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it, the company appeared to specialize in alternative energy investments. Rick tried the Facebook login again. It didn’t work there, either. He hadn’t expected it would. But he hit a snag when he went to the password reset: Greenwire insisted on sending a code to the registered cellphone. That was going to be a problem, and he had five more financial institutions to break into if he wanted to empty out all of Liam’s accounts. Rick needed another way.

He looked over at Alice and had an idea.

He called Liam’s cellphone, but it rolled over straight to voicemail. The phone must be off. Rick got up, crossed the room, and knelt in front of Alice so she could see his face. “Do you have any way to reach your father?”

She whined, mumbled something Rick couldn’t understand.

“What?”

She repeated herself, speaking in an exaggerated way. “Nooo.”

“You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”

Alice shook her head as best she could.

“Let’s make sure of that, shall we?” Rick searched Alice for her cellphone, then browsed to a contact labeled “Dad.” It had two numbers. One he had called and the second looked familiar. Was it his imagination—a random series of digits to which he was wrongly applying significance? He didn’t think so.

Rick looked through his own call log and found the number. This was the call that had come in when he was at the nursing home. He remembered seeing it on his way out of Heartland. He wondered what Liam had wanted, then decided he didn’t care.

Liam Parker

Liam was back in the chair, waiting for the TSA agents to return, expecting them to come with police in tow. A tremor worked at his hands. He clasped them together and held them in his lap. This was not how things were supposed to go down.

Liam’s cell phone vibrated against his thigh. He pulled it out of his pocket and didn’t hesitate to answer. At this point, what did it matter?

“Listen to me,” said the caller.

Liam knew who it was. “Rick.” For a second, he forgot about the TSA agents and the locked door and the camera overhead. He stopped shaking. Even the room he was in faded into mere background noise, no more significant than the hum of warm air being pushed through the vents. “What’s going on? Why did you give me an ID with your name on it? How do you know Elise?”

Rick didn’t answer. Instead, he began listing off the names of the financial institutions Liam used. “Greenwire. Fidelity. MicroTrust. Bank of America. . . .”

“Wait,” Liam said, talking over him. “What does—”

“I want the username and password for each.”

It only took a second for Liam to figure out what this phone call was about. Rick was planning to empty his accounts and, if Liam had heard him right, he had found all of them. Including those used by ConnectPlus. It would leave Liam and his firm penniless. “You can’t do that.”

“Say hello.” Rick’s voice sounded strangely far away, and the words were so out of place that Liam was unable to make sense of them—until he heard Alice’s voice.

“Dad! Dad, he’s got a knife!”

Then Rick was back. “Give me the logins.”

Oh, God. Rick had his daughter. Suddenly, the money no longer seemed important. Liam didn’t know every login off the top of his head. But he told Rick where he could find them. They were buried deep on Liam’s computer, in a folder called “Family Photos.” The file was encrypted, and for that file Liam was able to give him the password.

He expected Rick to say something about releasing his daughter after accessing the file. But after thirty seconds or so, he simply hung up.

Liam didn’t know what that meant, but it terrified him. He tried calling back several times. Each call went straight to voicemail.

Rick had been planning this for a while, Liam realized. He’d been writing down things Liam had said in that notepad as far back as Liam could remember. They hadn’t seemed important at the time. Liam did not construct his most important passwords using common memory tricks. But they were exactly the kinds of things you’d want to know if you were going to hack into someone’s online accounts.

Was Elise involved? Had Rick killed her? Was he going to kill Alice too?

If Liam tried to tell the TSA agents or the police about his phone call, he doubted they’d believe him. Perhaps eventually someone would listen—maybe even Bash—but it wouldn’t be until after he was taken to jail. That would be okay if Liam was only concerned about the money. It might not be soon enough for his daughter.

When Liam had run from Bash at his office, he’d told himself he was doing it to find the killer. But, on some level, he knew he was just running. He never had a real chance of figuring out who had killed Elise. That was who Liam was—a runner. He wouldn’t have started ConnectPlus without David; he wouldn’t have had the courage. Despite what he told himself, he had known Catherine was unhappy in their marriage. It was part of the reason he stayed at the office later and later. He was always running.

Liam couldn’t run anymore, though. He couldn’t get on the next international flight, even if that were an option. He had to save Alice. But how was he going to get out of here? And, more important, where was she?

Richard Hawthorne

Rick worked his way through each of Liam’s accounts. When he was done, he pressed *67 on his phone to hide his number and placed one more call. It rang several times before Chris Bell answered.

“Who is this?” Chris demanded.

“You’re looking for Richard Hawthorne, right?” Chris didn’t say anything, so Rick continued. “You’ll find him at the Best Western on State Street.” He gave Chris the room number and hung up.

Rick didn’t know if Liam was still at the hotel—Liam had been doing some digging and Rick didn’t think he could have uncovered his real name