Chapter One: The Spider at 5:17 A.M.

In the lower corner, faint digits read 06:02. One red bead contained the distorted image of a child in a yellow raincoat. Lu Chen stared for three seconds, grabbed his jacket, and ran. Three years earlier, his younger sister Lu Yao had called at dawn. He had been retouching an irrelevant product photograph and dismissed the call, promising himself he would call back in ten minutes. Before those ten minutes passed, a truck crashed into her bus stop. Since then, danger had never frightened him as much as arriving late. Pier Seven was abandoned, but the chain on Warehouse B was new. His phone showed 5:41 when he climbed the fence. He called the police, reported a kidnapped child, and hung up when the dispatcher demanded his name and evidence.