The Last Minute

76

The Last Minute Bar, Manhattan, upstairs

Sam’s phone, buzzing, woke Leonie. She groped across the empty bed for him; he was gone.

She sat up and grabbed for the phone.

‘Yes?’

‘Leonie. Let me speak to Sam.’ She didn’t know this voice. It was the phone Anna Tremaine gave them as the lifeline to Nine Suns, to get their instructions, but it was not Anna on the phone. A man’s voice, crisp and precise and cold.

‘He’s… he’s not here.’

‘Where is he?’

‘I don’t know. I was asleep. Who is this?’

‘This is the man who can have your kid killed with one phone call.’

‘Please. Please don’t.’

‘I presume you are capable of taking a message?’

‘Yes.’

‘Tell Sam I will call back in one hour. I am not happy that he is not near this phone. What if I was calling him to tell him that I knew where Jack Ming was?’

‘Then I’d go kill Ming,’ she said. ‘We already know where he’s going to be tomorrow. Central Park.’

‘Central Park doesn’t quite narrow it down, does it?’

‘We’re finding out where, I promise… ’

‘Yes, I believe you would. You’re an excellent mother. You just saved your child from unnecessary suffering.’

A flash of horror danced through her.

‘I’ll call back in an hour, and Sam better have a good reason for his absence.’ The phone went off with a click.