HEFFIELD PHYSICAL REHAB CENTER, MCLEAN, VIRGINIA

DECEMBER 7, 2003

EIGHTEEN MONTHS AGO

What were you like when you were a kid?” Gina interrupted the post-sex glow to ask.

There was a short time, right after they made love, when Max held her in his arms and seemed almost relaxed.

It had occurred to her that, instead of lying back and enjoying the moment, this might be the time to get him talking.

But Max now shook his head. “I was never a kid.”

She laughed, turning to look up at him. “Yes, you were. Come on. What was your favorite... TV show growing up?”

He shook his head again. “I didn’t watch much TV.”

“Charlie’s Angels,” she guessed, laughing when he rolled his eyes. “I bet you were one of those guys who had a picture of what’s-her-name—Farrah—on your wall at college.”

“No comment.” But he smiled. “I was more into music than TV during college. I mean, we watched Saturday Night Live, sure, but... Give me Chrissie Hynde from the Pretenders any day. She was hot. And she could really sing.”

Music. They talked music a lot. It was easy to talk about music. “What was your favorite TV show when you were, like, ten?” she asked him.

“Jeez, I don’t know,” he said. “I watched what my brother and sister wanted to watch. They were so much older... Tim was a sports fan, so we saw a lot of baseball and basketball. And when they weren’t around... My grandfather was really into Elvis. I watched a lot of Elvis movies with him.”

Elvis movies. That was too funny. “How old were you,” Gina asked, “when your grandfather had his stroke?”

“Nine.”

“That must’ve sucked.”

“Yeah.”

She was silent for moment, just watching him, half hoping he’d say more, but knowing that he wouldn’t. He’d told her once—a long time ago—that he was nine when his sister first tried to kill herself. It must’ve been one hell of a year.

The first of many.

No wonder he felt as if he hadn’t had a childhood.

She leaned forward to kiss him on the side of his face, but he turned and caught her mouth with his.

God, the man knew how to kiss. It would have been so easy to let this be the final punctuation mark at the end of the conversation. To let this kiss slide them into one of those two-condom nights.

But it was getting late and she couldn’t stay forever.

As much as she would have liked to.

She gently pulled away.

“So what’s your favorite Elvis movie?” she asked.

He laughed.

“Come on,” she said. “This isn’t heavy stuff—you’re allowed to answer.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I really only watched because my grandfather wanted to.”

“So... What?” Gina asked, propping herself up on one elbow to look down at him. “You sat there with him in the living room and did quadratic equations in your head while staring into space?”

He rolled his eyes again. “Okay,” he said. “Just... gimme a break—I was nine, okay? And my grandfather stopped being able to talk, but when he watched these movies, he, I don’t know. He looked almost happy. Sometimes he even laughed out loud. Shit, I would’ve climbed into one of those movies to live there permanently if I could’ve. So yeah, I had a favorite. Follow That Dream. Which probably means nothing to you.”

“Hey, I had some significant Elvis exposure,” she said. “That’s the one with all the kids and the station wagon, right?”

He laughed. “Wow. Secret Elvis fans unite.”

God, she loved it when he smiled like that.

“I had a great-aunt who had two pictures hanging in her apartment in Bayside,” Gina told him. “One was Jesus, the other was Elvis.”

“Black velvet?”

“You know it. My idiot brother told me that he was one of the most important saints, and I... Well, I actually believed him. I’m embarrassed to say how old I was before I realized it was only a joke.” It was her turn to roll her eyes now.

It earned her a soft laugh. “The patron saint of rock and roll,” Max said. “I like it. I mean, he was a stepping stone to more sophisticated music, but for me, it pretty much all started with Elvis.”

Back again to music. But okay.

“Did you ever play an instrument when you were a kid?” Gina asked him.

He looked at her, apparently decided the topic was still safe enough, and said, “When I was in middle school, I really wanted to play the guitar. I’d discovered Hendrix by then, you know?”

She nodded.

“So I went to the school music teacher, and... She got me this violin that she kept on hand—for kids who wanted to try it out before renting one for an entire year.”

“A violin?”

“Yeah,” Max said. “Apparently that was where you had to start in the string department in our school. I remember her telling me that I had to earn the right to play the guitar.”

“Oh, man,” Gina said. “Your middle school music teacher would’ve made my middle school music teacher have a heart attack. I mean, there would have been a knife fight in the teacher’s lounge. Did you, like, totally never go back to the music room ever again?”

“Not quite,” he admitted. “I was... Well, I figured, how hard could it be?” He made a disgusted noise. “What a disaster. I was always good at everything but...”

“Not the violin,” she said. “That’s one of the hardest instruments to play. That was so stupid of that teacher.”

“Yeah,” Max agreed. “I was listening to stuff like ‘Crosstown Traffic’ and ‘All Along the Watchtower’ and the teacher wanted me to master ‘Three Blind Mice’ on this piece of crap that I never managed to get in tune. It didn’t help that the tolerance for noise in our house had dropped to negative five. I mean, I could listen to Hendrix with my headphones on. But practicing was...” He shrugged. “I quit after a week.”

