Only six hours remained before Stanley Brackin would have the blood of an innocent seven-year-old boy on his hands.

The perp, Erwin Larson, had called Sienna Pritchard with his demands around six thirty that morning. She was told to leave five million dollars in a duffel bag at the abandoned McGentry Warehouse off Garrison Avenue. She had twelve hours to get him the money, or her son, Henry, would never be seen alive again.   

​Stanley had met Sienna at the Juniper Café a few hours earlier. Sienna’s quivering voice and the lost look in her glazed-over gray eyes when she had begged him for help made it impossible to turn her away.

​He scratched his red scruff and rubbed the back of his neck in exasperation. He was supposed to meet Sienna soon, but he was short on any solid leads and even shorter on time.

​Stanley stood about six foot three. He had boisterous red curls, dusted with gray that could only be properly tamed by Marin, his fiery wife. Deep worry lines between his brows revealed his age to be in his mid-fifties. His dark brown eyes were filled with a cold sadness. It was the kind of sadness only a seasoned private investigator could truly know. 

​He leaned back in his black office chair, propped his feet on his lacquered mahogany desk, and desperately hoped something would come to him. 

​Other than the glow of his computer screen and a small stream of light that seeped through the lower left corner of the window where the closed blinds were bent out of shape, his office was dark. He thought better in the dark. 

​Stanley stuck a cigar between his teeth. Bolivars were his favorites and reserved only for his toughest cases. The jobs with kids involved were the ones he hated the most. They always made him think of his own twin girls. He couldn’t bear the possibility that, because of him, a mother might never hold her son in her arms again. 

​Stanley flicked a silver lighter on. The small flame illuminated his engraved initials: S.B. He took a long, slow drag and sighed. Thick gray smoke spiraled out of his nostrils and curled up toward the ceiling. 

​The door flew open and light flooded the room. Startled, Stanley choked on his cigar smoke and coughed uncontrollably. He swung his feet off the desk and knocked a couple stacks of paper to the floor. He pounded his chest with a closed fist until he eventually found his breath. 

​The light from the hall accentuated Sienna’s figure. She was curvy, in a motherly way, and was no taller than five foot four, even in her white heels. Her blonde curly hair was pinned out of her face with a pearl-studded barrette to match her red blazer. 

 “Sorry,” Sienna said. “I thought you’d be expecting me.”

​Her voice was steady and calm. If it weren’t for the smudged mascara that outlined her red, puffy eyes, Stanley wouldn’t have guessed she had been crying all day.

​“I was,” Stanley responded. He suppressed his coughs and composed himself. “Come in.” 

​“Tell me you have something,” Sienna said. She scrunched her eyes closed and a single tear steaked down her delicate, pale cheek. “Anything.” 

​“Nothing solid,” Stanley said. “But I can tell you what I know. Close the door.”

​She quietly closed the door behind her and walked across the room. 

​“Well it better be good,” she said, “because somehow, that son of a bitch found out that I called you.” 

​She pulled her phone out of her small black clutch and handed it to Stanley.

​A picture of  Henry, tied to a chair, dried blood on his Spider-Man t-shirt, and a sharp butcher’s knife pressed to his tiny throat captioned You couldn’t keep my secret, makes it hard for me to want to keep his head” lit up the screen.

​Henry’s curly blond hair—just like his mama’s—was matted into unruly dreadlocks. Dark bags from crying for hours bulged under his blue, fear-filled eyes.  

​Stanley gasped. Henry was no older than his girls. He could have been in their first-grade class. He could have been at their unicorn-themed birthday party a month before. Like stone on the outside, Stanley couldn’t show Sienna the ice-cold fear that ripped his chest apart.

​“I don’t have much,” Stanley said. 

​He flipped through his yellow notepad. His chicken scratch would have been completely indecipherable to anybody else, but he was able to make out his notes from the past few hours. 

​“I did some digging online, made a few calls, and cashed in a couple of favors from some old friends at the station,” Stanley said, each word punctuated by a small puff of smoke. “According to his records, he’s single and lives in an apartment off Fifth Avenue. I checked it out about an hour ago, but his neighbor said they hadn’t seen him come home.”

​“Figures.” Sienna plopped down in the chipped wooden chair. “Dead end. What else do you have?”

​“Well, the next best thing to where he lives is where he works.” Stanley took a final puff of his cigar and stubbed it out in his metal ash tray. 

​He stood and parted the blinds just enough to look outside. It was a clear autumn day. Sparse clouds wisped through the blue sky and a flock of birds flew overhead. Though the day was bright and sunny, the end of their time to find Henry loomed like a vulture over Stanley’s head. 

 “He’s got a job working security at the museum,” Stanley said. 

 “Wait, which one?” Sienna asked. “The one off Fifty Second or the one off Alameda?”

​Stanley let the blinds fall back into place and turned to Sienna. 

​“Alameda.”

 “Oh my god.” Hope sparked behind Sienna’s gray eyes for the first time since their first meeting. “That’s where James used to work. He just got fired last week.”

​He pulled a butterfly knife out of his pocket and mindlessly flipped it open and closed. The steady clicks helped focus his racing thoughts.

​“James?” Stanley said.

 “My son,” Sienna said. “He’s been living with me since he got out of rehab about a year ago. I told him he can stay with me until he gets back on his feet, as long as he stays clean.”

​“What was his job at the museum?” Stanley asked.

​“Custodial stuff mostly. Cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors. It was grunt work, but it was the best he could get with his background.”

Stanley flicked the knife closed.

​“So, he knows his way around. Give him a call.”

​Sienna took her phone out and scrolled to her son’s name. The drawn-out tone of the call was muffled against her ear. 

“James?” Sienna said. “I’ve got a favor to ask you.”