ATURDAY, 9 MAY 2009

0200

Ben wasn’t waiting for them, back at the apartment.

Danny knew that that had been a real long shot, but he’d been hopeful just the same.

Whatever Zanella had threatened his mother and her scum-sucking husband with, it had worked like gangbusters—to a degree. He’d returned to their car with signed letters stating that both Ivette and Greg gave their full and complete permission for Ben to move to San Diego to live with either Danny or Eden. And they’d promised, under threat of … whatever—Izzy wouldn’t say—to both appear at CPS in the morning to give a similar statement in person.

But getting Ben released from Crossroads was apparently another thing entirely. When pressed, Greg was foggy about the details of the arrangements he’d made with the Crossroads staff, for picking up Ben. He’d been under the impression that it wasn’t scheduled to happen until the morning. But maybe he’d been confused, and it was the transporting Ben to Utah or Alabama part of it that was scheduled for the morning.

In which case, Ben could well still be at the Las Vegas Crossroads compound.

After failing to raise the facility via phone, Izzy had offered to make a little in-person visit. Dan had expected Eden to volunteer to go along—but she didn’t. And then he found out that Greg was going, too, as Izzy’s unwilling and belligerent copilot.

It was then that the three of them—Danny, Jenni, and Eden—headed back here.

“Ben’s last blood sugar reading was after we got home from the wedding,” Eden reported now, coming out of the kitchen with the device. “Around ten o’clock.”

“And we think he left the apartment … when?” Dan asked. He’d changed out of his uniform and was digging through his pack for a clean pair of socks.

“We don’t really know.” Eden sighed as she sat down next to Danny on the couch. “Izzy and I had a fight—it must’ve been around, wow, midnight?” She sighed again. “We got loud. I think it might be my fault—Ben’s leaving the apartment the way he did.”

“Or maybe it wasn’t anyone’s fault,” Dan suggested. “Maybe it was … just Ben being Ben.”

Jenn had been sitting across the room, in the easy chair, with her eyes closed, but now she stood up. “I’m going to make some tea,” she announced, but she came over—no easy feat with all of the mattresses on the floor—and she kissed Danny before she went into the other room. Not because she wanted tea, but because she wanted to give them privacy to talk.

Dan smiled at his sister. “She’s training me and I just got a kiss, so I must be doing something right.”

“Training?” Eden repeated.

“Yeah,” Dan said. “That’s not what she’d call it, but we Gillmans are so messed up, we need to be reminded, frequently, how to be human. For example”—he raised his voice so Jenn could hear him from the kitchen—“I managed not to kill anyone tonight.”

Jenn laughed. “Yes, I made special note of that,” she called back.

“Even though I wanted to,” Dan told Eden. “I had my arm against Greg’s throat, but it was really Ivette I wanted to …” He sighed, still feeling sick from all he’d learned tonight. “How come you didn’t tell me? About Ron and … the insulin?”

She looked up from her examination of Ben’s meter. Her answer wasn’t really that much of a surprise. “Because,” she said simply, “I didn’t think you’d believe me, either.”

Ouch.

He tried to imagine how awful it must’ve been, to have survived all that Eden had—the hurricane, the flooding, her courageous quest to save Ben, and her assumed failure despite all of her sacrifices—and then have her own mother believe Ron’s lies.

“She’s damaged,” Dan told Eden now, talking about Ivette.

“I know.”

“I’m damaged, too,” he admitted. “But … I’m getting better.”

“Is that an apology?”

He forced a smile. “I kind of feel like I should start every sentence I ever say to you with I’m sorry.” He sighed. “I know it’s lame to make excuses, but growing up in that house, with Sandy? I used to go out, looking for her, late at night, so she wouldn’t spend the entire night passed out on the neighbor’s lawn—or worse, in the street—”

“You don’t have to explain,” Eden said. “I was there, too.”

“You were so much younger.”

“But I knew what you were doing.”

“I am sorry,” he said. “Because you were right when you said … what you said. You’re not Sandy.”

Eden nodded. “And you’re not Dad. I know that, too.”

She was talking about his accidentally hitting Jenn, and he had to look away so she didn’t see the tears that leaped into his eyes. Or maybe it was okay to let her see. “Thank you,” he said.

“Thank you, too,” she whispered back. “Although, for a while, I thought I was. Sandy. After … I think maybe I tried to be just like her, since everyone thought … And I made a lot of bad mistakes, I’m well aware of that. I also owe you a lot of money—I want to pay you back—I’ve got most of it—”

“From stripping?” he asked, looking at her, and she didn’t disagree. “Like that’s not a mistake?”

“I quit,” she told him. “Working at the club. Izzy asked me to, so …”

“Good,” he said. “Because you have plenty of other options.”

The look she shot him was not one of agreement.

Dan sat forward. “You do,” he said. “You’re good with kids—weren’t you working as a nanny for a while?”

“For a single mom,” she said. “But the women with the husbands? They don’t want to hire me. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

“You know, Jenk and Lindsey are having a baby,” Dan told her.

Eden’s face brightened. “I know. Izzy told me. That’s so great.”

