HE CLOSEST PARK to Donovan’s took up an entire city block, with paths through the trees leading to all four bordering streets. It was too far away for Danny to walk on his own, but he always insisted on trying anyway and ended up walking beside his stroller part of the way and riding in it the rest. “Look who I see,” Molly told him as they neared the park. “There’s our friend Reba, with a balloon. I wonder who it’s for?”

“For me!” he said excitedly, clapping his hands in his stroller. He scrambled out of the stroller as soon as they reached the bench by the swings, and he ran to Reba, who was sitting there, reading a book. She’d told Molly two weeks ago, when she first started coming to the park, that she was eighteen and taking some time off before starting college.

“Hi, Danny,” Reba said, and pretended she didn’t know a red balloon was floating by a string from her hand.

“Mine?” Danny asked, pointing to the balloon. “Please?” he added with a lopsided grin that never failed to get an answering smile—and usually whatever he wanted, as well.

Smiling, Reba stood up, still holding the balloon, and gave Molly a wink. “Follow the balloon, Danny, and I’ll show you a surprise.”

“A turtle!” Danny predicted joyously, following her toward one of the paths, with Molly holding his hand and pushing the empty stroller.

“Follow the balloon,” Reba chanted over her shoulder as she started down the path.

“The balloon is the same color as your shirt,” Molly told Danny. “What color is it?”

“Red!” Danny replied gleefully.

A thrashing sound in the brush on her left and slightly behind her made Molly turn to look, but all she saw was a baseball bat an instant before it crashed into her skull. She didn’t see the bat being raised again for a second blow or hear Reba say fiercely, “No, don’t, Billy! No one is supposed to get hurt!” She didn’t hear Danny start to cry or call, “Molly, Molly!” She didn’t feel a sheet of paper being shoved down the front of her dress.

In the park near the swings, two mothers looked up and saw a bright red balloon floating upward from the trees. They didn’t think anything about it until fifteen minutes later, when a woman staggered from the path with blood streaming from her head.

A block away, on the opposite side of the park, an old man was sitting on a bench tossing peanuts to a squirrel. A young couple emerged from the park, pushing a dark green stroller with a child who was trying to climb out. The young mother laughed and pressed him back down. The old man on the bench didn’t think anything about that until twenty minutes later, when police cars, with sirens screaming and light bars flashing, descended on the park from every direction.

ON THE FIFTH floor of the Richard J. Daley Center, Gray Elliott was in his office, eating lunch at his desk and writing an outline for a speech he was scheduled to give before the Illinois Anti-Crime Commission the following week. With a sandwich in one hand, he picked up his telephone with the other and answered a phone call from police captain Russell Harvey.

“Gray,” the captain said, “I just got a phone call from a lieutenant downtown who knows that you and I have dinner at Donovan’s once in a while. Kate Donovan’s son was kidnapped from a park near the restaurant an hour ago. I thought you’d want to know.”

Gray dropped his sandwich on the desk and stood up. “Who caught the case?”

“A couple of pretty good detectives. They’re on their way to tell Kate right now.”

“Can you assign MacNeil and Childress instead and put them in charge? They’ve been partners for a couple of years now, and from everything I hear, they’ve racked up one of the best arrest records in the department.”

“I already did that. Are you going to go to the restaurant to see Kate? If not, I think I’ll drop by there and assure her she has our unconditional support.”

“I’m on my way,” Gray said, already shrugging into his suit jacket. “I’ll give her your message.”