Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

Martell became aware of the tail about halfway to the designated safe house-slash-motel.

The car behind him was nondescript—a white four-door sedan with Florida plates.

Whoever was following him was doing a piss-poor job of it, clumsily staying directly on his ass instead of keeping several car lengths between them. They raced to keep up through yellow traffic lights and cut off other cars so that horns blared.

Martell would’ve had to have been dead not to notice.

He tested his theory, pulling last minute into a left turn lane, and the white car followed.

He drove through a drugstore parking lot, and the white car followed.

He went full around a block: right turn, right turn, right turn, right turn. And the white car followed.

He slowed way down, looking hard into his rearview mirror. Martell couldn’t tell if the driver was a man or a woman because a hat was pulled way down, its brim hiding his or her shady face.

Martell again called the number that his FBI contact had given him, but again, it simply stopped ringing and disconnected.

His choices were simple. Work to lose the tail—which he could easily do, considering his/her tailing skill level was zero point zero zero one. Or he could stop in a well-populated public location and get up in the other driver’s grill. Literally.

There was a busy Mickey D’s on the corner with a police car sitting in the drive-through, so Martell pulled in—and the white car vanished. Just like that, it ghosted and was gone.

Well, okay then.

That was a third option. Scare the guy away.

His stomach rumbled loudly, and he wasn’t one to take a sign from God for granted, so he parked in order to go inside and grab a burger. The line at the counter wasn’t long, plus it was time to try calling Phoebe’s various phones again.

Her cell rang, but it went to voice mail, so he left another message—“Checking in, hope you’re okay, call me”—then did the same on her home phone as he got a double cheeseburger and fries to go.

It was all of three and a half minutes by the time he’d paid and was carrying his bag of heart attack out the door. But as he stepped into the sunlit warmth of the afternoon, he’d already gone all Princess Bride inside his head. He’d taken a Wally Shawn–inspired path in which he’d started wondering if the driver of the white car only wanted Martell to think that said driver’s tailing skills were inept. What if, in fact, the driver of the white car had a double-oh-seven level of tailing abilities? Except now Martell would act all free and clear, and unwittingly lead the way to the motel safe house, since the white car obviously wasn’t on his ass. Meanwhile the white car’s driver had gone all super-stealth, except Martell would never know it, because he’d focus all of his energy on watching for a badly hidden white sedan.

Although … what if the driver of the white car wanted Martell to figure all that out, therefore thinking dude had mad tailing skills so that Martell then intentionally stayed away from the help that he’d receive by going to the motel safe house …?

Or what if—

“Keys to the car. Hand ’em over.” The voice was low and gruff, but definitely female.

She had one hand on his shoulder as something hard and cold and metal jabbed into his side. A gun barrel? Yes, that was definitely a weapon of some kind poking him in his ribs.

He glanced over his shoulder, but she was shorter than he was, so he only saw the top of her head. Which had that hat on it.

He also saw skin. Pale skin. Shoulders and boob-tops, complete with cleavage. Whoever she was, she was wearing an outfit that was strapless, black, and skin tight, like she was some kinda comic book villain or maybe a Bond girl.

She took the opportunity to give him a flash of her weapon—a small but deadly little .22 caliber—as she fired off more orders: “Don’t turn around again. Don’t stop walking. Just hand me your keys and get into your car, behind the wheel.”

He looked over at that police cruiser. It was just pulling out of the other side of the fast food restaurant’s driveway, and she jabbed him again. “Nice, but don’t even think about it. Keys, Martell. Now.”

She knew his name. That couldn’t be good.

He got a glimpse of straight jet-black hair hanging lankly past a smooth, pale chin, a mouth darkened with purple or maybe even black lipstick—goth-ish—as he handed his keys over. A little weapon like the one she was holding lost a large percentage of its danger value when it wasn’t at a supremely close range. So his plan was to run like hell back toward the restaurant after she took it away from his ribs, as she went around the back of the car to climb into the passenger’s side.

Martell felt his adrenaline surge as he waited, as he mentally prepped for the coming sprint.

