The screen had cracked back at the cafe, but it still worked.
I stared at it and felt the world go sideways.
In the picture on the screen, my mom and dad and Annie were sitting on a wooden bench in a room with no windows. The walls behind them were dirty white, the color of March snow. It was a very clear image. The resolution was excellent. Dad was holding a copy of the New York Times up to the camera so I could see today’s date. His chin was already starting to show the beginnings of stubble. Mom’s eyes were bloodshot, the tip of her nose red, like she’d been crying. But Annie was the worst. She was wearing a dirty pink T-shirt and her favorite pair of jeans, hugging herself, and her face just looked blank, like inside her head she’d gone to find a place where she wouldn’t have to be scared anymore.
“Where are they?” I heard myself ask.
Gobi shook her head. “I do not know.”
“What?”
“Is Paula’s iPad,” Gobi said. “If I had not come tonight, she would have used this picture on you.”
“For what?”
“To get to me.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“Leverage, Perry. Think.”
The sirens were practically on top of us now.
I looked at the iPad again.
“Armitage did this?”
Gobi nodded.
“And you killed him.”
“It was assignment,” Gobi said.
“Screw your assignment! Your assignment got my family kidnapped!” I wanted to throw the iPad at her as hard as I could. “You shot Armitage! The cops wouldn’t even know where to start looking for them!”
“Is not a police matter.”
“What?”
She just looked at me. “I must finish.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Kaya gave me multiple targets. Monash was first, then Armitage.” She glanced away. “There is one more.”
“Who?”
“You know.”
Of course I did. “Paula.”
“She was right about the shotgun being empty. But we were out of time. If I had paused to reload, and finish her off, the other snipers would have killed me.”
“Hold on.” I was trying not to lose any remaining control I might still have over my sympathetic nervous system, which didn’t seem to be feeling very sympathetic toward me right now. “If she’s the only one left who knows where my family is, then we need her alive.”
Gobi held up Paula’s iPad, then slipped it into a watertight packet and sealed it shut. “We have everything we need.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not until we get a chance to look at it closely.” She looked around. “We need to get out of here.”
She didn’t have to ask again. I had already started putting on the wetsuit.