“Jenk was telling me that there’s such a baby boom going on, over where Lindsey works, at Troubleshooters, they’re talking about setting up child care, right on the premises.”

“Seriously?” Eden asked.

“One of the pregnancies is Tommy’s wife, Kelly,” Dan said. “And since he owns the place …”

“Well, that’s really great,” Eden said.

“Sophia’s pregnant, too,” Dan said. “You remember her, right?”

“The Sophia you have a mad crush on?” Eden lowered her voice to ask, her eyes wide.

“Had,” he corrected her, glancing toward the kitchen. “Past tense. Very, very past tense.”

“How did that happen? By immaculate conception? While she was flying around on her perfect angel wings?”

Dan had to laugh. “No, I’m pretty sure it happened the good old-fashioned human way. She’s married now. To Dave Malkoff.”

“What?” Eden said, her mouth dropping open. “Wow, I missed a lot. It’s like I went away for a while, and came back to some kind of weird alternate universe where Princess Sophia married the grumpy troll.”

“Dave’s not so grumpy anymore.”

She laughed. “I bet.”

“If you want,” Dan said, “I could check with Tommy, maybe get you a job interview. If they’re actually gonna go ahead with the child-care thing …”

She was silent, so he quickly added, “Unless it’s too soon, you know, for you to work with, um, infants. And I’m sorry if that’s a touchy subject—”

“No,” Eden said. “No. It’s not. I just … need to think about it a little bit, before …”

“Just let me know,” he said. “Okay?”

She nodded and they sat in silence for a moment, but then Dan had to ask, “Do you, I don’t know, want to press charges? Against Ron? I don’t think it’s too late. Statute of limitations and everything. We could—”

She was shaking her head. “Ron’s already in jail.”

“But not for what he did to you,” Dan pointed out.

“You and Izzy are so much alike,” Eden told him. “Always ready to rush in and slay the dragons. Ron’s in jail—he can’t hurt anyone else. And me? I’m … okay.”

“Are you?” Dan asked.

She didn’t answer him directly. She just said, almost wistfully, “Do you think maybe things would’ve been different? If Charlie hadn’t died?”

“Maybe,” Dan said, smiling as he remembered the one man that their mother had hooked up with that he’d actually liked. Loved, even. “I don’t know, Eed. Ivette seemed to be the happiest she’d ever been when she was with him, so … Yeah. Maybe.”

“He was teaching her how to be human,” Eden told him, using close to his own words. “But he ran out of time.” She laughed, but it wasn’t because she thought anything was funny. “Do you know he was the only person who told me that I was going to be okay, after John Franklin dumped me? Everyone else told me I was going to hell, that you reap what you sow, but Charlie told me that making bad choices was a part of growing up. I’d made the mistake of believing John, and … Live and learn, Charlie said. But then, just a few days later, he was gone. And then Katrina happened, and the thing with Ron, and … I started making bad choices on purpose. Because I didn’t think I deserved anything better.”

“Is that why you were fighting with Zanella?” he asked her quietly. “Because you don’t think you deserve to be happy?”

“No, actually, I’m good with being happy these days,” she said, and she looked away, but not before he saw the misery in her eyes. “Izzy, um, told me he was leaving. For good.”

Shit. “Eden, he sometimes drives me nuts, but he’s …” Dan laughed and rolled his eyes. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but … beneath his outer asshole, you were right. Zanella is a good guy. I mean, tonight? When he went off? Fuck you and fuck you! That was pretty beautiful. And if there’s one thing that I have absolutely no doubt about? Even when he’s pissing me off? It’s that he loves you.”

“Yeah, well, great. He’s got a funny way of showing it.” She stood up, clearly not wanting to talk about this. “We need to focus on finding Ben. If he is at Crossroads, the stress is going to be intense. When Izzy calls, we should be ready to meet him with this”—she held up the meter—“and some insulin.”

“Maybe he’s not there,” Dan suggested. “Maybe he went out looking for his freaky little friend. Neesha. Or … maybe … Do you know if Ben has a, you know …” He cleared his throat. “Boyfriend?”

Eden shook her head. “I don’t think he does, no. He really hasn’t had any friends at all, since Deshawndra. Seriously, Dan, Neesha’s the first person his age that he hasn’t shut out.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. “A boyfriend might be different. Maybe he wouldn’t tell you. I mean, I don’t think I told anyone about my first girlfriend …”

“There’s this homophobic kid, Tim,” Eden said. “At school. And this boy, Bo, he’s got a crush on. Ben, not Tim. But Bo’s so far in the closet … How did Ben put it? He can’t even see the door.”

“Maybe Bo turned on the closet light,” Dan said. “Jenn said Ben spent a lot of time earlier today doing something on Facebook.”

Eden didn’t look convinced. “I think he was trying to track down the boyfriend of that kid he met at Crossroads. Peter something, from Connecticut. He wanted to make sure Peter’s friends knew he was at the facility here in Las Vegas. I didn’t quite get it when Ben first told me—how could this boy’s friends not know where he was, you know? But now it makes sense. If they ship kids across the country …”

“It’s twisted,” Dan agreed.

