Chapter 1 - Four Minutes Until Midnight
At 11:47 p.m., Rue Callaway missed the last bus home.
At 11:49, she decided the universe had a sense of humor.
At 11:52, she found a dying little girl in a parking garage.
And four minutes after making the most frightening phone call of her life, Rue watched three black SUVs scream around a concrete corner and realized the child shivering inside her coat belonged to Harlan Voss.
Everybody in Detroit knew that name.
Nobody wanted him knowing theirs.
Rue had spent most of Tuesday night at Marlowe's Grill carrying plates of food she couldn't afford to people who didn't look at the prices. Her manager had kept her forty minutes late because another waitress had entered a table incorrectly.
By the time Rue untied her apron, her feet hurt, her hair smelled like fryer oil, and the final bus had disappeared down Woodward Avenue.
Her checking account held $15.40.
Folded inside her purse was an eviction notice.
Three days.
That was how long she had before the landlord changed the locks.
Rue could have called a rideshare, but the fare would have eaten most of what she had left.
So she walked.
The shortcut through the parking garage beside the abandoned Meridian Theater saved twelve minutes.
Usually.
That night, it changed everything.
Rue had reached the second level when she heard coughing.
She stopped.
The garage was nearly empty. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. Melted snow had been tracked across the concrete, leaving black ribbons of water beneath the tires of abandoned cars.
The cough came again.
Small.
Wet.
Wrong.
“Hello?”
Nothing.
Rue followed the sound around a concrete pillar.
Then she saw the girl.
She couldn't have been older than six.
Dark brown hair tangled around a pale face. Navy coat hanging open. Plaid skirt. White tights stained at one knee. One shoe missing.
She was curled beside the pillar as if she'd tried to make herself smaller than the cold.
“Oh, God.”
Rue dropped her purse.
She knelt.
“Sweetheart? Can you hear me?”
The girl's eyelids fluttered.
“Cold.”
“I know.”
Rue tore off her beige wool coat and wrapped it around her.
The child's hands were freezing.
Rue rubbed them between her palms.
“What's your name?”
“Belle.”
“Okay, Belle. I'm Rue. You're going to stay awake for me.”
Belle's eyes drifted shut.
“No. Hey.”
Rue gently touched her cheek.
“Look at me.”
Belle obeyed.
Barely.
Rue reached for her phone.
Belle suddenly pushed something toward her.
Her own phone.
The screen was unlocked.
One contact filled it.
DAD: HARLAN VOSS.
Rue stared.
“No way.”
Belle made a tiny sound.
Rue pressed CALL.
A man answered immediately.
“You have ten seconds.”
His voice was deep, controlled, impatient.
Rue forgot every rumor she'd ever heard about Harlan Voss.
“I found your daughter. She can barely breathe.”
Silence.
Then the man's voice changed.
“Belle?”
“She's conscious, but barely. I'm calling 911.”
“My doctors are coming.”
“She needs an ambulance.”
“Keep her upright. Nothing to eat or drink. I'm four minutes away.”
Four minutes?
Rue looked around the empty garage.
“How do you know where—”
The line stayed connected.
Belle's eyes closed again.
Rue pulled the girl against her chest.
“Belle. Come on. Stay with me.”
She rubbed her tiny hands harder.
“Tell me something. What's your favorite animal?”
No answer.
“Mine's an elephant.”
Belle's lips moved.
“Bunny.”
Rue noticed the stuffed rabbit partly trapped beneath Belle's coat.
“Of course it is. That's a good bunny. Does he have a name?”
“Waffles.”
Rue almost laughed.
“Waffles is an excellent name.”
The man on the phone spoke.
“Your name?”
Rue hesitated.
“Rue Callaway.”
He repeated it slowly.
“Rue Callaway.”
Something about the way he said her full name sent a chill across her shoulders.
Then came the strangest command she'd ever received.
“Do not leave my daughter.”
Rue looked down at Belle.
“I wasn't planning to.”
The line went dead.
Three minutes later, engines thundered below them.
Rue heard tires.
Fast.
Too fast.
Headlights swept across the ceiling.
Belle flinched.