She used the key fob to double-pop the locks, which opened all of the doors, not just the driver’s. “Open it,” she ordered, so he did.

“Sit.”

Son of a bitch. He did that too, slowly, knowing it would be that much harder to break into a sprint from this position, but then she made it yet harder by closing the door for him.

Before he could properly Plan-B it—she had the keys, so hitting the lock button and securing the doors wouldn’t help—she opened the back and climbed in directly behind him.

“My weapon is still on you,” she announced. “And I know you know it’s got a small caliber, but at this range, even fired through the seat back, it has the power to sever your spinal cord. So don’t do anything stupid. Just drive. Slow and steady.” She dropped the keys over his shoulder and into his lap.

Martell fumbled them, finally got them into the ignition and put the car into reverse, his mind whirling as he tried to work out a new plan. Plan C. Get out of the car. He had to get out of the car. As he pulled out of the parking lot, he took a left on the side street, heading away from the busy traffic and higher speeds of Route 41. He caught sight of her car—that white sedan—parked at the far end of the McDonald’s lot. He was stupid to have missed seeing it, coming out of the restaurant. But okay. He knew this neighborhood and he was going to get away. The residential streets were in a grid, all with intersections that had four-way stops. He would not be able to get up much speed—which would allow him to dive-roll out of the car when he got the chance and …


As he slowed toward the first stop sign, he realized that she was no longer holding her weapon on him. She must’ve put it down because she was using both hands to adjust the control buttons on something she’d gotten out of the leather messenger bag she wore, its wide black leather strap across her black-leather-bustier clad chest.

She was muscular—her arms and shoulders were well defined, but she was lean. Like a long-distance runner or a triathlete—except she must’ve worked out on a treadmill in a basement gym. Her smooth skin was nearly neon white. Plus, she must’ve been wearing some kind of extra-padded Wonderbra to have that mega-cleavage, boobs-on-a-plate effect. In fact, she was in serious danger of a nipple pop, because the dominatrix-style strapless top she was wearing was cut so low.

The whole look would’ve been hot if she hadn’t just threatened to sever his spine.

But it was then that something registered. Some faint whisper of recognition even before she looked up at him, meeting his gaze in the mirror, even before she said—in a voice that was now remarkably businesslike and matter-of-fact, “It’s okay. We’re clear. We can talk. Good job playing along, by the way. But keep driving now. Let’s make sure no one’s following us.”

That thing she’d taken out of her bag? It looked like some kind of bug sweeper—some kind of device that could seek out and find any electronic surveillance devices. What the hell …?

As Martell braked for the stop sign, he looked back at her again. And she must have seen the massive confusion in his eyes, because she said, “It’s me. Deb.”

Deb? Did he know any Debs? He flipped through his mental file of the women in his life, and he came up Deb-less. No Debbies or Deborahs either.

She took off her hat, as if that might help. But all that did was reveal more of that obviously dyed-black goth-girl hair. Chin length, stringy, and mussed from the heat plus the hat, she had almost ridiculously short bangs that framed her pale, narrow face. It was hard to tell the color of her eyes because she wore so much dark black eyeliner around them.

And okay. It was hard to tell the color of her eyes because his own gaze kept slipping down toward that impending costume malfunction.

He knew her, he knew her—how the hell did he know her …?

“Deb Erlanger,” she clarified, adding, “I work with Jules Cassidy?”

Aha. The invisible lightbulb over his head clicked on. Deb Erlanger, FBI Agent. Whom, to be fair, he’d met only a few times. Who worked directly for his evil government overlord.

“Drive,” Deb said, but this time it wasn’t an order as much as it was a strongly implored request.

He put his foot on the gas, glancing again in the mirror.

The Deb he’d met in the past had been almost invisible. She had light brown hair that she mostly wore pulled back into a ponytail, baseball cap shading her perpetually makeup-free face, sneakers on her feet. Her standard uniform had been jeans and a T-shirt, with a light jacket to cover her shoulder holster. She was tough and efficient and dedicated to her job.