“It’s worse than twisted,” Eden said. “Jenn said she thinks it’s illegal. Transporting minors across state lines …? She’s going to talk to Maria and that other lawyer, Linda Thompson.”

It was then, before Dan could say, that’s good, that it happened. There was a knock at the door.

They were both startled, and they both looked over to check the time on the VCR. It was 0213.

“Maybe Ben forgot his key,” Dan suggested. “Maybe all the drama is going to end—right now.”

“Please, God,” Eden said as she stood up.

Dan stood, too, relentlessly cautious. “Don’t just open it—check the peephole first.”

Eden pointed to herself. “Female, living alone?” she said, shooting her brother a you better believe it look as she went to the apartment door and peeked out through the peephole.

She’d expected it to be Izzy, but there was no one there. Or rather, there was no one there of his height. But when she looked down toward the concrete walkway …

“It’s Neesha,” she said to Dan and to Jenn, too, who’d come to stand in the kitchen doorway. She pulled the door open and it was, indeed, Ben’s freaky little friend, as Dan had so aptly called her.

The girl was a mess. She was still wearing the clothes she’d had on when Eden had spotted her near the Starbucks—a T-shirt beneath which the sequined straps of a hot-pink halter top peeked out, and a pair of black pants that were dusty and torn at the knees. Her hair was a matted, sweaty mess, and she had dirt mixed in with the streaks of perspiration and tears on her face.

“Oh, dear Lord,” Eden said. “Get in here.”

The fact that the girl came swiftly inside, and even helped Eden close the door securely behind her was telling. She was terrified and exhausted. And had probably been running, full speed, since Eden had seen her last.

In the living room, Danny had gotten to his feet, but he sat back down as Neesha eyed him nervously.

Jenn, meanwhile, had gone back into the kitchen and she now brought Neesha a glass of water. “Honey, here,” she said, handing it to the girl. “Drink this. You’re okay now. You’re safe with us.”

But Neesha looked up after taking only a sip from the glass. And as she looked from Jenn to Eden and over to Danny in the living room, she said, “But I’m not. And you’re not safe here, either. They know where you live. They were here, in the courtyard.”

“Who was?” Jenn asked as Eden glanced over at Dan. Like her, he already knew what Neesha was going to say before she said it.

“The men who are chasing me,” Neesha said. “They were here. Four hours ago. I saw them. They took Ben.”

Danny snapped instantly into Navy SEAL mode, getting very decisive, very quickly, after Neesha told them, in pretty specific detail, what she’d seen and heard—and a condensed but no less horrific version of precisely why those men were chasing her.

The man from the mall, whose name apparently was Jake, had been in the courtyard with two other men—one of them named Todd, whom Neesha knew not only because he’d worked as a guard at the brothel where she’d been a slave, but because he’d also been one of her “visitors,” or clients, for years.

Jenn didn’t want to think about what that meant. And there really wasn’t all that much time to focus on that aspect of the nightmare—because Neesha had overheard Jake telling the other two men to shoot and kill Dan and Izzy on sight. He had somehow known they were in the military and therefore a threat.

The girl had also overheard Jake telling his cohorts to wear masks—so their abductees would believe they would survive their kidnapping.

Which meant that the men who had taken Ben had every intention of killing him—no doubt immediately after he divulged Neesha’s location.

Except Ben had no idea where Neesha was hiding.

And this time, Danny didn’t need his uniform to become larger and commanding.

“Get your things,” he ordered both Jenn and Eden, “your handbags, whatever. Grab Ben’s insulin, too. We’re leaving. In about thirty seconds.”

“I need to call Izzy,” Eden said, her phone already out in and in her hands.

“You can call him from the road,” Danny told her, checking to make sure he’d put his own cell phone into his jeans pocket.

“I’m calling him now,” Eden told him.

“Kill the light in the hall,” he said as Jenn stayed over by Neesha, giving the girl what she hoped was a reassuring smile as the light went out so that Dan could go into the bedroom and look out the window and into the courtyard without being seen.

“He’s not picking up,” Eden said. “Come on, Izzy … Answer your phone!”

“Doesn’t it seem really unlikely,” Jenn said as Dan turned off the bedroom light, “that they’d come back here? They got what they wanted, right? When they took Ben? I mean, I know it’s not safe for us to stay here, but to have to rush away?”

Dan stopped there in the bedroom doorway to grimly say, “If they’ve had Ben for four hours, they know by now that he’s got no information that’ll help them find Neesha. So yes. They’ll come back. To get Eden, who helped Neesha escape. They’ll think she knows something, and they’ll come while it’s still dark.”

“Oh, my God,” Jenn said as he went into the bedroom.

“Eden, shit, come here,” Dan called in a rough whisper, and Eden followed him.

“Oh, crap,” Jenn heard Eden say. “That’s him. The man with the gun, from the Starbucks. Izzy, where are you?”

“Oh, my God.” Jenn said again, her heart in her throat. “Are you serious?”