“It's okay.”
Rue wasn't certain that was true.
Three black SUVs entered the level almost together.
They stopped in a rough semicircle around Rue and Belle.
Doors opened.
Men in dark suits poured out.
Rue's pulse kicked.
Then the middle rear door opened.
Harlan Voss stepped out.
Rue had seen photographs.
They hadn't prepared her.
He was tall enough to make the men around him look ordinary. Black trousers, no jacket despite the cold, tattoos spreading across his arms and disappearing beneath a dark shirt he'd apparently thrown on without bothering to button completely.
He walked like somebody who expected the world to move first.
His expression was terrifyingly calm.
Until he saw Belle.
Everything changed.
“Belle.”
He crossed the garage in seconds.
One of the security men tried to speak.
Harlan didn't hear him.
He dropped beside Rue.
“Daddy,” Belle whispered.
For half a second, the feared Harlan Voss disappeared.
Rue saw only a father.
His face broke.
Then the wall came back.
He touched Belle's cheek and looked at Rue.
“You found her?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Right here.”
“You moved her?”
“Only enough to wrap her up. She was freezing.”
His eyes moved to Rue's coat around Belle.
Then to Rue herself, kneeling on icy concrete in nothing but her thin work blouse.
Something unreadable crossed his face.
Two men carrying medical bags rushed over.
Rue moved back enough to let them examine Belle, but Belle grabbed her wrist.
“No.”
“I'm right here,” Rue said.
Harlan noticed.
One doctor checked Belle's breathing while another wrapped a thermal blanket around her.
“Exposure,” he said. “Possible respiratory distress. We need to move.”
Harlan nodded.
Then Belle tugged his sleeve.
“Daddy.”
“Yes, baby.”
Her small hand opened.
Something glittered beneath the fluorescent lights.
A gold cuff link.
Harlan froze.
Rue saw the engraving.
A black V.
One of Harlan's men leaned closer.
“Sir?”
Harlan closed Belle's fingers around the object.
“Nothing.”
Rue looked at him.
It wasn't nothing.
She'd waited tables for eleven years. You learned people that way. Husbands lying to wives. Teenagers hiding report cards. Businessmen pretending a declined credit card was the machine's fault.
Harlan Voss had just recognized that cuff link.
The doctors lifted Belle carefully.
Harlan scooped his daughter into his own arms instead.
Then he turned to Rue.
“You're coming with us.”
Rue blinked.
“What?”
“With us.”
“No.”
The security men glanced at each other.
Apparently people didn't tell Harlan Voss no very often.
Rue stood.
“My apartment is twelve blocks away, I'm freezing, and I have work tomorrow.”
“You're not going home.”
Her fear turned into irritation.
“Excuse me?”
“Whoever left Belle here saw you save her.”
That silenced her.
Harlan stepped closer.
His voice dropped.
“If they were watching this garage, they saw your face.”
Rue looked toward the dark ramps.
Suddenly every shadow seemed occupied.
“Why would somebody leave a six-year-old here?”
Harlan looked at Belle.
Then at the gold object in her hand.
Rue followed his gaze.
“Whose is it?”
He didn't answer.
“Harlan.”
His eyes snapped to hers.
Maybe nobody used his first name either.
Rue didn't care.
“You're asking me to get into a car with armed strangers because somebody might want to hurt me. I think I've earned one answer.”
For several seconds, Harlan said nothing.
Then his jaw tightened.
“My brother's.”
Rue stared at him.
Harlan carried Belle toward the SUV.
Rue remained frozen beside the concrete pillar.
The brother of the most feared man in Detroit had somehow left his cuff link with Harlan's missing daughter.
And Rue Callaway, who had started the night worrying about rent, had just become the only outsider standing in the middle of a war inside the Voss family.
She looked toward the garage exit.
A red light blinked above it.
Security camera.
Rue narrowed her eyes.
Then she noticed something else.
The camera wasn't pointed at the ramp.
It was pointed directly at the pillar where Belle had been left.
Someone had wanted her to be found.
And suddenly Rue wasn't sure Belle had been abandoned at all.
May you like
She might have been delivered.
---
