Her parents couldn’t afford the entire tuition, so Corina helped put herself through local college, studying journalism while working at the newspaper. That night she was on the crime desk, hearing the police scanner crosstalk—“...all units, report of an eleven-eighty...” Hank Clayton, the night editor, never took his eyes from his screen, saying, “Sounds serious, better go check it out, kid.”

  Speeding in the news photog’s Jeep, navigating the quickest route, deciphering updates on his portable scanner. The first responding officer’s emotions seeping into his transmissions: “...sheared this thing...two fatalities...” Rushing to the scene, police, fire and ambulance lights illuminating debris scattered like shrapnel after a detonation...catching her breath...malformed metal and plastic yellow tarps covering the dead... Approaching to talk to a cop, Corina stepped carefully around the debris strewn on the pavement, spotting...there’s something familiar here... A worn ball cap...identical to her dad’s...then a shoe...identical to her mom’s...the logo on the wreckage—her mom and dad’s office cleaning service...

  The taxi swerved, yanking Corina from that night.

  She took a breath now, telling herself no, this couldn’t be like California.

  Please, not again.

  Corina tried Robert’s phone.

  No answer.

  He was likely in the air flying home from Philadelphia.

  Her phone pinged; she opened the message from Egan and caught her breath.

  There was Gabriel beaming at her from her screen, in the NYPD’s missing person notice.

  She wanted to caress Gabriel’s face, but her hand flew to her mouth. The notice was a gut punch, her skin prickling at the reality.

  My son is missing!

  Corina forced herself to remain calm. On dangerous stories, especially those where she was under fire, she’d learned to stay focused and think.

  It’s how she survived.

  Oh God! Hold on! Wait, there’s something to try!

  She’d hidden a travel tag, a button-shaped tracking device, with Gabriel. He didn’t know. No one in the family knew. An additional precaution she’d taken, like his phone. She never had to use it before. Fingers shaking a little, swiping to the device’s tracking app on her phone, the taxi swayed and Corina steadied herself. The driver moved around a loading truck, cursing at the crew for blocking the street.

  Corina concentrated on the app, activating a search. The tracking device she’d gotten had an extended range and a precision finder. A map appeared on her screen, and on it was a tiny pulsating green dot.

  “Oh my God, it’s working!”

  A truck’s horn blasted when the cab wheeled to the curb at the Central Park’s 69th Street entrance. Scrambling for her wallet, Corina gave the driver a fistful of cash, covering the fare and tip.

  Hurrying out of the car, holding her phone as if it were a lifeline, the dot was blinking for a location in Central Park. Maybe he ran off to be alone? Maybe he fought with Charlotte? Not wanting to lose the position, she used driving mode and voice command to call Sergeant Egan.

  It rang twice while she eyed the dot on the map and moved toward it.

  “Egan.”

  “It’s Corina Corado! I’m at the 69th Street entrance and I have a location on my son!”

  “You found him? Where?”

  “Yes. I placed a tracking device with him, like a luggage tag, and it’s showing me a spot in Central Park!”

  “Alright, give it to me.”

  Corina gave him the location.

  After taking it down and double-checking, Egan said, “Meet us there.”

  Hope and relief flooding her heart, she continued hurrying east along the park’s paved walkway. The dot blinked steadily on the map on her screen. It says I’m close. Very close.

  She rushed along the walkway, past shrubs where it intersected with the Bridle Path, and she looked down a pathway, where there were two officers on horseback searching the bushes. In the opposite direction, she saw a uniformed cop and parks worker, probing shrubs.

  She resumed examining her phone and kept going, to where the grassy hill sloped downward by the military statue. Then she came to the array of pulsing lights, vehicles and police officers clustered on West Drive.

  This is it.

  The app confirmed it, the dot growing and flashing faster. This was the spot. West Drive near the bowling greens. She looked around.

  Where’s Gabriel? I don’t understand. I don’t see him.

  Her hope frozen, she scanned the scene. Beyond the knot of police cars, a crowd, including a couple of news crews, had gathered at the periphery. Seeing her, someone said, “Hey, that’s Corina Corado from Newslead!” Phones and news cameras turned to her.

  “Ms. Corado.”

  A uniformed cop with sergeant’s stripes approached her.

  “Sergeant Egan,” he said. “This way.”

  “Where’s my son?” She glanced at her app, then at the scene and Egan. “The tracker tells me Gabriel is here!”

  Corina extended her phone, showing Egan. He studied it for a few seconds as she surveyed all the police units, their radios crackling.

  “Did you find Gabriel?” she asked. “Where is he?”

  “Where did you place the tracker?” Egan asked.

  “Hidden in his backpack.”

  “Come with me.”

  Egan led her to an NYPD SUV and at that moment, not far off, Corina thought she saw Charlotte, leaning on the side of another patrol car, hugging herself, two female uniformed officers rubbing her shoulders.

  The SUV door handle clicked and Egan watched Corina carefully as he opened the rear door.

  Her knees nearly buckled.

  Gabriel was not there. Instead, she saw his backpack with the spaceships on it and his plane.

  The tracker was where she’d put it—shoved deep in the small sleeve holding his ID tag.