“Keep watching them,” Dan commanded Eden, adding, “Jenni, put the chain on the door and throw the bolt.” He limped out of the bedroom and over to the window in the living room—the one that looked out over the street—as he dialed his cell phone. “Shit. There’s a van idling on the street. That’s not good. Neesha, were you followed? Did anyone see you come here?”

The little girl was shaking her head, terrified. “I was careful. I waited and watched—even after I saw you come home.”

This little chain on the door wasn’t going to keep anyone out for long. Not if they wanted to get inside. Jenn turned back to Dan.

“There are two men in the courtyard,” he told her, even as he held his phone to his ear, “and one of them is the man Eden tried to run over earlier tonight. They look like they’re waiting for someone. Whether they’re here for surveillance or … something else, they’re sure as shit not even attempting to be covert—No, I can’t hold—God damn it.”

“If we try to leave,” Jenn started.

“They’ll see us,” Dan confirmed, holding out his phone and glaring at it. “There’s no way we’re sneaking out without that happening. And with my fucking leg, we can’t outrun them—”

“Yeah, sorry,” Jenn said, looking around for something to push in front of the door, since leaving wasn’t an option. “But I’d bet big money you can still run faster than me, even with your ‘fucking’ leg. So we hunker down. Shouldn’t we call the police?”

In the bedroom, Eden was finishing up leaving a detailed message for Izzy, with a!!!Call me back, now—we need you!

“Already doing that,” Dan said, “but the 9-1-1 operator just put me on hold. Neesha, get into the bedroom. In the closet. They may not know you’re here.”

“They’ll find me,” the girl said. “In the closet.”

“It’s better than just standing here,” Dan argued. “Except … Wait a minute …”

While they were talking, Jenn had gone into the kitchen—the refrigerator was the only thing heavy enough to barricade the door. When Neesha saw what she was doing, she quickly came to help. She was stronger than she looked, and they moved the refrigerator across the linoleum floor with a screech. Although, to be honest? Even with it in front of the door, it was only going to slow down an assault by a minute or so, at the most.

Out in the living room, Dan had started pulling the cushions off the sofa as Eden called from the bedroom, “Danny, where’s Greg’s gun?”

“Zanella has it,” he said tersely as he pulled up the metal-and-canvas bed frame that was folded into the body of the sofa. Normally, when it was closed, the folded mattress would occupy all of the space inside the furniture’s outer shell. But with the mattress on the floor … He pulled his phone from his ear again, to look at it now in disbelief. “Jesus Christ, they cut me off.” He redialed. “Neesha, forget about the closet—I need you over here. Now.”

Jenn took out her cell phone, and dialed 9-1-1, too. “Maybe I’ll get through.”

“I should just go out there,” Neesha said. “Give myself up.”

They all spoke at once. “Like hell,” Dan said as Eden called from the bedroom, “Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” as Jenn said, “Honey, we’re not going to let you do that.”

“But they’ll kill you,” she told Danny, fiercely, turning to look at Jenn, too. “Maybe they’ll kill all of you. And they’re going to find me anyway.”

“I’m calling Izzy again,” Eden said, as if, like Superman, he could instantly swoop in and save them, despite being all the way on the other side of town.

“Neesha,” Dan said to the little girl. “Look at me. If you really overheard them talking before they took Ben—”

“I did!”

“Then you have to climb in here and hide. Whatever happens, whatever you hear, you have to be silent. Because once they find you and kill you?” Dan looked from Neesha to Jenn, his face grim. “Ben’s dead, too.”

On the way to Crossroads, just to add insult to injury, Eden’s wicked stepfather Greg did the glorious Technicolor yawn and vomited all over himself in the front seat of Izzy’s rental car.

“Really?” Izzy said, pulling hard over into a deserted strip-mall parking lot as the malodorous smell assaulted him, full force. “Really?”

His night had already been a suckfest, and he’d been driving with his full focus on the task at hand—going to Crossroads to free Ben—trying not to think about Eden.

And yet he couldn’t stop himself from seeing her face and hearing her crying after the truth had come out about the hell she’d survived after Katrina.

She cried, but not because of the injustice and abuse she’d endured at her brother-in-law Ron’s despicable hands. No, the outpouring of emotion had come when Danny’d put his arms around her and said,I’m sorry.

And not just!!!I’m sorry you had to go through this, but also I’m sorry that no one believed you.

As Izzy jammed the car into park, his cell phone started doing its happy little vibrating dance in his cargo-shorts pocket. But there was no time to reach for it and answer as he unlocked the doors and burst out into the heat of the night as fast as his legs could carry him. He knew some guys—some of them SEALs or former SEALs—who reacted to someone’s barfing by immediately barfing, too, like the most disgusting call and response in the history of the planet. But his stomach was made of iron, so that wasn’t the reason for his speed. He executed the front-hood slide-over in a mad rush only in order to open the passenger-side door and pull out Greg the human volcano before he erupted again.

Although, damn Skippy. The damage was done and the car was now a frakking stank-mobile of vomitous doom. And even with his cast-iron innards, it was hard for Izzy not to gag.

