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“I think so. She didn’t answer her phone.”

“Would you like me to check on her?”

“No, no need. I’ll be right there.”

The call ended. Kate picked up the pace, passing one person after another along the detour. Tysons Tower was a mixed-use complex of residential, retail, and office space. Its massive footprint covered an entire city block, with streets on all four sides. The street closure was on the other side of the building, opposite the main residential entrance. The sidewalk was the preferred route in the falling rain, but Kate opted for the jogging path, which would shave about sixty seconds off the detour. She did her best to dodge the mud puddles along the way. Mindful of the ambulances on the other side of the building, she looked both ways before crossing the street, and then hurried up the granite steps to the revolving glass entrance door. A janitor was mopping up the trail of wet footprints that cut across the polished granite floor to the bank of elevators.

“Watch your step,” said the security guard from behind the desk.

Kate said she would, even though she was walking in the opposite direction, the clean and dry path to the private penthouse elevator. The touchpad on the wall recognized her fingerprint, the chrome doors opened, and she stepped into the car. There were no buttons to push on the inside panel.

“Close,” said Kate. The algorithm obeyed her command, and the express elevator sped upward like a launched missile. Kate checked her cell quickly. The ride lasted only slightly longer than it took for Kate to confirm that her mother still had not responded to her voicemail message. The doors parted, and Kate entered the cherrywood-paneled private lobby to the penthouse. One of her father’s bodyguards was standing outside the closed double-entrance doors, which startled Kate. She had thought her father was out of town.

“Is my father back?”

“No. Yesterday the company went on high alert.”

Kate’s father had a bodyguard twenty-four/seven, but her mother put up with one only when Buck Technologies was on “high-alert” status. It could have meant anything from rumors of a planned assassination of the CEO by a foreign government, to anonymous postings on the internet that rose to the level of a “credible threat.” Kate and her mother were never privy to the reason why the company was on high alert.

“Have you seen my mother today?”

“Once. There was a flower delivery this morning. Building security brought them up.”

Fresh-cut flowers were a must in the Gamble apartment, and her mother had a standing order for daily delivery. Kate went inside. The flowers were right on the credenza in the foyer. Calla lilies. Kate’s favorite. And unlike the standing order, this delivery came with a card: “Congratulations on your first play! Love always, Mom.”

It was far from her “first.” Like any aspiring writer, Kate’s unseen efforts measured into the gigabytes. But the flowers and the sentiment still made her smile.

“Mom?”

There was no response. Kate continued around the corner to the great room and stopped. A wall of sliding glass doors led to a wraparound terrace. The mountain views were gorgeous at sunset, but there wasn’t much to see on a rainy night. Something else, however, had stopped Kate in her tracks. One of the doors was open, and the fringe on the silk area rug was soaked from the windblown rain. Kate had a vision of the bad old days, her mother standing out on the terrace in the pouring rain. Alone. And drunk.

“Mom, it’s me.”

Kate walked tentatively toward the open door. The rising glow of emergency beacons flashed from street level, twenty stories below. Another vision popped into Kate’s head: drunkandrubberneckingfrom the penthouse terrace.

Kate continued across the room, feeling the cold, misty spray of windblown rain on her face as she neared the open door. She stopped in the opening and checked the terrace.

Her mother was not there.

A wave of panic came over her. Kate ran to the kitchen, to the master bedroom, to the library, to the billiard room—from room to room, calling for her mother.

“Mom! Where are you?”

She was nowhere to be found.

Kate ran to the foyer, flung open the door, and called for the bodyguard. He drew his weapon, hurried inside, and followed Kate to the terrace. She was talking fast, explaining the situation to him, but her mind was in so many different places that she felt like she was speaking in tongues. She stepped out onto the terrace, but before she could force herself to look out over the railing, she saw as much as she needed to see.

On the rail, hooked by a pointed brass finial, a torn strip of clothing was blowing in the wet breeze. Kate recognized the fabric. It was the dress she had picked out for her mother the last time they’d gone shopping together. Part of her wanted to scream at the top of her voice. Part of her had been preparing for this nightmare for a very long time.

“Oh, my God, Mom. What have you done?”

Chapter 2

Christian Gamble raised his sword toward the setting sun. The orange ball on the horizon rested atop the glistening tip like an olive on a toothpick.

The CEO of Buck Technologies was in Chicago to finalize the acquisition of a much smaller competitor in the data-integration industry. It was an important strategic transaction, but not important enough to interrupt his daily tai chi routine. Gamble and his bodyguard staked out a spot on the Great Lawn in Millennial Park, near the famous music pavilion. The sculptures, water features, and other forms of public art were popular with tourists, but September was beyond peak season, making the lawn one of the most serene expanses of greenspace within the city limits. Gamble executed a series of elegant tai chi and qigong moves, shifting the pebbles gently under his feet as he twisted and turned. A yoga class moved with equal grace at the other end of the lawn. Joggers, walkers, and the occasional surrey bike passed along the path behind him. A group of teenagers stopped to watch the strange dude in the kimono slashing his sword through the air. The bodyguard stepped toward them, which was enough to make any bystander move along, though one of the boys let Gamble know how he felt about it.

“Hey, old man, your guard is an asshole!”

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