The three of us stood by the car for a moment, none of us wanting to see what was inside but knowing we had to find out. There could be another phone, an address, or something linking us to Akira. I tossed the keys to Z, and he stared at me a long while. He silently nodded and started to walk toward the trunk.

Hawk and I stood shoulder to shoulder with him. The walk was short but felt long.

Z lifted the key to punch the button as we heard the kicking and muffled yells.

Z popped the trunk.

Akira was bound by hand and foot with silver duct tape. His mouth had been covered in duct tape as well. He was crying and kicking and rolling.

I reached into the trunk and lifted him out. His pants and shirt were wet and soiled. I held him up in my arms as Hawk gently pulled the tape from his mouth. Z used his pocketknife to cut into the tape, freeing the boy’s hands and feet. He was crying, which we took as a good sign.

He took in deep mouthfuls of air as if hyperventilating. Hawk went to the car to grab an unopened Coke.

Akira wrapped his arms around my neck. Z nudged me to look into the trunk. Scrawled into the top of the trunk hatch was the number 57. The boy started to cry very hard and very fast, and I told him I’d take him to his mother.

I called Susan to pass on the news to Nicole. And then we waited for the police.

64

The Foxboro police were overwhelmed with the influx of state cops, Feds, and reporters as word leaked that Akira was alive. At dawn, questions had been asked, statements given, lawyers consulted, and finally Akira could go home. The local cops had brought him a cheeseburger and fries from a local pub. He was so hungry, the cops had to get him another. Lima had not fed him for nearly forty-eight hours, the two of them jumping from apartment to apartment since he’d been taken. The kid didn’t know where. He knew there had been three of them, two men and a woman. He had picked Lima and Lela Lopes from a photo pack shown by the police.

I called Kinjo in Denver. Susan picked up Nicole in Medford.

At dawn, they had arrived at the Foxboro police station and walked into the chief’s office, where I watched over Akira. After eating, he had fallen asleep.

Nicole saw her child and pressed her hands to her face. She dropped to her knees and cried over him for a long while. The crying woke him, and Akira raised up and wrapped his arms around his mother’s neck. I could see his small face over her shoulder, eyes closed and holding on very tight. Nicole rocked him back and forth.

Susan nodded at me. I slipped with her from the room.

We stood in a long hallway with a gray linoleum floor and hard fluorescent lights. The police station was old and very institutional. I leaned against the wall next to the chief’s office. Susan had her sunglasses on top of her head and purse thrown over her shoulder. I could tell she’d jumped into her gym clothes and sped off to get Nicole.

“He’s going to be all right,” I said.

“How was he treated?”

“He wasn’t fed for nearly two days,” I said. “He spent most of the time with his eyes and mouth taped shut and carried about like a parcel.”

“Physical?”

“No.”

“Sexual?”

“No,” I said. “He was just a bargaining chip. Lima was obsessed with getting Kinjo back for his brother. He lectured a lot to Akira. Telling him his father was a murderer.”

“What did Akira say about that?”

“He said Lima was nutso.”

Susan shook her head and walked up next to me. She slipped an arm around my waist and tilted her head against my shoulder.

“Maybe totally nuts,” Susan said. “But he did keep Akira alive.”

“Maybe he wasn’t physically able to pull it off,” I said. “He did die in the bed with my gun in his hand.”

“Or maybe Victor never had any intention of killing the boy,” Susan said. “Despite doing some awful things, perhaps Victor Lima still had empathy.”

“That kid is going to be messed up for a long time,” I said. “I find few things empathetic about Victor Lima.”

“Akira is alive.”

“Yes.”

“And Lima had plenty of chances to let that be his revenge.”

I nodded. Susan continued to rest her head on my shoulder. As I set my arm around her, I spotted Steve Rosen barreling around the corner with a rail-thin woman with a lot of blond hair and very large teeth.

Rosen walked up to me and stuck out his hand. He wore his khaki pants very high and a blue polo shirt at least a size too small. His black hair was slicked back and camera-ready.

“Nice, Spenser,” he said. “Nice job.”

I shrugged.

He introduced the woman as a very important sports journalist who covered Boston for ESPN. I introduced Susan as a very important shrink who covered Cambridge and greater Boston.

“Is he in there?” Rosen said, nodding to the door reading CHIEF.

“Yep.”

Rosen licked his lips and reached for the doorknob. I caught him by his wrist.

“Hey,” Rosen said. “Jesus.”

“You open that door and I’ll break your arm,” I said.

“And then I’ll kick your ass,” Susan said.

“This is a big day,” Rosen said, smiling. An old and close friend of the family. “This is happy, huge news. Kinjo has dedicated the game to his son. It’s being picked up by CBS now. We have the Today show live from Gillette tomorrow. I promised an exclusive here, and to be direct, this doesn’t have a fucking thing to do with you, Spenser. So let me in and talk to Nicole. I’ve known Nicole since she was nineteen years old.”

“Hard to sign checks with a broken hand,” I said.

“Hard to sit down with a broken ass,” Susan said.

I shrugged. “People from Cambridge have fancy ways of speaking.”

Rosen snorted. “You want to be paid? Who do you think will write you your check on this thing? Don’t be stupid. Open the door. Is your head that freakin’ hard?”

Susan stepped up to Rosen. They were about the same height. “You have no idea, buddy,” she said.

I tapped my skull with my knuckles.

The blond woman with the big hair and the big teeth kept smiling as if her face had frozen. Her eyes switched from me to Rosen and back.

I pulled Rosen’s fingers from the door and moved to block the entrance.

“I’ll talk to the cops,” he said. “You got no power here. I’ll get the chief fucking sideline passes.”

“He’s downstairs getting ready for a press conference,” I said. “Tell him I sent you.”

Rosen turned and huffed off. The reporter looked to both of us, openmouthed, but then nodded and smiled and followed.

“Is he just learning you’re hardheaded?” Susan said.

“Apparently so.”

“Do we have to stay any longer?”

“No.”

“Can Nicole take Akira?”

“The Pats sent a private car,” I said. “It’s waiting out back. I spoke to the driver and told them I’d be walking them out.”

“Are you okay?” Susan said.

“Dandy.”

“Something’s still bothering you about this?”

“A lot.”

“Even though Akira is home safe?”

I nodded. We sat in the hall and waited until Nicole and Akira were ready to go home. As we walked out into the daylight, pictures were made and questions shouted. Sometime in the last few hours, the rain had stopped and the sun shone very bright.

65

The next morning, Ray Heywood knocked on my office door and walked inside.

He held a large Nike gym bag in his hand and set it on the floor.

“We need you to deliver this,” he said.

“Old jockstraps?”

“A half-million dollars,” he said.

“Price has gone up on jockstraps,” I said.

“Kinjo is a man of his word,” Ray said.