He had Greg-puke on his hands from grabbing the man by his shirt, and there was no way he was reaching into his pocket to pull out his phone with those fingers, so he let the call go to voice mail as he strategized his next move. It was probably just Danny, anyway, calling for a sit-rep. Izzy’d call him back, after there was better news than!!!Hey, the inside of my rental car—the second car I’ve rented because the first one was totaled—is now a new color, and it’s not a pretty one.

Holy shit.

The splatter factor was off the charts—the passenger-side dash was sprayed, as was the floor mat and part of the seat, which was fabric of course, here in the land of molten-lava heat. Vinyl, in Vegas, could deliver third-degree burns, but it sure as hell would’ve been easier to de-puke. As Izzy stood there in the oppressive heat, he wished he’d been given an option at the rental-car counter.

Although, he could just imagine that conversation.!!!I understand you’d prefer the ball-burning but easy-to-clean vinyl, sir, because you anticipate driving passengers who’ll regurgitate regularly. Please initial here, here, and here, acknowledging that you’ve been properly warned of the potential danger to your nether regions. A barf-scraper and absorbent towels come with the vehicle. Would you care to rent a cooler for an additional ten dollars a day so you can ice your scrotum after being scalded?

He wished Eden were here, because she would think that was pretty funny, too, and …

Yeah.

Izzy pulled out the floor mat and deposited it next to Greg. The man was down on his knees, in the classic position of acquiescence and prayer, bowing to the gods of substance abuse and overindulgence, and making another loudly yukatatious offering right there on the pitted pavement.

“Fuck,” Izzy said in disgust as he wiped his hands on the back of Greg’s shirt—which wasn’t all that clean, but at least was vomit-free. And hey, it could’ve been worse. Dude clearly had been on a liquid diet for days. He could’ve been blowing chunks.

There was nothing for Izzy to do but take off his own T-shirt and use it to wipe clean the interior of the car—at least as much as he could. There was surely a convenience store open somewhere between here and Crossroads, where he could stop in and pick up a T-shirt. And? If he were really lucky? It would have Siegfried & Roy on it.

Eden had left half of a bottle of water in the car door, and Izzy was using it, with his shirt, to clean up as best he could, when his phone jiggled again.

He checked his hand—clean, okay, clean-ish—before he dug for it and … Shit, it was Eden, and she’d called before, left a message, too. Izzy hit talk. “Hey. I haven’t made it to Crossroads yet—”

“Izzy!” Eden sounded almost out of breath, as if something was terribly wrong. “Thank God. Ben’s not at Crossroads, he’s been kidnapped. The men, from the Starbucks—that I hit with your car? They’re here!”

What the fuck …? If he’d spoken aloud, Eden didn’t acknowledge it. She just kept going.

“Neesha—she was hiding and she saw them take Ben, but now they’re back, and she said they were going to kill you and Danny because they know you’re military, but Danny won’t hide—Jenn wants him to hide, or to go out the window, but he won’t and—”

“Whoa,” Izzy said. “Whoa, Eden, slow down. Where are you?”

“At the apartment,” she told him. “Izzy, please, you have to get over here. Now.”

Greg had collapsed in a puddle of puke, his cheek against the pavement and his eyes closed, and Izzy tucked his phone between his shoulder and his ear as he grabbed the man by the belt and hauled him up, moving him onto the sidewalk in front of a dark and shuttered nail salon, as Eden kept talking.

“They’re down in the courtyard, but Danny’s sure they’re just waiting for backup before they come in,” she told him as he ran to the car and climbed in, then peeled out of the lot with a squeal of tires. “We can’t leave without them seeing us, and there’s no way to stop them. You have Greg’s gun.”

Shit, he did—and it was locked in the trunk. He squealed to a stop, popped the trunk, and grabbed the case, bringing it up into the front seat with him, as he pulled back out into the street

“I’m on my way,” Izzy told her, pushing the pedal to the metal on the deserted streets, as he keyed Eden’s address into the car’s GPS, then focused on unlocking the case. “But I’m—shit!—at least fifteen minutes from you.” If he didn’t get stopped for going ninety in a forty-five-mile-an-hour zone … But maybe it would be a good idea to get a police escort over there. “Sweetheart, stay on the phone with me, okay, but tell Jenn or Dan to call the police.”

“We’ve been trying,” Eden said. “We keep getting put on hold. Danny’s been disconnected, twice.”

Shit-fuck. “Tell Danny to call Mark Jenkins,” Izzy said as he blew through a second red light, then slipped the weapon and several magazines of ammo into the pockets of his shorts. “His wife, Lindsey, has a contact in the FBI, but shit, whoever we call is going to take time to get to you, too, and … Listen, sweetheart, do you know any of your neighbors? Is there anyone you can call, maybe have everyone open their doors and go into the courtyard and just scream and yell and wake up as many people in the complex as you can? I’m thinking there’s safety in numbers.”

“I don’t know anyone here,” she told him. “I don’t have anyone’s phone number.” And then she gasped words that made his heart damn near stop: “Izzy! Danny! Oh, my God, they’re coming!”

Eden came out of the bedroom, still on the phone with Zanella. “Danny,” she said again.