“Was that when your sister was—”

“Yeah,” he said. “What was your favorite Elvis movie?”

Okay. Gina had gotten more than she’d expected with that story about the violin, so she backed down. “The one where he plays the priest,” she told him. “I mean, I thought he was a saint, right?”

“So how old were you when you found out he wasn’t?” Max asked.

“Third grade,” she said. “It was ugly. This stupid fifth-grade boy—Patrick O’Brien—wouldn’t stop talking about how Elvis sucked and how he’d died of an overdose. So I gave him a bloody lip and a black eye—I really kicked the crap out of him, out on the playground. I got into so much trouble. The principal made me go to the library right then and there—my clothes were all muddy, it was so humiliating. But she made me research the details of Elvis’s death.” She sighed. “It was not a good day. I remember my mother was at work, so my Uncle Frank—he was living in our basement because he was having trouble finding work—he came to school to pick me up. Fighting was a serious deal. I was suspended for two days, and I had to apologize to Patrick and his parents before I could come back. Only, I knew that would make it all worse, right? Imagine if you were that kid, and this third-grade girl comes to your house and...”

Max was smiling. “Poor bastard.”

“Yeah, you think it’s funny, but I was despondent,” she told him. “Heartbroken. All those prayers—going out to some phony antisaint? This hero of mine—a drug addict? You know, I come from a long line of firefighters and cops. Doing drugs was on par with murder and arson in our family.” She spooned back against him, pulling his arm more tightly around her. “I can’t believe I haven’t told you this story before. I haven’t, have I?”

“No.” He reached up to brush her hair away from his face.

“Uncle Frank sat me down and told me that heroes sometimes make mistakes,” Gina said. “He told me that despite the mistakes he’d made, Elvis maybe should’ve been made a saint anyway, because he brought so much light into so many people’s lives. Like Great-Aunt Tilly, who didn’t have a lot to be happy about after Great-Uncle Herman died.

“He also made me take a shower and change my clothes,” she continued, “and he took me right over to the O’Briens’ house, and he told me what to say so Patrick wouldn’t terrorize me for the rest of the year.” She snorted. “Frank told me that I had to restore his pride and that I had to say to him, ‘I’m sorry, I was wrong. Thank you for not hitting me because I’m just a girl and I’m littler than you, too, and you obviously know that boys shouldn’t hit girls.’ And I was all like, ‘But he did hit me—I won that fight, fair and square! What about my pride?’ And so Frankie let me write a note, to give to Patrick without his parents seeing, and it said, ‘If I ever hear you say that Elvis sucks again, I will make you sorry.’ ” Gina laughed. “And after we got back home, Frank let me play his drum kit for the first time. We kids weren’t allowed to touch it, but that day he let me sit down—he actually gave me a lesson, and it was magical... Of course from then on, I would sneak downstairs when no one else was home and play. I think he must have known... Anyway, Patrick O’Brien always avoided me on the playground after that.”

Max was smiling. “My grandfather would’ve adored you.”

A long time ago, Max had told her the story of how his grandfather met his grandmother—an American—in India in the 1920s. They were both thirteen when his grandmother, Wendy, got separated from her school group. Raza Bhagat had walked her safely home. He’d then gone and learned English in some remarkably insane amount of time, like two weeks, so that he could talk to her more easily.

Apparently, the attraction went both ways. They were married in 1930—and back then their relationship was considered interracial and quite scandalous. It was made worse by the fact that Raza wasn’t high caste.

After the second world war, Raza, Wendy, and their son Timothy—Max’s dad—moved to America, where they were slightly less outcast, especially when Raza got a high-paying job in the aviation industry.

Raza embraced his wife’s country with enthusiasm—a place where a rocket scientist born in a laborer’s body didn’t have to spend his entire life hauling manure.

“I would’ve loved to have met him,” Gina said. “Your parents, too.”

The look Max shot her was filled with disbelief.

“What?” Gina said.

“Nothing.”

“How old were you when they got divorced?” Gina asked.

He sighed. “First year of college,” he said. “Do we really have to go here?”

“That must’ve been hard for you,” she said. Come on, Max, talk about something that matters...

“Nah,” he said. “It was all over by then.”

“If that’s the case, why don’t you want to talk about it?”

“Because there’s nothing to say,” Max told her. “I did what I always did. Got straight As. Graduated early. Look, Gina, it’s getting late.”

Oh, good. The conversation had moved into slightly less comfortable territory for him, so he did what he always did. Tried to get rid of her.

It wouldn’t do any good to get pissed off. If she did that, Max would just shut down even tighter.

So she kept it light. “Big day tomorrow?” she teased. “Playing gin rummy with Ajay?”

“I meant for you. You’ve got to drive back to Jules’s tonight.”