  7

  CORINA REACHED FOR Gabriel’s backpack.

  But Sergeant Egan didn’t want her handling it, saying something about processing it and the plane. He showed her photos he’d taken of the contents, Gabriel’s jacket, some books, an open package of vanilla crème cookies, his favorite. Stepping back, Corina looked toward Charlotte, distraught in the distance.

  “Charlotte said she was holding his backpack when they got separated,” Egan said.

  “I want to talk to my daughter.”

  “Okay, but first, I need to ask you a few things.” Egan weighed the proximity of the news cameras. “Come with me, over here.”

  Egan’s car was parked amid the others and afforded more privacy. They got in the front, the interior smelling of synthetic leather, coffee and cologne, the radio bleating with transmissions.

  Egan took up his microphone and made a short, coded report with Corina understanding only snippets: “Sector Adam... Central... I’ve got the mother on scene...”

  He copied her identification from her driver’s license, took a photo of it, then set his phone to Record.

  “For my notes,” he said. “Now, I alerted your husband, Robert Tanner, before his plane left Philadelphia.”

  Egan then asked Corina to walk him through the day’s events, creating a timeline leading up to Gabriel’s disappearance. He asked if Gabriel had ever run off in the past, if there’d been anything, or anyone, suspicious in the time before; if he needed medication; if he knew his way home; anywhere he might go; any stress in the home; and how he got along with his stepsister.

  Corina looked toward Charlotte again in the distance.

  As Egan continued, adrenaline surged through Corina, her voice tremoring as she answered. She knew he was doing more than collecting vital background. He was also confirming if her account was consistent with whatever account Charlotte had given them, or whatever Robert said.

  “Have you received any calls from strangers since your son got separated?”

  “No.”

  “Anyone claiming to know something, instructing you not to tell us, like ransom demands from a kidnapper?”

  “No. You don’t think Gabriel’s been—”

  “I understand that you’ve previously had private security because of threats you received related to your job with Newslead?”

  “Yes, but that was a while ago. We ended security after things calmed down. Do you think—” Corina turned to the scene, a new horror dawning “—do you think that this has something to do with the threats? After all this time?”

  “We can’t rule out anything at this point.” He paused. “Did you receive threats today?”

  “Just the usual insults. Nothing specific,” she said, her voice quivering. “Nothing targeting my children.”

  “We’re doing all we can to reunite Gabriel with his family.”

  Egan listed off much of the response: how they’d dispatched units to Gabriel’s school and condominium; how they’d activated an intensive search of Central Park—the bathrooms, the playgrounds, everywhere; they were canvassing doormen and buildings surrounding the park; had alerted the transit and traffic systems; called in the aviation unit and canine teams; put out bulletins through social media; and were preparing an AMBER Alert.

  “Charlotte said he had his phone with him. Our computer crimes people are on it, and they’re good at tracking. They’re working with your carrier. We have agreements with most for exigent circumstances like this.”

  “Don’t you have cameras in the park?”

  “Not inside the park. It’s a privacy issue. We’ve got cameras at all the park entrances. We’ll review the footage. We have transit and traffic system cameras, too. And we have agreements to look at security footage from local residential and commercial buildings. We can request the public to share any images from phones or dash cams.”

  Lifted a little by the police response, Corina nodded.

  “And I don’t have to tell you—” Egan indicated more news crews arriving at the scene’s edge “—the press coverage is intensifying. I’m told they’re already at the school and your condo building.”

  Corina shut her eyes for a second.

  “And detectives from the One-Nine, your resident precinct, will need to talk to you and your family at your home. We’re going to find him,” Egan said, stopping his recording and ending his questions.

  Corina blinked back tears as she left Egan’s car. Through the web of emergency people coming and going, she found Charlotte and hurried toward her. Their eyes locked, a cold terror passing between them, Charlotte bolting to Corina, fusing herself to her with a crushing hug. Charlotte shook, her words coming out in choking sobs.

  “I’m so sorry! It’s my fault!”

  Holding her, Corina was too afraid to be angry. She needed facts.

  “Tell me again what happened.”

  “He wanted to walk home through the park to fly his plane.”

  Charlotte pointed nearby to where benches and a low-rise fence bordered the walkway at the bottom of the grassy slope.

  “I held his backpack for him and he flew the plane, but it went up there.” She circled her trembling finger at the slope. “He ran around the fence over there.” She pointed to the pathway that rose up the hill and led to 69th Street, the very path Corina had used. “He ran up to get it and I waited and he never came down. I called his phone. He didn’t answer. I tried to find his phone with mine. Nothing worked!”

  Charlotte sobbed.

  “It was just up on that little hill. I should have gone up with him but—I didn’t because, because—I’m so sorry.”

  “Because you were on your phone while he was looking for his plane?”

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Corina knew the answer. Corina reined in her fury, deciding to retrace Gabriel’s steps on the hill. Then she heard a dog’s yelp.

  An NYPD canine team was at Sergeant Egan’s car. The officer handling the dog had retrieved Gabriel’s backpack and was opening it. Egan signaled to Corina. They needed her.