Martell had never, not even once, been tempted to imagine himself doing the hot-and-nasty with her.

Until today.

The whole goth thing usually scared him, but today it was a good kind of scary. Still, he knew that he’d have plenty of time to relive his fear and ponder a few fantasies—later.

Right now, he forklifted his mind out of the gutter. “What’s going on?” he asked, admitting, “I seriously didn’t recognize you.”

“Yeah, the disguise went a little extreme. When I think disguise, I think inconspicuous.” Exasperation tinged her voice as she climbed over the seat, moving into the front. He forced himself to keep his eyes on the road as the bustier fail he’d been predicting actually happened, times two, and she had to tuck herself back in.

“God, I need a shirt,” she muttered. “You don’t happen to have …?”

“Sorry.” Martell shook his head, trying to sound sincere. “You’d fit right in over at the Ringling School of Design.”

“That’s what Yashi said.” She gestured to her outfit. “This is his doing—Joe Hirabayashi, he works with me. This is his getting back at me for an assignment where he had to wear a kilt. Like it was my fault I’m not a man. I couldn’t do it. It wouldn’t have worked. Put me in a kilt, I’m a Catholic school-girl.”

Martell could picture that quite clearly, too, which was not okay. “What’s going on?” he asked again.

“I should be asking you that,” Deb countered. “You’re supposed to have Ian Dunn with you. And, apparently, some lawyer named Phoebe Kruger? What happened?”

“They, uh, decided to ride separately,” Martell said.

“They ditched you,” she correctly interpreted.

“Pretty much.”

She sighed—a much larger sigh than her FBI boss would’ve allowed himself. “Well, that’s just great. So what’s your plan?”

“Go to the safe house and wait for contact—which I no longer have to do, since you’ve made contact. Hope Phoebe calls me back soon …?”

She looked at his Mickey D’s bag. “Eat a little lunch?”

“That, too. Although after being scared shitless, it’s gonna take time before my digestive system kicks back in.”

“Sorry.” She was about as sorry as he was that he didn’t have a spare shirt in the car. “I had to make sure your vehicle wasn’t bugged and, well, I was supposed to intercept you before you took Dunn to the motel—because it’s not safe anymore. There’s been a leak in the department, somewhere—not necessarily having anything to do with this assignment, but there’s definitely been a system-wide security breach, so we’re being extra cautious with all our covert ops, across the board. The contact number that you were given has been changed. Everything’s been changed.”

“Including your need to recruit Dunn to rescue those kids?” Martell asked, unable to hide his hope from his voice.

“Not that,” she told him, as she stole a few fries from his bag.

“Help yourself,” he said.

“Thanks.” She took more.

A woman who ate French fries without either an apology or an encyclopedic explanation as to why she really shouldn’t be eating French fries. Be still his still-trembling heart.

“Take a left here,” she ordered, pointing with one of the fries. “We’re heading toward the harbor. Yashi’s renting some kind of vacation cottage for our new safe location. As soon as he gets the keys, he’s going to text me the address. Meanwhile I’ll call HQ and see if they can track Phoebe Kruger’s car, see if we can’t find Dunn that way. Assuming he hasn’t ditched her by now, too.”

She dug in her bag for her phone and just that small amount of motion created …

“Uh, you want a heads-up when you pop?” Martell asked her. “Like, Hello! Nipple! Or would you prefer it if I just ignore …?”

“Shit!” She tucked and pulled as she actually blushed beneath her undead-flavored makeup, even as she laughed her dismay. “Sorry! No! Don’t ignore! Please. God. Thank you. I’m so sorry. But maybe don’t shout nipple. Please?”

“Boob?” he suggested.

Deb laughed again. “Yeah, ’cause that’s better?”

“We could go with a code word,” Martell said. “Xylophone.”


She laughed again, still blushing as she focused on dialing her phone. “As soon as we get to the safe house, I’m changing my clothes, so …” She put her phone to her ear, then grimaced before leaving what had to be a message. “It’s Deb. Our little glitch with the lawyer just got bigger. Call me ASAP.”

