Chapter 4: A Name That Belonged to No One
Dario called at 6:47 in the morning.
Gabriel had not slept.
He was sitting at the kitchen table with a cold cup of coffee and the medical bill, which he had turned face-up again sometime around 4:00 a.m.
"I have her," Dario said.
Gabriel's hand tightened around the phone.
"Where?"
"Small town called Millhaven.
About two hours north of Buffalo.
She's renting a room above a hardware store on the main street.
Cash.
Weekly.
The landlord thinks her name is Ellen."
"Is she alone?"
A brief pause.
"Yes.
But Gabriel, there's more.
I ran the ID through my contacts at the DMV and cross-referenced the physical description against missing persons and federal witness registries going back five years."
"And?"
"Her real name is Hannah Voss."
The silence stretched.
"Voss," Gabriel said slowly.
"No relation to me," Dario said, and his voice was flat enough that Gabriel believed him.
"Hannah Voss, age 31.
Originally from a small town outside Pittsburgh.
She dropped out of a nursing program at the University of Pittsburgh three years ago.
No criminal record.
No federal flags.
She's not a rat, not a plant, not a witness.
She's just a woman who disappeared."
"Why did she disappear?"
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"That I can't tell you from a database," Dario said.
"But I can tell you that 14 months ago, a man named Victor Crane filed a missing persons report on her in Allegheny County.
The report was withdrawn six weeks later."
"Who is Victor Crane?"
"That's the part you need to know," Dario said.
"Victor Crane runs the Crane family operation out of Pittsburgh.
Gambling, loan sharking, protection.
Mid-level.
Nothing like the Rossi family, but organized enough to be dangerous to a woman on her own."
Gabriel set down the coffee cup.
"She was running from Crane," he said.
"She came to you to hide," Dario said.
"A Rossi estate is one of the few places in the northeast that a Pittsburgh outfit would never look.
Nobody walks into the lion's den to hide from a smaller predator unless they're desperate enough."
Gabriel stared at the bill on the table.
"Crane withdrew the missing persons report," he said.
"Why?"
"My guess?
He found out where she was.
He just didn't move on it because moving on a woman living inside a Rossi property would be suicide." Dario's voice dropped slightly.
"But she's not inside a Rossi property anymore."
The sentence landed like a stone dropped into still water.
Gabriel was already on his feet.
"How long has she been in Millhaven?"
"Based on the landlord's records, she arrived the same week she left your estate."
"Has anyone else been asking about her?
Anyone from Pittsburgh?"
"Not yet.
But Gabriel — Crane is not stupid.
If he's been watching and waiting, he knows she's gone.
He may already be looking."
Gabriel walked to the door of the study and pulled it open.
Tommy was in the hallway, already dressed, already reading Gabriel's face.
"Get the car," Gabriel said.
"Where are we going?"
"Millhaven."
Tommy didn't ask anything else.
He moved toward the front of the house.
Gabriel went back to the desk and picked up the medical bill.
He folded it carefully and put it in his jacket pocket.
He thought about a woman sitting alone in a room above a hardware store in a town he had never heard of, with a fake name and a real diagnosis and no one who knew both at the same time.
He thought about four words written in small, careful handwriting.
*He cannot know this.*
She had been wrong about that.
May you like
He was going to find her.
And then she was going to have to look him in the eye and explain every single word.
