Fortune's Deadly Descent Read Online Free PDF

out where to stash a child. “Celia!” Benicio’s voice cuts in. I come around with the woozy feel of having passed out. But I’m still on my feet. Everyone is still in place.
    “Did you hear a word I said?”
    “It’s the wine,” I say, waving him off.
    When I lift my head again, I see tears in Oliver’s eyes.
    I reach out toward him, but there’s the white platter with crumbs and a few crumbles of cheese and I think of Benny’s loose teeth again and wonder if they’ve fallen out, and whether he even has a pillow to put one under, and it’s this last thought that breaks me. I grip the platter by the handles, bring it down, and snap it over my knee, letting the two halves clunk to the rug.
    “Oh god,” I say.
    Everyone is staring at me now, including the agents from the kitchen.
    After a long moment, Benicio kneels by me and picks up the china pieces and takes them away without a word.
    And only after he has returned, handed me a tumbler of water, and dabbed at my pant leg with a damp cloth, does Oliver come and sit on the coffee table facing me. He takes one of my hands in both of his and flicks a quick look up at Isak. “Benicio says Interpol thinks there was a man on the train who might’ve taken an interest in Benny.”
    I feel a low shudder in my heart. “It’s someone who works for Isabel, isn’t it?” I say.
    “Please,” Benicio says. “Enough about Isabel.”
    “Then what are you
saying
?”
    “The man who helped you look for Benny on the train,” Isak says. “Are you sure you’ve never seen him before?”
    I look at him in total confusion.
    “I’m asking if you’re sure you’ve never seen him. He’s not someone you know?”
    “Someone I
know
?”
    Isak glances at Benicio. Benicio looks at the floor and chews the inside of his lip.
    “What’s going
on
here?” I say.
    Isak opens the folder in his lap and hands me a grainy eight-by-ten photograph. “This is from the security camera at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof.”
    How long has Isak been sitting on this? The folder he’s pulled it from appears to have been in his hand most of the day. Why show this to me
now
?
    My breath comes in heaving gulps at the sight of Benny. I clutch my sweater to my throat and stare at the black-and-whiteimage of us boarding the train. My foot on the first step, my mouth open in laughter, head tossed slightly back as I hoist up our bag. My free hand is clasped in Benny’s behind me. He’s laughing too, dangling the picnic basket, his chunky backpack drooping from his shoulders. But his face is turned, tilted up toward the man behind him.
A man in a khaki shirt and jeans. Silver wristwatch with a black leather band
. A man without luggage. Empty hands.
Rough hands. Chewed or chipped nails. A stain of some sort beneath them
. The man who asked for a rundown of what Benny was wearing had already known. He’s sharing a laugh with my son. And, it appears, he’s sharing a laugh with me.

CHAPTER FOUR
    I have no explanation. All I have is the truth and it’s winning over no one. I wasn’t paying attention. It’s that simple. Benny was chattering on about a concoction of his, a combination of unlikely spices so silly it made him laugh.
    “What distracted you?” Isak asks.
    I flip the photograph onto the coffee table, unable to bear the sight of his joyful face. Things are looking worse than ever for me. The longer I take to respond, the more implicated I seem, yet my mouth refuses to open. Then it occurs to me that I don’t
have
to tell him the rest of the truth, don’t need to make myself look more pathetic by admitting that I was obsessing about my novel, the one he’d already suggested might’ve played some bizarre role in Benny’s disappearance. I’m not about to tell him how self-absorbed I was that morning, fearful that the wall I’d hit would prove to be a permanent barrier between the page and me. Nor do I intend to explain how, over the previous weeks, I’d grown increasingly annoyed with