“Yeah, and then pick up your mail tomorrow. Exhausting,” she said.

He didn’t smile. He was so on the verge of saying something about her going back to New York and applying to law school at NYU—she just knew it. And then she wouldn’t be able to keep from getting pissed off at him and...

She’d end up walking out, upset. It had been too nice a night for that—even though she’d been the one doing most of the talking.

“So what do you use as an outlet for your creativity?” Gina asked him before he could say something stupid.

“What?”

She’d confused him. Good. “Since you gave up the violin,” she explained. “If I didn’t have my drums, I’d go crazy.”

“You don’t have your drums,” he pointed out. “They’re in New York.”

Grrrr.

“Yeah,” she said, “no, I found this recording studio about two blocks from Jules’s apartment. They’ve got a kit set up. The owner, Ernie, doesn’t mind if I come in, off hours, and... Didn’t I tell you about this?”

“No.” Max frowned. “Ernie?”

“Ooh.” She kissed him. “Jealous?” She didn’t let him answer. “He’s married with two kids. So stop dodging my question. What do you do? Write poetry? Or—I know—you scrapbook, right?”

He laughed, as she’d hoped he would. “Yeah. In all my copious free time.”

“Seriously,” she said. “Have you ever tried painting or sculpting or—”

“Some people are born to create art, others are born to sit in the audience.”

Gina sat up, turning to face him. “You don’t really believe that, do you?” She was outraged. “That’s as stupid as telling a kid that in order to play the guitar he needs to master the violin first. They’re two completely different instruments, by the way—”

“Shhhh,” he said, but he was smiling. “People are sleeping.”

“I love when you smile,” she told him. “You don’t do that enough.”

And just like that, his smile was gone. “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

And there they were, just gazing at each other.

Tired. And scared. Or at least she was scared. Uncertain. Emotionally exhausted from having to be so freaking careful around him all the time. Fearful he was finally going to tell her that enough was enough, that they couldn’t go on.

She didn’t know how he felt because he would never tell her.

Please, she prayed to Saint Elvis, give me some sort of sign... She didn’t need Max to tell her that he loved her, but it sure as heck wouldn’t hurt.

The fact that they were naked and in his bed probably played into it, but, as always, when they looked at each other that way, something sparked. It flashed and crackled and snapped around them.

What are we doing here, Max? Gina didn’t ask him that. Instead, she said, “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. And then he surprised her. He actually sang to her. It was soft and a little off-key, but it was definitely meant to be an Elvis imitation. “Lord Almighty, I feel my temperature rising...”

Gina laughed.

Max reached for her, the heat in his eyes telling her she wasn’t going anywhere.

Not for a while, at least.

HOTEL ELBE HOF, HAMBURG, GERMANY

JUNE 21, 2005

PRESENT DAY

Gina wasn’t waiting for him in her room at the Elbe Hof hotel.

Max hadn’t really expected her to be.

But, Christ, how he’d hoped.

There was an envelope on the floor just inside the room, no doubt a hotel bill that had been pushed through the crack under the door. Max scooped it up on his way in.

He didn’t bother to turn on the light as he shut the door behind him—the curtains were open, bathing the two neatly made beds in late-afternoon sunlight. The room had a typical hotel setup—beds, dresser, desk with a telephone, TV. Overstuffed chair and a standing lamp. Breakfast table and chairs next to the window.

The decor was blandly generic—he could have been anywhere in the world that catered to American travelers.

Except it smelled like Gina in here. She didn’t wear perfume, at least not the kind that came in a bottle, but her shampoo, soap, and lotions were sweetly scented.

The smell was stronger in the bathroom. As if she were in there. Just invisible.

Makeup was out on the counter as if she’d just used it. As if she’d left this room with every intention of coming right back.

In the bedroom, paperback books were stacked on the dresser, on the desk, even on the floor. Gina used to joke that her segment in a “Girls Gone Wild” video would take place in a bookstore. The only thing that could get her to lift her shirt in public would be the promise of an advance copy of the latest Dean Koontz or J.D. Robb.

There were no bookstores in the remote part of Kenya where she was working, and Max felt a stab of remorse. He should have thought of that and bought her the latest releases. He could have had Jules send them to her—it would have taken both of them so little time and effort.

Max tossed the envelope onto the bed nearest the bathroom to free up his hands so he could open all the drawers.

Gina was an unpacker. Instead of keeping her things in her bag when she traveled, the way normal people did, she actually used the hotel dresser.

Sure enough, she’d done the same here.

There were clothes hanging in the closet, too, and Max moved closer to look.

Gina’s clothes and someone else’s.

But there were no shirts or suits hanging, no man-sized sneakers on the closet floor. That someone else was female.

Max stood there looking at a dress that was neither Gina’s style nor size, feeling... What? Relief?

Not really.

Although, yeah, okay. Maybe a little. The hotel registration had been for Gina Vitagliano and guest. Up to this moment, Max had been going on the assumption that the guest in question was a man.