“I heard you the first time,” Dan told his sister as he put the cushions back on the sofa, with Neesha hidden safely inside.

“Dan,” Jenni said. “Please. Just go out the living-room window. I know you can make it up onto the roof without them seeing you …”

“I can’t do that.” He took her face in his hands and kissed her, briefly, on his way over to the door. His plan was to throw his weight against the refrigerator, try to keep them out as long as he possibly could, while hoping one of them would be foolish enough to stick a hand with a weapon inside, to fire it indiscriminately.

At which point Danny would gain possession of said weapon and kill the bastards. Provided he was still alive …

“Please,” Jenni said again. “If Neesha’s right, they’re just going to kill you. No questions, no warning.”

“I can’t just desert you,” he told her, told Eden, too.

“What do you think you’ll be doing when they kill you and you’re dead?” Jenn asked.

He had no good answer for that. “Just get in the bathroom and lock the door,” he ordered them. “Now.”

“Izzy says that if he was the bald guy from the mall, and he suspected that you were military—forget about SpecOps,” Eden said. “He’d kill you straight off, too.”

“Thanks so much, Zanella,” Dan said loudly enough for Eden’s phone to pick up his voice.

“Uh-huh,” Eden said, into her phone, still talking to Zanella as she went into the kitchen. “Okay, I got it, yeah …”

“Danny, please,” Jenni begged him, moving away from Eden and not toward the bathroom, where they’d be safest should the attack come through the bedroom window. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he told her, right before—what the hell?—someone—Eden, damn it—hit him hard over the head with something heavy. The room spun and he fought it as he hit the floor with his knees, but she hit him again, almost gently this time, and he lost the battle and the world went black.

Eden picked up the cell phone that she’d dropped, in order to drop her brother with the heaviest thing in the apartment—a metal statue of Buddha that had been sitting on the kitchen counter when she’d moved in.

“Oh, my God,” Jenn said. “I can’t believe you did that. Is he okay?” She searched for his pulse, fingers at his very unconscious throat. “Okay. All right. His pulse is strong and steady. But now what? Do we hide him?”

“I hit him where you told me to,” Eden told Izzy as she shook her head no at Jenn. “But I had to hit him twice.”

Izzy exhaled hard on the other end of the phone. “Damn, he’s going to kill me,” he said, his voice rich and warm in her ear. “Okay, get his cell phone, Eden. Get it now, hang up, put your phone—this one that you’re talking on right now—in your pocket, and call me back on his phone.”

“What?” she said as she found Danny’s phone. “Why?”

“Do it,” he said. “He’s got a better phone, it’s got GPS—it’ll be easier to track you, but please, sweetheart, don’t question everything—we don’t have that much time.”

“You better pick up,” she said as she cut the connection and quickly found Izzy’s number in Danny’s phone book, in the Zs.

“Eden,” Jenn said, from her place on the floor next to Dan, his head in her lap, “please don’t make me regret trusting you …”

“You’re not trusting me,” Eden said. “You’re trusting Izzy.”

He answered almost before it rang. “Good,” he said. “Now run and find a shirt with long sleeves, something with cuffs that’ll be tight around your wrists.”

Eden ran to her bedroom and grabbed a shirt from her closet and pulled it on as Izzy said, “Put this phone with the signal open and on, put it up your sleeve, close to your wrist. They’re going to search you, but they’ll probably start at your forearms and work down, so they’re more likely to miss it. Please, sweet Jesus …”

“Eden?” Jenn called from the living room.

“I’ll be right there,” she called back.

“Eden,” Izzy said. “This may get far worse before it gets better. I need you to brace yourself, because if they’ve come back to grab you, it could mean that something bad has happened to Ben.”

“Don’t say that!”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just … I need you to be strong. Even if Ben is—”

“Don’t!” Ben wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.

“You have to be strong,” Izzy said. “For Danny and for Jenn, too. I know you can do that, sweetheart. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” she managed.

“Eden, someone with a key is unlocking the door,” Jenn called from the living room.

“I’m going to find you, okay?” Izzy told her. “Whatever happens. Even if this cell-phone thing doesn’t work? I am. Going. To find you. Believe that, Eden. I need you to believe me.”

She nodded, but realized he couldn’t see her. So instead of saying yes, she whispered, “I love you.”

“Eden!” Jenn called from the living room.

“I love you, too,” Izzy told her, his voice rough. “Come on, do it, sweetheart. Now. And remember what you’re going to say, before they even get inside …?”

“I remember,” Eden said, and put Dan’s cell phone, signal on, up her sleeve.

Please, sweet Jesus, indeed.

“My brother is unconscious—don’t kill him—he’s the only one who knows where Neesha is,” Eden said, loudly, to the men outside, right before they broke through the chain on the door. “He’s the only one of us she trusted. And if you kill us? You’ll have nothing to trade him for the girl.”

Whoever was out there was big, and just by pushing the door, the refrigerator moved across the floor with a scraping sound.