  “This is Officer Esser with Patrol Services, and his partner, Blaze.”

  “Ma’am,” Esser said, withdrawing Gabriel’s jacket. “Is this your son’s jacket? And has he had recent contact with it?”

  Corina nodded. “He put it on this morning.”

  Esser ensured Blaze got Gabriel’s scent from his jacket, then they headed up the hill, disappearing into the bushes.

  Corina started to follow them.

  “Hold on,” Egan said.

  Other officers began stretching yellow plastic tape, cordoning off the entire area, as if it were a crime scene, as more specialized units arrived.

  “Corina!”

  “Ms. Corado!”

  Reporters with New York City news outlets had arrived and called to her from the boundary police had created to hold them back beyond the emergency vehicles.

  “Talk to us, Corina!”

  “Police told us your son is missing!”

  “What’s your reaction to what’s happening?”

  She saw the faces, the cameras, microphones, lights and phones. How many times had she been among them, or in a press group, covering some terrible story somewhere? Now she was on the other side of the cameras. Now she was the story. And she couldn’t face them. She couldn’t deal with it. Shaking her head, she raised her palm.

  But this is about Gabriel.

  Corina wasn’t thinking clearly. She had to find him, and here, before her, stood one of the greatest resources to help her. She strode toward them while cuing up Gabriel’s photo on her phone. As she held it up, the group jostled, tightening in a horseshoe around her.

  “This is my son, Gabriel Corado—he’s six years old. I’m sure most of you have the police notice with a more recent picture—from today, maybe less than an hour, I don’t know.”

  “What happened, Corina?”

  “His sister was walking him home from school when they got separated in this area of the park.”

  Then questions came together: “Was he taken by a stranger?”

  “Do you have any idea why this happened to your son?”

  “What’s your daughter’s name?”

  Corina held up her palms, forcing her voice to be calm and even.

  “We just want to locate Gabriel and get him home safely. That’s all I can say right now.”

  Corina turned but more questions followed her.

  “Has anyone claimed responsibility?”

  “What’re your thoughts at this time?”

  Making her way back into the activity of the scene, she rejoined Charlotte, holding her while the sky above them thudded as an NYPD helicopter passed. Corina knew the park had several lakes and ponds. The helicopter was scouring them for a body. The realization, the radio chatter, the police dog, officers searching, the news media, the gawkers—it all deepened her fear. Corina noticed Egan was on his phone, huddling with other officers, some of them talking into their radios. Their faces taut, their conversations amped up.

  Something big was happening.

  8

  IN THE QUEENS NEIGHBORHOOD OF REGO PARK, an old blue Ford F-150 waited at a red light to turn left onto 67th Street.

  The front doors bore a logo of a stylized hammer and the words Super Eezzee Contracting. The truck had a crew cab and a short bed; the left fender was wrinkled from a collision last month but the turn signal worked.

  While it blinked, smoke curled from the cigarette in Ivan Beckke’s hand. The window had been lowered; Beckke’s arm rested on the frame. A grinning skull shrouded in a Grim Reaper’s hood was tattooed on his bicep, visible because of the sleeveless Metallica T-shirt Beckke wore. He also had a stained Jets ball cap, the brim pulled down to his dark glasses, wild blondish locks loose around his unshaven face.

  Beckke glanced around the intersection at the CVS, and the old discount clothing store, the multilevel parking garage and the apartment complex. The Ramones flowed from his radio, his head almost bobbing along with “Blitzkrieg Bop.”

  All was looking good now, Beckke thought. The job in the Upper West Side went better than he’d expected. He was figuring he’d be paid extra for his work as the light changed to green.

  Beckke had just made a left onto 67th Street when the air split with piercing yelps of a siren. He stomped on the truck’s brakes. An unmarked SUV emerged from nowhere, lights wigwagging in its grill and dash. It cut across within inches of Beckke’s front bumper, stopping in T-bone style, blocking him.

  “What the—!”

  Beckke’s jaw dropped, and his cigarette bounced off the wheel and out the window. In an instant, a white unmarked police sedan, with sirens and lights going, pulled tight to Beckke’s passenger side. Then another SUV angled on the driver’s side blocking his rear left quarter, boxing him in.

  Beckke’s head twisted as NYPD cops wearing body armor, badges clipped to their belts, guns drawn and aimed at him, closed in from all sides. The one in front of him, his handgun aimed at Beckke’s head, shouted, “Toss the keys to the ground! Hands out the window! Now! Now! Now!”

  Beckke complied.

  One of the cops opened the driver’s door, forcing Beckke out at gunpoint.

  “On the ground, on your knees, hands behind you!”

  The acrid smell of burning rubber filled the air. One cop snapped handcuffs on Beckke, then hefted him to his feet. Another patted him down, taking his wallet and phone from his pockets.

  “What the hell?” Beckke said. “What’d I do?”

  Other officers, their body cameras recording, searched Beckke’s truck. One found a Glock 17 and two mags holding seventeen rounds each, wrapped in a towel under the passenger seat.

  The officer moved to check the cab’s rear seat.

  He paused.

  A heavy blanket was heaped in a corner.