Leslie Pollard, who’d arrived at Gina’s camp in Kenya around four months ago. British. Mid-thirties. Scholarly.

Fascinating.

Or so Gina had described the son of a bitch in a brief letter to Jules. I have met the most fascinating man!

But unless part of what made Pollard so fascinating was his tendency to wear dresses in bold floral prints, he wasn’t her current traveling companion.

Jules had showed Gina’s note to Max only after he’d done some digging and found out that, according to AAI records, Pollard had signed on as a volunteer after his wife of more than ten years had passed away.

The man had worked for awhile for other volunteer organizations—in China, in Southeast Asia, and in India. He hailed from a little town in England, where he’d taught in a private school for wealthy girls. The school’s scrutiny, done before they even considered hiring him, was more in-depth than most government security clearances.

Leslie Pollard was—the AAI office had informed Jules, who in turn relayed the information to Max—a quiet, spiritual man who mourned the loss of a wife whom he still loved quite deeply.

But Gina, with her love of life, her forthright attitude, her sense of humor, and that movie-star body, had what it took to teach any man to embrace life—and to love again.

Christ, it was like something out of a novel. Gina flees to Kenya, running from a broken heart caused by a bad relationship with Max, who was happy to sleep with her whenever she asked, but who was too much of a coldhearted prick to be able to open up and share his true feelings.

Pollard, meanwhile, dedicates himself to serving his fellow man after his wife dies—probably from something painful and lingering, like cancer. He’s gentle, sensitive, and wounded—yet unafraid to speak his heart. She’s frank and funny and so goddamn beautiful and vibrant, she takes his breath away.

While helping to search for a missing goat—no, make it a lost child—they get stranded together in the wilderness, far from the camp. Forced to huddle together to stay warm, their passion ignites and...

Yeah. This was really helping. Imagining what it was like the first time Gina and that goddamn Englishman made love was really going to help Max find her.

He went through Gina’s clothes more thoroughly, searching her pockets for a restaurant matchbook or some other clue that might help them retrace her steps. He tried to keep himself focused by thinking about how devastatingly difficult it would have been to do this if that body in the morgue really had been hers.

It kept him from thinking about her having sex with Mr. Fascinating, but he goddamn made himself tear up again in the process.

Yeah, that, too, wasn’t helping. Crybaby-man. Shit. What was wrong with him?

Gina had mostly sturdy camping attire in her drawer. Cargo shorts. Jeans. T-shirts. Lightweight overshirts. Thick socks. Underwear—not quite of the sturdy variety. She had a generous supply of her usual lacy, frilly fare.

Ah, God.

But there were no business cards from Osama bin Laden or any of his associates tucked in among her clothes.

Out on the desk was a pile of papers. Brochures advertising local museums. A ragged map of the city. A short list of items to pick up from a drugstore, in Gina’s familiar messy handwriting. “Soap, sunblock, Q-tips & cotton balls, bottled water, crackers...”

But there were no credit card receipts—no receipts of any kind.

Max scanned for her luggage, and found a pair of empty duffle bags tucked onto the shelf in the closet.

He reached to take them down and... What the hell was in here?

The bag on the bottom was much heavier than an empty bag should have been. It was also locked and attached to the wire shelf with one of those cheap bicycle locks, the kind that had its own little combination clasp. It was looped around the duffel’s handle.

As if any of that would keep a burglar from absconding with the contents.

Max got out his penknife and cut the handle.

The bag was Gina’s. Her last name was clearly on it, written in indelible marker. He took it over to the bed, pushing aside the envelope he’d tossed there...

Okay. Whoa. He was either exhausted or slipping, because that envelope wasn’t from the hotel as he’d assumed. It had come through the mail—there was a cancelled stamp on it. It was addressed to Gina, care of the hotel, room 817. The sender was something called A.M.C., located here in Hamburg.

Since he already had his knife out and open, he took care of the bag first, slicing through the canvas alongside the zipper.

Inside was...

Gina’s digital camera, and, yes, as he’d hoped—a pile of receipts.

Max sat down on the bed, leafing through the scraps of paper. She’d written directly on them, when it wasn’t obvious what they were for. Dinner, dinner, dinner, lunch, breakfast, lunch. Books, books, books, books.

There were about two dozen receipts of various sizes and shapes, with varying legibility. He’d go through them in detail after he found out what A.M.C. was—

Hold on.

At the bottom of the pile was a larger piece of paper that had been folded into thirds to better fit with the others. It was that really thin kind of paper, almost translucent, and Max could read through it, backwards and upside down, the bold letters proclaiming American Medical Clinic.

A.M.C.

He unfolded it and...

It was a receipt for medical services.

Gina’s full name was printed at the top, with her address care of this hotel, room 817. Apparently, she’d seen a doctor and...

Jesus.

She’d had a pregnancy test.