Jenn put her hands up over her head, the way Eden had done. Eden—who’d moved protectively in front of Dan, and who’d shown Jenn in a quick flash as she’d rushed out of the bedroom that she’d hidden his cell phone up her sleeve—kept talking, repeating the same information over and over. “Don’t kill him—he can’t hurt you—he’s the only one—”

The first man in was carrying the biggest gun that Jenn had ever seen, and he waved it almost wildly, pointing it from Dan to Eden to Jenn. “Down on the floor, hands on your head, move away from him! Move away from him.”

Jenn didn’t want to move. Dan’s head was in her lap, and she didn’t want to leave him there, with his head against the worn carpeting.

“Jenn!” Eden said sharply. “Do what they—”

Jenn didn’t hear the rest because another man, a man who was wearing a hat despite the heat, hit her. It was only a backhanded blow, but it caught her by surprise and it pushed her, hard, away from Dan, whose head hit the floor and bounced.

His eyes didn’t open—he was out cold. And fear slid through Jenn, because people died of head injuries, even seemingly mild ones.

But Izzy was coming. Izzy was on his way. And Izzy had saved Dan’s life once before. He’d do it again. She held on to that thought as she lay on the floor.

“Don’t you hit her!” Eden was saying as third man searched the apartment, looking for Izzy, or maybe Neesha.

“There’s no one else here,” that man reported, coming out of Eden’s bedroom. “No sign of the bigger guy.”

“The bigger guy,” Eden said, “is my bastard of a husband, and he left me. For good. Okay? He went back to the Navy base in San Diego this morning.”

“Good to know. Shoot the fuck out of this other sailor if he so much as moves,” the bald man ordered, and now Jenn was praying that Dan would not wake up. Not too soon. “Either one of you tries anything funny”—he was talking to them now—“he’s dead. You understand?”

Jenn nodded, and rough hands touched her, searching her—it was the man with the hat. He went through her pockets, pulling out her cell phone and the set of keys to their rental car—it was all she had on her. That didn’t stop him from searching for more, his hand lingering on her breasts and between her legs.

But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered more than helping Eden keep Dan’s cell phone hidden from them. As Jenn watched, Eden was searched by the bald man, who’d kept his gun securely in his right hand—as if he didn’t trust her enough to tuck it in the top of his pants, the way the man with the hat had done when he’d searched Jenn.

It meant that the bald man’s search of Eden was less thorough, although he was heavy with the inappropriate touching, too. Not that she’d expected anything less from men who worked for a crime boss who ran a child prostitution ring.

Eden tried to distract him further by talking. “My brother Ben is missing. Do you have him? Is he safe?”

“The kid’s a junkie,” the bald man told Eden as he pulled her phone—not Dan’s—out of the top pocket of her jeans. “Going into withdrawal … He goddamn puked on my new boots.”

“He’s a diabetic,” Eden said sharply. “He needs insulin. Where is he? I want to see him!”

The bald man flipped her over onto her back, holding her by her right arm—the arm that had the cell phone—and she squeaked in alarm. He shoved his gun up under her chin.

“You have a lot of questions and demands for someone who doesn’t appear to have the power here,” he said.

“He’s just a kid,” Eden said. “A sick kid. He doesn’t know where Neesha is. He doesn’t.”

“And you don’t, either,” the man said, clearly not believing her. “Only this one knows.” He gestured with his head toward Dan. “Mr. Conveniently Unconscious.”

“I knocked him out,” Eden said, “because I knew you’d come in shooting, and he is the only one who knows where Neesha is. If you killed him, I’d never get Ben back—and I want my little brother back.”

“Heartwarming,” the bald man said. “But someone’s a liar. When I told Ben that unless he talked, I was going to come and kill you? He told me that you knew where the girl was, and that I better not kill you or I’d never find her. Now you’re telling me that your other brother knows where she is. What would you think if you were me?” He moved his gun from beneath her chin, but turned and aimed it now at Dan’s head. “I’m thinking you do know, and you’re going to tell me where the girl is, in about three seconds. Three …”

“No,” Jenn said. “Please. No—” even as Eden said, “I don’t know! I don’t!”

“Two …”

“Please, please, I honestly don’t know,” Eden said, her voice shaking. “But Danny does. He does. And if I were you? What I’d do is I wouldn’t kill him, because what if I’m right, and he’s the only one who knows?”

“Shit, Jake,” the man with that hat said, holding out Jenn’s cell phone. “This bitch put in a call to 9-1-1.”

“Shh,” the third man said. “Listen …”

Sirens. Way in the distance.

“The police are coming,” the man with the hat said, shifting his weight toward the door. “Let’s just kill them and go.”

“No,” Izzy said. “No,” as he led the police car, siren wailing, on a crazy chase toward Eden’s apartment.

“No, don’t—please, don’t!” he heard Jenn say through that still-open cell-phone connection. “I called them, but I never got through.”

Izzy was still a good five minutes away, and he gunned the little car faster, straining to hear the conversation that was going on in Eden’s living room, more frightened than he’d ever been in his life that the next sounds he might hear would be gunshots. Three of them.

But now Eden was talking again. Her voice came through more clearly than the others, probably because she was talking toward the phone in her sleeve, because she knew he was listening.

