"Minutes later, I found the three-year-old son I had hidden in a hospital supply closet curled on the chest of a mafia boss who had stopped breathing.

Nobody moved.

Logan had gone completely still in David's arms, the way children go still when they sense something that adults haven't named yet.

His face was pressed against David's neck.

Captain Bear hung from one small fist.

Reeves kept the g*n at Daniel's neck.

His hand was steady.

His expression was the kind of calm that comes from having done this before.

"Put the boy down," Reeves said to David.

"He doesn't need to be part of this."

"Don't tell me what to do with my son."

"David." Reeves's voice stayed even.

"I'm not here to hurt anyone.

I'm here to have a conversation that should have happened a long time ago."

"A conversation," David said.

"With a g*n."

"The g*n is because your friend Daniel has poor impulse control." Reeves glanced at me.

"You must be Catherine.

I've read your file.

Nurse's aide, Johns Hopkins.

Two years on your own.

You've done well."

"Let him go," I said.

"In a moment." Reeves looked back at David.

"You have something that belongs to the bureau.

Records, financial data, a recording that was made without authorization during an active federal operation.

I need those materials returned."

"Those materials document you taking money from a trafficking network," David said.

"And ordering a hit on Alessandro Romano."

"That's one interpretation."

"It's the recording's interpretation.

In your own voice."

Reeves smiled.

It didn't reach his eyes.

"Recordings can be challenged.

Chains of custody can be questioned.

A man who has been living under a false identity for two years, whose own wife believed him d*ad, whose son has been raised without him — that man makes a complicated witness, David.

Juries don't like complicated."

"DOJ prosecutors do," I said.

Reeves looked at me.

"Adler," I said.

"Department of Justice.

She's been building her case for fourteen months.

Independent of your operation.

Independent of the bureau." I watched his face.

"She doesn't need David to be a clean witness.

She needs his records and his recording.

The records don't have a credibility problem.

Numbers don't."

Something moved behind Reeves's eyes.

Not fear yet.

Calculation.

"You've been busy," he said, "for someone who was changing bedpans twelve hours ago."

"I've been busy for two years," I said.

"I just didn't know what I was busy for until last night."

David shifted Logan to one arm.

With his free hand, he reached into the bag on his shoulder and removed a hard drive.

He held it up.

"This is a copy," he said.

"The original is already with Marsh.

Marsh delivered it to Adler at seven this morning." He paused.

"You've been moving on me since six.

You were already too late."

Reeves's jaw tightened.

"You're bluffing."

"Call Marsh," David said.

"Use any number you have for him.

See if he answers."

Reeves didn't move.

"He won't answer," David said, "because he's sitting in a DOJ conference room right now, and his phone is off, and Adler is reviewing forty-seven months of financial transaction records that put your name on eleven wire transfers to a shell company in the Cayman Islands." David lowered the hard drive.

"It's done, Martin.

The only question now is whether you walk out of this alley or whether I add aggravated assault on a federal witness to everything Adler already has."

The g*n stayed at Daniel's neck for four more seconds.

Then Reeves stepped back.

Daniel moved immediately — sideways, out of reach, putting himself between Reeves and Logan without being asked.

Reeves looked at the hard drive in David's hand.

Then at me.

Then at Logan, who had lifted his head from David's shoulder and was watching Reeves with the direct, uncomplicated gaze of a child who has not yet learned to look away from things that frighten him.

"You should have stayed d*ad," Reeves said to David.

"I know," David said.

"You built a good trap.

I just had better reasons to get out of it."

Reeves put the g*n inside his jacket.

"This isn't finished," he said.

"Yes it is," I said.

"You just don't know it yet."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he walked to the end of the alley and turned the corner and was gone.

Daniel exhaled.

He put both hands on his knees.