Max tore open the sealed envelope. It contained a letter. He pulled it out, shook it open and...

A.M.C. was indeed the American Medical Clinic.

Again, Gina’s name and temporary address was in print at the top. “Dear Patient,” it started.

There were several brief paragraphs in English. The first informed her that her test results were in, but didn’t say what those results were.

Of course not.

The second chided her for missing a scheduled appointment and told her payment was due anyway since she hadn’t cancelled twenty-four hours in advance.

And the third was the kicker. It reminded her of the importance of good prenatal care.

He read it again, and that word was still there. Prenatal.

Was Gina actually pregnant?

Except, okay. This was clearly a form letter. Her missed appointment date—yesterday—had been written in by hand.

This type of women’s health clinic probably pushed the importance of prenatal care whenever possible.

This didn’t mean anything.

And even if she was pregnant, so what? He’d take her alive and pregnant any day, over not pregnant but dead.

Still, how could he have been such a total, flipping fool? Max had to put his head between his knees—he was suddenly feeling so short of air, so damn dizzy. She would have stayed if he’d asked her to. She’d’ve been safe and...

If she’d stayed, her baby could’ve been his.

And wasn’t that a terrifying thought? What the hell would he do with a baby?

The question was moot. She hadn’t stayed.

And apparently, Max had done what he’d set out to do—pushed her from his life for good. Lost her to another man, who’d either been too stupid, selfish, or careless to properly protect her.

Unless she loved this son of a bitch and her pregnancy was intentional.

But if that was the case, why hadn’t he come along on this trip with her? And who the hell was this woman she was traveling with?

Aside from her clothes, there was nothing in this room that would identify her.

Max had found Gina’s receipts—where were hers?

He got off the bed to finish his search—starting with the wastebaskets.

KENYA, AFRICA

FEBRUARY 23, 2005

FOUR MONTHS AGO

David Jones was dead.

Gina helped Molly cope with the devastating news by taking over her shifts in the hospital.

She’d also suggested that they hold a wake tonight. Just the two of them, a bottle of wine that Sister Helen had donated to the cause, and all the stories that Molly could share—without blushing—about her too-short time with this man that she’d loved.

Molly had agreed—it was a good idea, but she’d surprised Gina. Twice.

First, with the news that she was a recovering alcoholic, so she’d just as soon skip the wine, but thanks anyway.

This information, had Gina stopped to consider, wasn’t all that much of a surprise. Molly had told her she’d started her relief work career as a bonafide Type B volunteer. A teenage pregnancy with the baby given up for adoption, a dead boyfriend... Molly had struggled for years before finding her way.

The second surprise was that Molly planned to invite Leslie Pollard to their wake.

As weird as that seemed at first, Gina quickly realized that Molly didn’t just want to tell stories about Jones. She wanted to hear stories, too. And the stammering and lank-haired Brit had known the man. Or at least he’d met him a few times.

It was going to make for one odd vibe in the tent tonight.

Assuming, of course, ol’ Humor-Les accepted the invitation.

Gina finished sterilizing the hospital’s bedpans and headed to the mess tent to get Winnie and the other girls their lunch.

The camp slowed down considerably in the midday heat.

And wasn’t that an understatement.

This camp, which tended to groove along at an eat-the-dust-of-a-passing-tortoise pace, went into a coma every day, just around noon.

As a born-and-bred New Yorker, the lazy pace had frustrated Gina at first. She’d had to take deep breaths to keep herself from clapping her hands and shouting, “Faster! Walk faster!” And since she wasn’t into napping, the midday breaks seemed a waste of time.

But now she liked it. The entire camp fell asleep, and she had the place to herself. It was like stepping into that episode of Star Trek where Captain Kirk found himself alone on the Enterprise. Turned out he’d been accelerated to a point where he was moving so fast, his crewmembers couldn’t see him and... No, she was getting that episode confused with the one where the aliens created a mock-up of the starship and...

Crap. Eighteen months without sex, and she was turning into her cousin, Karol-with-a-K, who spent way too much time wondering if Mr. Spock would’ve fallen in love with Winifred, had he been able to warp into the Buffyverse.

Karol-with-a-K was a freak, and not just because it was so obvious that opposites attracted and that Spock would’ve been crushing on Buffy, big time.

“Miss! Pardon me, Miss!”

Gina turned to see a woman lurking in the shadows near the shower tent. She was young, a girl really, barely eighteen if that, and dressed in a vibrantly-colored robe that screamed money. Where on earth had she come from?

“I must speak with you.” Her English was upper-class London, her face flawlessly beautiful, with its rich, dark brown skin, and her wide, expressive eyes. “But we must not be seen together. May we go inside?”

Into the shower tent?

The girl’s anxiety was palpable, and Gina nodded. “Of course.”

The sign outside the tent was flipped to “Men,” but the camp would stay asleep for another solid hour. Besides, the generator was turned off at this time of day. Anyone showering now would get only tepid water at best.