Before Martell could comment, she turned back to him with that same briskness. “I know you just met Phoebe Kruger,” she continued. “But give me your impression. Do you believe her, trust her …?”

“Believe and trust her about what?” Martell asked.

“To start, is she … who she says she is?”

His voice went up an octave. “Are you kidding me?”

Deb sighed again. “Nope,” she said. “We’re not sure exactly how Bryant, Hill, and Stoneham knew to send her to the prison. We’re still looking into that. Was it you, by any chance, who contacted the firm?”

“No, ma’am,” Martell said. “In fact, I was intending to bitch about her to your boss. But then I figured you FBI guys arranged it, to expedite whatever deal we struck.”

“Nope,” she said. “It wasn’t us. She just showed up—no clearance, no background check. Although we’re running one right now.”

Martell stared at her as he rolled to a stop at a red light. “And I wasn’t informed about this before I let her vanish with Dunn because …?”

She looked steadily back at him as she ate more of his fries. “You let Dunn vanish? You’re telling me you honestly could’ve stopped him?”

Martell didn’t answer until the car behind him honked. Light was green. As he looked back at the road and drove, he admitted, “No.”

“Mistakes happen,” Deb said, not unkindly. “Across the board. What we have to do now is fix this one. Which starts with you telling me whether you think Phoebe Kruger is a potential problem.”

* * *

Ian Dunn’s brother Aaron owned a house with a panic room—which was good, because Phoebe was on the verge of panicking as she was pushed inside.

Aaron slapped on an overhead light, and she looked around.

It was tiny—jail-cell-sized—but high-tech and well supplied. A toilet and miniature sink sat out in the open in the corner on the far end, and shelves lined one full wall, with a bunkbed setup along the other. Near the door was a huge flat-screen monitor that looked to be hooked into some kind of intricate computer surveillance system. That same wall also held a phone and a clock.

Dunn came in last and slammed the heavy steel door shut behind him, and Aaron helped him throw an array of deadbolts and locks.

The sudden silence was jarring, but it didn’t last long.

“Who’s hurt?” Dunn asked, moving purposefully to the shelves that held supplies—clothing, blankets, bottles of water, and cans and jars of food—as well as a heavy-duty first aid kit.

“Not me,” Aaron said, despite the fact that blood from a skinned elbow was dripping down his arm. He was already at the computer, turning on the monitor and flipping down a futuristic-looking keyboard and mouse that had been built into the wall. “But my beautiful home has just been turned to total shit by the f*cking Dellarosas.”

“I’m okay,” Phoebe said, although when Dunn shot her an odd look, she was suddenly acutely aware that she was standing there, still dripping wet, in little more than her pants and bra.

He was soaked, too, but when he took a towel from a pile that sat, neatly folded, on those vast and cluttered shelves, he handed it to her before taking one for himself. “Your leg,” he said, and she realized that she was, absolutely, bleeding, too. She’d torn her pants and scraped her knee at some point, but it wasn’t that bad. And if that was the worst of it …

It occurred to her that Martell had been dead right—that releasing Ian Dunn from prison would send the Dellarosas after him. How had he put it? Guns blazing.

“My biggest concern is, What happens now?” Phoebe asked as she dried her face, her glasses, and her hair as best she could, before draping the towel—whoops, now streaked with the remains of her mascara—around her shoulders as a pseudo-shirt. “All over this neighborhood, people are calling nine-one-one, reporting shots fired. What do we do when the police arrive?”

“Motherf*cker!” The computer screen had flickered to life, and whatever Aaron saw there wasn’t good.

Phoebe stepped over to look, and it was obvious, with just once glance, that his security setup was not only high-tech but also extremely well conceived, with feeds coming in from nine different cameras—the big screen partitioned into nine separate high-def rectangles.

Four of the cameras were positioned around the outside of the house. Three covered the home’s interior—inside the front door, in the kitchen facing the back sliders, and the last in what looked like an upstairs hallway. The final two screens showed a video feed that had been hijacked—somehow—from two county traffic cameras. One was at Clark and Beneva, the other at an intersection that Phoebe didn’t recognize.