“If you kill us, you’ll never find Neesha,” she said. “But if you leave us alive? We’ll get Danny to tell us where she is, and we’ll make a trade. Her for Ben.”

It was unbelievable. Eden was trying to talk them into leaving, to just walk away and let all three of them go free. Izzy held his breath as he blew past the turnoff that would have taken him to the apartment complex. The last thing he needed to do was lead the police and their siren over there now.

There was a brief silence in the apartment, but then the man the other had called Jake, the one who seemed to be in charge, said, “No.” He laughed. “No, we’ll play your little game, but by our rules. You’re coming with us. Both of you. You’re worth more to us alive than dead, anyway. Nathan, get the big girl.”

Thank God, thank God …

But then there was a shuffling, bumping sound, and Izzy held his breath again, well aware that if Eden dropped Dan’s cell phone out of her sleeve, they were back to being dead again.

Instead she said sharply, “Don’t touch me there.”

Jake laughed. “I’ll touch you wherever I want, bitch.”

“What about Danny?” Jenn asked.

“Todd’s gonna keep an eye on him,” Jake said. “He’s going to watch the place, make sure Danny doesn’t do anything besides answer his phone when we call him, and then go get the girl so we can make the trade. So let’s hope you were telling the truth about your bastard of a husband, I believe is how you referred to him.” He must’ve been talking to Eden now. “He shows up? Todd’ll be watching your front door, and he’ll shoot them both dead, and then he’ll call me, and I’ll kill you, too.”

“I told you the truth,” Eden lied. “He left. He was so mad at me when I wrecked his car—trying to ram you and Todd?”

The woman was brilliant. She’d just told Izzy exactly who he had to look for—and possibly take out—before going into her apartment to revive Dan.

She was still talking. “I believe the words he said when he left were!!!the fucking I’m getting is no longer worth the fucking I’m getting.”

Ah, Eed, no, don’t bring sex into it. These guys were animals, and it never, ever paid to put the idea of sex into an animal’s brain.

Unless … Damn, it was possible Eden was giving them that message on purpose.!!!Here’s what I’ll do to protect my family. Anyone interested in making a trade …?

The thought of it made Izzy sick. But he knew why she was doing it—for the same reason she’d given her sister’s husband what he’d wanted in trade for Ben’s insulin, after New Orleans flooded. Because there were things worth dying for, and face it, sex wasn’t one of them.

Back in the apartment, Eden wasn’t done talking. “You better leave my cell phone here for Danny. He forgot his charger, and his battery’s dead. I mean, unless you want to wait to contact him until he can get to the Sprint store tomorrow.”

Without a doubt, Eden was on top of everything. Somehow she knew not to say that Dan had lost his phone—that would have seemed too coincidental and would have sent up a signal that something was off. But a forgotten charger when visiting from out of town? That had happened to everyone.

There was talking that Izzy couldn’t quite make out, then Eden said, “That one. Leave it where he can find it.”

There was more random noise—movement—and some more conversation that Izzy couldn’t hear, something about insulin, and then …

“Quiet, both of you,” Izzy heard Jake command Eden and Jenn. “You make any noise at all as we get out to the van? And Todd will kill Danny.”

“Make it fast, Jake,” someone said—had to be Todd—clearly unhappy about being left behind.

Although dude had absolutely no clue about the raging shitstorm of unhappiness that was barreling toward him.

No doubt about it, Izzy was going to leave his boot print on the son of a bitch’s face.

But first he had to make sure he had both his cell phone and Greg’s. Because he had to ditch this car. Once he did, he could lose the pursuing police officers far more easily—whoops, there were two cars behind him now.

Yeah, he was going to have to do this on foot. He reached over and erased the GPS device’s memory, and took a hard turn into a neighborhood that was more middle class than the poverty-stricken street where Greg and Ivette lived. He could see from the map on the GPS that this entire development was less square little blocks and more winding, looping roads. For someone with his skill and training, it was an E&E playground. Most of the houses had fences around them, but nothing that he couldn’t get over easily.

Thirty seconds after leaving the car, he’d have successfully escaped and evaded, and he’d be in the clear and on his way back to Eden’s.

He found a cul-de-sac on the map, and as he turned the corner he did a quick visual. There were no other cars on the street, no people around. There was going to be some property damage, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d pay for it—he’d be happy to—if he were still alive after this goatfuck was over.

He kept the car in gear as he steered to the left, then opened the door and rolled out onto—shit!—not a plush lawn like the yard before it, but desert-style zero-scaping. Little stones and bigger stones and yes, that was a cactus he’d just gotten intimate with. But he kept his mouth shut, internalizing his disbelief and pain—needles in his ass could wait while Eden could not—and kept moving silently in the darkness as the car kept on its path, with both police cars in hot pursuit.

He was over a fence and into a backyard, and over the next fence into the neighbor’s yard, too, before he heard the crash and scraping of the rental car hitting someone’s palm tree.

He heard the shouting of the police officers as they realized that he was no longer in the rental car.

And then, like the good Navy SEAL that he was, he became one with the night, and he vanished.