The girl opened the wooden-framed door. “Hurry,” she urged Gina, which was kind of a sick joke, considering she moved the way far too many local women moved—slowly, with careful, pain-ridden steps.

It was also obvious as she moved that she wasn’t just pleasantly, healthily plump as Gina had assumed. She was pregnant.

“Do you need a doctor?” Gina asked her. “Or a nurse?”

Many women in this region of Kenya refused treatment from male doctors. Or rather, their husbands refused it for them.

Both Father Ben and AAI had been trying, for years now, to find a female doctor for this camp. The nuns had gone so far as to start raising money with a plan to send Sister Maria-Margarit to medical school. Although at this point, Gina was pretty sure that Sister Double-M could teach the OB/GYN instructors at Harvard Med a thing or two about providing pre- and neo-natal care to women in third world countries.

“We have a very good nurse practitioner here,” Gina continued, trying to reassure her.

“Oh, yes, I know,” the girl said. “We came here—my husband and I, to visit your nurse. But my husband, he’s enlightened, you see. He’s decided I should see the doctor, which unfortunately means he’ll be with me during the examination and...” She opened the door a crack and peeked out. “I don’t have much time. I’m supposed to be resting right now. They brought me to a tent and... You are the American woman I’ve heard so much about?”

“I’m an American,” Gina told her. “Yeah. But—”

The woman took her hands. “I need your help,” she said. “My sister, Lucy, will turn sixteen in a few weeks. And when she does, they’ll claim she gave consent and they’ll do to her what they did to me.”

Oh, crap. “But that’s illegal,” Gina said, and immediately felt like an idiot. What a stupid thing to say. Of course it was illegal.

“Yes, isn’t it?” the girl agreed. “Try prosecuting, though, in a town like Narok. That’s the big city, out where my uncle has his farm, where Lucy still lives. She’s visiting me now, but she and my aunt will be going back a week from Wednesday. So you see, we’ve got to do this very soon.”

“Do this?” Gina echoed lamely.

“I’m going to create a diversion,” the girl told her. “Some time in the next few days. I’ve already given Lucy what little money I have, some jewelry... We have a friend up north in Marsabit who’ll help her get to London. We lived in Great Britain for a year, before my father died. We have friends there who’ll care for her. She’s ready to go, Miss. Please say that I can tell her to come here, to you, that you’ll help her get to Marsabit.”

“Of course,” Gina said. Holy shit...

“Thank you.” The girl started to cry. “Bless you. A woman who works in my mother-in-law’s kitchen told me you helped all seven of her daughters flee—that you are an angel to have risked so much for her children. She said there are people angry enough to make you vanish forever if you dared step outside the boundaries of this camp, but that you still would help me.”

And there it was.

The reason why Molly—the only other American woman in camp—repeatedly turned down opportunities to go on safaris and trips into the Kenyan countryside. Because she was targeted for running a twenty-first-century version of the underground railroad for Kenyan girls.

“Go back to your tent,” Gina told her, leading her back to the door. “I’ll find Molly, okay? She’s the woman your friend told you about—I’m just her... assistant.” At least she was from now on. She checked to make sure no one was outside the tent. “Tell Lucy to ask for Molly or Gina when she comes, all right? Tell her that we’ll be ready for her. We’ll get her safely to Marsabit.”

With a nod, the girl—shoot, Gina hadn’t asked her name—was gone.

Gina shook her head as she waited there in the tent. Just in case someone was watching, she didn’t want to follow the girl right outside. Although, if someone was watching, counting to ten or even ten hundred before she left wasn’t going to make a difference. It was obvious, since this tent didn’t have a back door, that if two people came out within a few minutes of each other, they’d been in there together.

So why bother to wait at all?

She was only doing it because that’s what spies did in the movies. Which was a pretty stupid reason.

Of course, she was the world’s worst liar. Subterfuge was not one of her strengths.

Molly, on the other hand, apparently excelled at it.

All these months they’d been close friends, and Gina hadn’t had a clue.

What other secrets had her tentmate been keeping from her?

Gina peeked out the door and—oh, crap! Leslie Pollard was heading straight for this tent, towel over his shoulder.

It seemed that he’d chosen today for his monthly bleaching.

Instinct made her back up. Instinct made her duck and hide in one of the partitioned changing areas.

Her instinct sucked. In retrospect—a very quickly occurring retrospect, which bloomed instantly to life behind that canvas curtain—she realized that instead of hiding, she should have pushed open that door and breezed out. She should have waved cheerily to Humor-Les Pollard and announced loudly—in case he cared—that that plumbing problem was definitely fixed.

Of course, that was still an option.

And then the sound of a zipper being pulled down seemed to echo in the tent.

Oh double crap.

Except that was a good thing—right? It meant he was safely ensconced in another of the changing areas, doing whatever meditations were required to enable him to allow soap and water to touch his body.

All she had to do was slip quietly past this curtain and tiptoe toward the door and...

