open. A hand touched her shoulder.
“Kira.” Jacques’s voice, gentler. Some part of her couldn’t help but feel relief, at least she knew him—
She didn’t know him.
He edged up the hood, and she could see. The van’s back doors were open. It was parked inside what looked like a garage. The garage door was closed, and she couldn’t see any light between the door and the floor. Probably it