But it was the exterior camera that was up on the roof of the house that had caught Aaron’s grim attention. It was positioned so that it revealed the street back behind the pool deck of his lovely home.

“God damn it,” Dunn said as he, too, moved closer to the monitor. “I thought Shelly was smarter than you.”

Most of the shooters were already zooming away from the attack in a variety of vehicles—with that amount of gunfire, the police had to already be on their way. But one car—a large black sedan—had stopped on that street within view of the roof cam.

“No, no, no no no no no!” Aaron said as, on the computer monitor, a heavy-set, balding, dark-suited man climbed out of the stopped car.

Phoebe then saw that three men were approaching the heavy-set man. Two of them were oddly golf-ready, wearing plaid shorts and polo shirts—as if they’d been called away from a game—but the third wore khaki pants, a shirt, and a tie, his dark brown hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. Khaki was being tightly held by the two golfers, and even though he struggled, he couldn’t get away from them as they dragged him over to Heavy-Set.

“Berto’s not going to hurt him. Not badly.” Dunn’s words were quick and his voice was low, and Phoebe saw that he was holding Aaron tightly, pinning him in place—as if to keep him from leaving the safety of this little room.

What was that about? Was Berto—as in Dellarosa—the name of the heavy-set man? And what did any of this have to do with Shelly? What was Phoebe missing here?

On the video monitor, Heavy-Set opened the trunk of his car. His movements were jerky and even though Phoebe couldn’t hear him, she could see that when he spoke, his words were angry.

Khaki, still held by Golfers One and Two, stopped struggling and stood taller as he faced Heavy-Set, defiantly lifting his chin—and it was quite the chin, in a movie-star handsome face.

“He will kill you, though. You go out there, Aaron,” Dunn was saying as he continued to hold on to his brother, “you’re not only dead, but Shelly will be forced to watch you die. Don’t do that to him.”

Phoebe looked back at the screen in surprise, and the words left her lips before she could stop herself. “Shelly’s a …?” Man, she was about to say.

Spouse.

It was beyond obvious that Aaron’s spouse, Shelly, was the handsome, khaki-clad man who was now being punched hard in the stomach by Heavy-Set, who really put his substantial heft into the blow.


Aaron made a sound as if he himself had just gotten hit as Shelly doubled over.

“That’s Berto, crazy Davio’s oldest son,” Dunn confirmed as he pointed to the screen, tapping the image of Heavy-Set for Phoebe’s benefit, before telling Aaron, “Manny’s in the hospital right here in Sarasota. He was in town, having lunch. He had a heart attack.”

The fact that mob boss Manny Dellarosa had had a heart attack was news to Phoebe, although Dunn had probably found that out during one of the calls he’d made with her phone. How bad is he? His words now made sense.

“I don’t know what his condition is,” Dunn told his brother. “But it wouldn’t surprise me if Davio’s moving into place for a power grab. If that’s the case, in the fight between his father and his uncle Manny, I honestly have no idea where Berto’s gonna land.”

As they watched, Berto reached out and seemed to touch Shelly, almost gently, on the side of the head.

But as Aaron whispered, “I’m going to kill him,” Phoebe saw a flash of glare on metal and as Shelly slumped, clearly unconscious, she realized that Berto had hit Shelly in the head with a gun.

As they watched, Golfers One and Two unceremoniously loaded Shelly into the trunk of Berto’s car, closing it tightly.

“Yeah, I think this time I just might let you,” Dunn told his brother almost matter-of-factly, as Berto Dellarosa and his two plaid-wearing underlings hustled back into the sedan and pulled away. “But not right now. Davio’s gunning for you. You leave this room, you’ll be killed, and that won’t help Shel. You know that, D.A. So instead, we’re gonna wait, we’re going to find out where they’re taking him, and then we’re gonna get him back. Berto’s not going to kill Shelly. You know he’s not going to kill him.”

