"Don't drink that.

By morning they had a name, twelve account numbers, and a warehouse address on the southwest side.

They also had a problem.

Marco was gone.

Gabriel's man called at six forty-seven.

Nora was sitting at the kitchen table with cold tea and the particular exhaustion that comes not from lack of sleep but from too many hours of sustained alertness.

Gabriel took the call standing at the window, watching the pale gray light come up over the neighbor's roof.

"How long?" he said into the phone.

A pause.

"Find him."

He set the phone on the counter.

"He left the apartment at four," Gabriel said.

"Took a bag.

His car is still in the garage."

"He knew you'd come for him," Nora said.

"Yes."

"So he had a plan for this."

"Marco always has a plan for this." Gabriel turned from the window.

"That's why I hired him."

Sofia came in from the hallway.

She had slept three hours and looked like someone who had made a decision while sleeping and woken up already committed to it.

"He'll go to the warehouse," she said.

Gabriel looked at her.

"Why."

"Because that's where he keeps the things he can't lose.

I've been there twice.

He always said it was for storage.

Equipment, he said." She paused.

"There's a room in the back.

He told me it was locked because of insurance.

He never let me near it."

"You never mentioned this."

"I didn't think it mattered." Her voice was even.

"I thought I was married to a man who did business I didn't ask about.

I didn't think I was married to someone who would—" She stopped.

Started again.

"I'm telling you now."

Gabriel nodded.

He picked up his phone again.

Nora stood.

"I should go home."

"Not yet," Gabriel said.

"I've been here all night.

My father—"

"Your father is fine.

I had someone check at six.

He's awake, he's made coffee, and he's watching the morning news." Gabriel looked at her directly.

"Marco saw you last night.

He knows you were in that apartment.

He knows what you heard."

Nora was quiet.

"Until this is finished," Gabriel said, "you are safer here than at home."

She wanted to argue.

She found she couldn't construct an argument that held.

"I want to call him," she said.

"My father."

"Of course."

She called from the hallway.

Her father answered on the second ring, his voice carrying the particular texture of a man who had been awake for a while and was pretending he hadn't been worried.

"I'm fine," she told him.

"I'm with — a client.

Something came up after my shift.

I'll explain tonight."

"You sound tired."

"I am tired."

"Did you eat?"

She almost laughed.

"Not yet."

"Nora." His voice changed slightly.

"Are you safe?"

She looked down the hallway toward the kitchen, where Gabriel Moretti was preparing to go find the man who had tried to kjll him, and his sister was sitting at the table with her hands around a mug, and someone she didn't know had made a fresh pot of coffee without being asked.

"Yes," she said.

"I'm safe."

She wasn't entirely sure it was true.

But she was sure enough.

She went back to the kitchen.

Someone had put a plate of toast on the table.

She sat down and ate it because her father had asked if she'd eaten and she found she didn't want to lie twice in one morning.

Gabriel came back in at seven fifteen.

He was wearing different clothes — dark, plain, nothing that would be remembered.

He looked at Nora.

"Stay with Sofia," he said.

"Don't open the door for anyone you don't recognize.

Don't use your phone except to call me."

"And if something goes wrong?"

He wrote a number on the back of a receipt and slid it across the table.

"Call that.

Say my name.

They'll come."

He picked up his jacket.

"Gabriel," Sofia said.

He stopped.

She stood up and crossed the kitchen and put her arms around him.

He held her for a moment with his eyes closed, and Nora looked away because some things are not meant to be witnessed by strangers, even strangers who have earned their place in the room.

Then he left.

The door closed.

Nora looked at the number on the receipt.

Sofia sat back down.

"He'll be all right," Sofia said.

But she was looking at the door, not at Nora, and her voice had the quality of something repeated often enough to become a kind of prayer.

Outside, a car started.

Then silence.