Chapter 5 - ASHES ON CORONA AVENUE
The kitchen at La Estrella burned hot enough to burst its front windows. All seven employees had escaped through the back.
Tomas learned that over the phone, yet his hands kept shaking as he watched footage of the flames.
The restaurant had started as a borrowed cart before it became a room where neighbors brought birthday cakes and unpaid bills.
Elena's horse drawings were taped behind the register. Tomas wondered which one the fire would reach first.
Tomas's cooks had called him from the sidewalk, coughing but unharmed.
He knew their voices and heard their relief, yet each time a flame appeared on his screen he imagined one of them still trapped inside.
June's team moved without spotlights until the final gate.
The patrol vessel held downstream, barely visible against the rain, ready to intercept a departure without drawing anyone toward the launch's cabin.
Rosa took the phone from him. “They got out,” she said. She repeated it until he looked at her.
They could rebuild walls. She needed him capable of helping bring Elena home.
At the river, June found the old pier gates chained shut.
Officers cut the locks and advanced toward a service barge painted with peeling blue paint. A blacked-out launch was tied along its far side, engine running.
Someone aboard spotted the police. The launch swung away from the pier, but a patrol vessel blocked its route downstream.
June heard a child's cry over the water and ordered the officers to hold their fire.
The launch reversed beneath the barge's steel overhang. For a moment it vanished behind rusted supports.
When it emerged, the cabin door was open and a figure in blue scrubs was forced out onto the deck.
Nurse Isabel Alvarez dropped to her knees. A man behind her threatened to throw her into the river unless police backed away.
June spoke through a loudspeaker, offering medical help and a safe path to surrender.
Then the cabin lights went dark. The patrol crew lost sight of Elena, and the launch nosed toward a service channel too shallow for their larger vessel.
June had to choose between pursuit and keeping Isabel alive.
She ordered a smaller boat forward. It arrived too late. The launch slipped through the channel and disappeared beyond a row of abandoned pilings.
Isabel remained aboard the barge, tied to a railing where officers could reach her.
Paramedics warmed the nurse and treated a cut on her forehead. She asked for Elena before accepting water.
June took her statement in the ambulance while the doctor checked her for a concussion.
Isabel had cared for Elena at St. Agnes. She had slipped a phone beneath the child's blanket before Harlan's people searched it.
When they moved the girl to the warehouse, Isabel hid a spare device inside the old rabbit.
“They made me send the toy to the viewing,” Isabel said. “They wanted the family to believe she was there.”
“I left a spare phone inside it. I showed Elena how to send me a message,” she added. “I hoped someone at the viewing would hear.”
After hearing the message, Harlan had ordered both captives moved. Isabel escaped a locked room just long enough to send June the warning about the scale.
She had been caught before she could give the pier address.
Isabel identified the launch's captain, a former harbor pilot named Mercer. She had heard him discuss a fuel stop at a private marina near City Island.
June alerted its operators and sent officers to every road leading out.
Dr. Shaw called the station at nearly the same moment. His teenage son had received a photograph showing him outside his school.
Shaw admitted he had loaned Marco access to his clinic account after a threat. He had stayed silent while Elena disappeared.
June told him she could protect his son if he gave a full statement and the account records.
Shaw agreed. His records showed a second sedative order requested for midnight, enough to leave a child dangerously unresponsive.
At the burned restaurant, firefighters found a metal box beneath the register.
Elena's drawings had curled black at the edges, but the box held the savings Tomas kept for her first bicycle. He stared at the bills without counting them.
Carmine stood beside him in the rain. “I canceled what you owed me,” he said. Tomas turned.
“You should have canceled it three years ago.” Carmine accepted that, though the debt had never been the reason Tomas's daughter was taken.
Tony approached with news from Carmine's old dock contact: Mercer had used the City Island marina before.
He knew an unmarked access road where police might miss a vehicle. Carmine gave June the lead and stayed where she had ordered him.
Rosa opened the surviving metal box and found one small plastic ring Elena had hidden there.
Its purple stone caught a reflection of the fire engines. Rosa closed her fingers around it as June's call came through.
The marina had reported a launch matching Isabel's description. The captain had asked for fuel and a vehicle, but he had arrived alone at the dock office.
Tomas turned the phone toward Rosa so they could hear the marina update together.
May you like
She kept the plastic ring in one hand and Elena's yellow jacket in the other, unwilling to set either down.
June believed Elena was still aboard. They were moving now.