Screeeee! If her life had a soundtrack, the noise of a needle scraping across an old-fashioned LP would have woken up the entire camp.

Because apparently Leslie Pollard didn’t feel the need to step into the changing area when he thought himself alone in the shower tent.

He seemed as stunned to see her as she was to see so very much of him. That was good news, since he didn’t find his voice to ask her what she was doing in the shower tent when it clearly said MEN on the sign on the door.

But one of them very definitely had to say something, so Gina said, “Hi,” because, shit, Leslie Pollard in his tightie-whities was... Way not as skinny and raw-chicken-skin pale as she’d imagined.

Not that she’d spent a whole lot of time imagining, because she honestly hadn’t.

But the man was a whole lot younger than she’d thought, too—far closer to thirty than fifty.

He was also ripped. Six-pack ripped, with a tan that was fading, but still quite dark. No doubt about it, there was not a bit of chicken skin in sight. Although his tan faded away completely to pale at the very tops of his thighs and...

And shee-yit.

He could’ve turned his back on her. Instead, he reached for his towel, wrapping it around his waist in one smooth motion. Which made the muscles in his arms and upper body flex and ripple like those of an action-hero in a movie.

Leslie Pollard Saves the Day.

Gina laughed at the idea of that movie poster, which was wrong, very wrong, to do. God forbid some strange man burst in on her in her underwear and break into giggles, so she turned it into a cough.

“Sorry. Dust in my... Ignore me—I was just checking the...” Plumbing, she was going to say, but she stopped herself, because, oh my God. It was a double entendre. Check the plumbing as in checking your plumbing. Which she really hadn’t meant to do. At all. Except, pretowel, when she was noticing his tan, or lack thereof in certain areas, it was just so... there.

“Water pressure,” she said instead. “Good news. There’s water pressure. It’s very... waterlike and pressure-ish...” Somehow she managed to stumble to the door. “Have a nice day.”

Well, okay.

Most of the camp was still in coma-mode, and Gina managed to make it back to the tent she shared with Molly without seeing any other of her coworkers nearly naked. Sister Maria-Margarit, for instance. Yeeks.

As she burst through the door, Molly knocked over a bottle of nail-polish, clearly startled. “Shoot,” she said crossly, trying to contain the mess.

She was wearing her silk turquoise robe, a towel wrapped around her head, some of Gina’s mudpack on her face.

So, this afternoon was getting weirder and weirder. Instead of grieving, tears soaking her pillow, Molly was giving herself what Gina called a “spa day,” complete with painting her toenails red.

Of course, everyone grieved in their own way.

“I’m so sorry to bother you,” Gina told her friend, “but this can’t wait...”

HOTEL ELBE HOF, HAMBURG, GERMANY

JUNE 21, 2005

PRESENT DAY

Max was wasting his time, trying to talk the administrative staff at the American Medical Clinic into violating the rules of their patient privacy policy.

He knew that they couldn’t give out Gina’s personal information, especially not over the phone, but he couldn’t not try.

As he started to explain who he was, why he was in Hamburg, his discovery of both the receipt and the letter from A.M.C., the woman who’d answered the phone interrupted him.

“Hold please.”

So he held. And held. He knew this was meant to discourage him, but he had so few leads to go on.

As he waited, he spread Gina’s receipts out on the bed, arranging them according to date.

He discovered, upon closer perusal of those very receipts, that Gina had paid for her friend’s lunches, breakfasts, and dinners.

Unless, of course, she was literally eating for two.

So great. Now he had a good sense of where and what Gina had eaten during her visit to Hamburg, as well as where she’d shopped for books—all within close proximity of this hotel—but little else.

His survey of her trash had told him nothing. And his careful search of the rest of the hotel room hadn’t clued him in as to the identity of Gina’s traveling companion.

It was freaking weird—as if she were traveling with Jane Anonymous. Or maybe Jane Bond. Whoever this woman was, she was better sanitized than some of the top No-Name Agency field operatives Max had come into contact with during his career.

What were the chances of such a lack of identifiers being unintentional?

While he waited, on hold, he checked her clothes a second time for laundry markings, and discovered that she’d once had what looked to be name tags sewn into just about every item. Two little bumps of extra fabric.

Name tags that had been cut out.

The woman with the crisp German accent came back on the line. “I’m sorry, sir. Without a release form signed by the patient—”

“I’d like to make an appointment to speak to the doctor who examined her,” Max said. He squinted at the receipt. “Dr. Liesle Kramer.”

She was silent for a moment, then said, “How’s September? The seventh. It’s a Wednesday—”

That was three months away. “I’m sorry, you don’t understand. I’m with—”

“Yes,” she cut him off. “I do. You’re with the FBI—or so you say. Your story is not very original, I’m afraid.”

“What?”

“We get quite a few calls each week from the FBI, the police, the CIA. As if they are magic words that will make us hand over private information.”

