Chapter 5 - The Apartment Above the Closed Flower Shop

The location report from Martin Vale’s archive listed an address three blocks from the abandoned florist where we had found Nora’s locker.

Second floor. Rear unit.

“Updated forty-eight hours ago” did not mean Lucas was there now, Detective Moreno reminded me.

I heard the warning.

I still arrived with my heart trying to break through my ribs.

Chicago police entered first. I waited across the street with Mills because Moreno had made the condition explicit: no command presence near the door, no chance of turning a child recovery into a confrontation.

Seven minutes later she called.

“Come up.”

The apartment was empty.

Not abandoned.

Empty.

A child’s workbook lay open on a folding table. One cereal bowl sat in the sink. A spacer for an asthma inhaler rested beside a bottle of dish soap.

Lucas used the same kind.

I touched nothing.

On the wall, strips of tape showed where drawings had recently hung. A mattress remained on the floor, along with two blankets and a paperback copy of The Hobbit.

I had read that book to Lucas when he was six.

He always made me give the trolls ridiculous voices.

Moreno watched me notice it.

“They were here,” she said. “Recently.”

“How recently?”

“We’ll let people who know answer that.”

A neighbor named Mr. Dombrowski told police the woman upstairs called herself Rae. She paid cash, kept mostly to herself, and left the previous evening with a boy and an older woman carrying grocery bags.

“Did they seem forced?”

“No. Hurried.”

“Any visitors?”

“A man in a gray car watched the building last week.”

Again.

The apartment search produced no note addressed to me. Rachel had learned not to leave obvious messages.

But Lucas had.

On the inside of a kitchen cabinet, almost hidden behind the hinge, someone had drawn a tiny chess knight in pencil.

Under it was a number.

12.

I stared.

Moreno sighed. “More family puzzles?”

“Maybe.”

The apartment was twelve blocks from Lincoln Square Library, where I used to take Lucas to Saturday chess lessons when Rachel worked weekends.

Knight meant turn.

Twelve might mean a route.

Or it might mean nothing.

I made myself say that aloud.

Moreno nodded. “Good habit.”

The report that led us to the apartment contained more than an address. It described Rachel’s schedule, Lucas’s clothing, and the route they used to reach a neighborhood clinic on Tuesdays.

That explained Nora’s unsent warning.

He knows where Lucas goes on Tuesdays.

Change route.

The surveillance had been produced by Lakeshore Protective Group and uploaded into Vale’s archive.

Its author used initials: D.P.

Moreno had a probable match.

Deacon Pryce, a senior investigator at Lakeshore.

His personnel photograph showed a broad man in his forties.

A scar beside his left ear.

Nora identified him immediately from her hospital bed.

“Was he the man who threatened you?”

“Yes.”

“Did Martin Vale ever appear with him?”

“No.”

“Did he say Martin sent him?”

“No.”

That distinction mattered.

Pryce might connect the surveillance to Vale, or he might connect it only to Lakeshore.

While police sought him, I went to Lincoln Square Library with Moreno.

The children’s chess club still met in the same glass-walled room.

A librarian remembered Lucas.

Not from a year ago.

From six days earlier.

“He came with his mother,” she said. “He asked if Mr. Alvarez still taught.”

Mr. Alvarez was retired now.

“Did he leave anything?”

The librarian hesitated.

“He asked me to keep an envelope if a tall man came in asking about old chess lessons.”

My breath caught.

“Did he say what tall man?”

“No.”

She studied me.

“But I assume he meant you.”

The envelope contained no letter.

Only a photocopy of an old score sheet from one of our games.

Lucas had circled one move.

Knight to F3.

A standard opening move.

Beside it he had written:

FIRST SAFE MOVE.

I remembered the phrase.

When he was learning chess, I told him that if he panicked, he should make one safe move rather than trying to win the whole game at once.

Moreno turned the sheet over.

There was an address.

Not a residence.

The Lakeview Family Clinic.

Tuesday, 3:30.

Tomorrow.

My first instinct was to plan an arrest perimeter.

My second was to ask whether Rachel would ever walk into a place she knew had been watched.

Then I understood.

The address was not telling me where Lucas would be.

It was telling me where to leave something.

“What do you think?” Moreno asked.

“A message.”

“To Rachel?”

“To Lucas.”

I borrowed a pen from the librarian.

On the back of the score sheet I wrote only three sentences.

I found your message.

I will not force you to come with me.

Tell me the next safe move.

I signed it Dad.

Moreno read it.

“No tracking device?”

“No.”

“No coded order?”

“No.”

She folded the page into the envelope.

May you like

[COMPLETED] “GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY DRESS! YOU’RE NOTHING BUT AN OLD SEAM...

[COMPLETED] At the Mafia Boss's Engagement Party, I Served His Hungry So...

[COMPLETED] The Mafia Boss’s Fiancée Tried to Dismiss His Father’s Loyal...

For the first time in a year, I was not trying to bring my son home.

I was asking him where home felt safe.