His phone beeped—he another call coming in. He glanced at the number. It was Jules.

“Yeah,” Max said to the A.M.C. administrator, “but I’m really—”

“I’m sorry, sir, I suggest you speak directly to your friend, if you wish to inquire about her health. We do not give out information without a release form signed by—”

“Look,” he said. “She’s missing. I’m trying to find her. I want to talk to Dr. Kramer to see if Gina was with someone or by herself when she came to her appointment.”

“I’m sorry, sir—”

“Is Dr. Kramer in tonight?” He saw from the letterhead that A.M.C. had evening hours today.

“I’m sorry, sir, we do not reveal information about our staff.”

To potential lunatics. She didn’t say the words, but Max knew she was thinking it.

“Good-bye,” she said, and hung up on him.

Damn it.

Jules had given up on him. Max called him back.

“What have you got on the woman Gina’s traveling with?” he asked as Jules picked up.

The younger agent wasn’t fazed by the lack of a more traditional greeting, such as hello.

“Nothing,” he said. “Yet. Although I am expecting a call from George. He’s contacted an operative in Nairobi who’s actually going out to the camp so we can talk to the priest who runs the place. Communication is spotty at best out there and we haven’t been able to reach him any other way. His name’s Ben Soldano. The priest, that is. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear anything from George.”

“What else have you got?” Max asked.

“We’ve been in touch with Gina’s credit card company. There’ve been no charges since the day of the bombing.”

“Shit,” Max said.

“Yeah, sorry,” Jules said. “And you’re going to hate this even more. On that same day that the bomb went off, there was a charge made for a one-way plane ticket to New York City from Hamburg—departing late that afternoon. In Gina’s name. Even earlier that same day, there was a very large charge—twenty thousand dollars—to a company called NTS International, that oddly doesn’t seem to exist anymore.”

Jesus.

“We’re trying to trace it,” Jules said, “but no luck so far.”

“So the credit card was stolen,” Max said. He didn’t want to think about what that might mean. If Gina’s passport and wallet had both been stolen...

“That’s what we’re thinking,” Jules said. “Although, wait, there’s more. This is extra freaky. Gina had a second card with a different company. She took a major cash advance—ten thousand dollars—on that card ten days before the bombing, at a bank in Nairobi.”

“What the hell?” Max said. Ten thousand dollars in cash?

“Ooh,” Jules said. “I’m getting that call from George. Let me call you back. It might be a few minutes—”

He cut the connection, and Max shut his cell phone. Goddamn it—what was Gina involved with?

Some lowlife scum who not only got her pregnant but extorted large sums of money from her, then stole her credit card and passport and...

And killed her.

No.

Please God, no.

Gina’s digital camera was lying there on the bed, and Max picked it up.

Come on, Cassidy. Call back.

And report that they’d reached the priest from the Kenyan camp only to discover that Gina had returned there, safe and sound—

Leaving all of her belongings behind?

If it was just her clothes and makeup, Max might’ve let himself hope.

But no way would she leave all those books.

His phone didn’t ring, and it still didn’t ring, so Max turned on the camera’s power—as usual, Gina had dozens of photos saved—and...

The very first picture that came up on the camera’s little view screen was of him.

What did that mean that she’d kept this picture of him?

Was it because she still cared?

Or had she saved it as a warning? Like, “Never forget how completely screwed up your relationship was with this loser...”

It wasn’t a particularly good picture. In fact, it was pretty embarrassing.

Sitting up in his bed, Max was in his room at Sheffield. It was the photo Gina had taken the day after he’d arrived there. He looked like crap warmed over after his very first physical therapy session, and he was glowering into the camera because he goddamn didn’t want his picture taken.

He hadn’t wanted her in his room, either.

As if that had stopped her from coming in...

You know what you need? A happy ending...

He toggled the switch and moved to the next picture.

It was another shot of Max. With Ajay this time.

Ah, God.

They were at a table in the rec room at the physical rehab center, playing cards—Ajay with a big smile on his face, despite the fact that he was sitting there in a wheelchair, despite the fact that the scar tissue on his badly burned hands had turned them into frightening-looking claws.

It was Christmas, and decorations adorned the room. Max was cracking up at something the boy had just said—no doubt some ridiculously silly fart joke. The kid had learned, right from their very first card game, that potty humor made Gina laugh. And that when Gina laughed, Max laughed.

The next photo was one that Ajay had taken of Max with Gina. She was sitting on his lap, at that same table in the rec center, arm looped around his neck, wearing the reindeer antler hat she’d brought for Ajay.

Max’s smile was forced, and he looked like he was afraid to touch her.

Afraid to let her know how much he loved touching her. Afraid to have it recorded on film, afraid...

Goddamn it, but he wanted to step into that photograph. He wanted to slap himself upside his head and tell himself... What?

Enjoy this moment. Take your time with it. Savor it. Treasure it.

Because it sure as shit wasn’t going to last.