On a different camera feed, Phoebe saw a fleet of police cars and a SWAT truck speeding through the intersection of Clark and Beneva. She couldn’t hear the bevy of sirens through the solid walls of the panic room, but there was no doubt about it, Sarasota’s finest were on their way.

“Berto’s not going to kill Shel,” Dunn said again.

Phoebe looked at Dunn, and she didn’t want to contradict him or even question him because his steady stream of words were clearly calming Aaron down. Still, she had no idea how he could be so convinced that “crazy” Davio Dellarosa’s son Berto wouldn’t do some serious damage to Aaron’s spouse.

Dunn met her eyes. He clearly knew what she was thinking, because he said, “Aaron met Shel—Sheldon—at school, when they were both kids. It was a private high school. D.A. went there on scholarship while I was in the Navy. After Shelly graduated, he enlisted in the Marines, mostly to follow Aaron, but partly to get away from home, because there was a shit-ton of pressure to join the family business.”

“Oh, no,” Phoebe said, knowing exactly where he was going.

Dunn nodded and said it anyway. “Oh, yeah. Shel’s last name? Dellarosa. Berto is Shel’s brother. Davio’s their father.”

And there it was. The final puzzle piece. It explained the connection between Dunn and the Dellarosas, and was the reason why Ian Dunn had gone to work for Manny—gone to jail to work for him—in a deal that had protected Aaron from a murderous father-in-law who wanted him dead, probably for being gay.

I’m going to take care of my brother my way. Same way I’ve done ever since he was two, when our mother ODed.…

It was unbelievably romantic and sweet.

“Eee, I gotta get out of here,” Aaron said now. “Before the police arrive.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Ian said. “If I were Davio, I’d leave a team behind. Take advantage of the situation to erase the ongoing problem that is you.”

“At least that way I’ll have a chance,” Aaron argued. “There’s no way the police aren’t going to run our prints—they’re all over the freaking house—I mean, I live there, right? And I’m just as dead if I’m arrested and put into jail.” He turned to look at Phoebe. “How good of a lawyer are you? Because I’m wanted for murder. I’m not guilty—it was self-defense. Although that’s probably what they all say, right?”

It was. Phoebe glanced over at Ian, who’d gone over to the supply shelves and was checking the waist sizes on what looked like a pile of brand new stonewashed jeans.

He glanced back at her as he said to his brother, “I told her about Davio putting a hit on you, and how it’d be easy for him to pay someone to kill you if you’re in jail.”

“I’m still skeptical about that,” Phoebe said. “I find it hard to believe that the authorities wouldn’t provide proper protection. But okay. When the police arrive, we’ll use your phone to establish contact and negotiate. I’ll ask that we’re all taken directly to a hospital. What you do after we arrive there is … Well, don’t tell me. I can’t know. And, really, Aaron, if I’m honestly your lawyer, I have to recommend that you turn yourself in. I’ll ensure that you’re protected, and I’ll defend you to the very best of my ability—”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen, either,” Ian said, and she turned to find that, once again, he’d stripped out of his wet clothes in order to change into something dry.

She turned abruptly toward the monitor where a Mylar-clad SWAT team was entering the house, weapons drawn.

“Davio’s reach is too long,” Ian continued. “All it’ll take is one mistake, and Aaron’s shivved by some lifer with nothing to lose.” He exhaled, hard. “No. Get us to the hospital, we’ll do the rest.”

“There’s no guarantee that I can get us there,” Phoebe cautioned, looking back at Ian after hearing the sound of his zipper going up. She let herself watch while he pulled a plain white T-shirt over his head, his movements smooth and efficient. “I’m willing to try, but … There’s only one way I know—absolutely—that you’ll both walk away from this as free men.”

Ian Dunn was no dummy. She could tell from his face that this time, he knew what she was going to say before she said it.

But she said it anyway. “I’ll call Martell Griffin.”

“Yeah, because he’s been such a help so far.”

“Who’s Martell Griffin?” Aaron asked, looking from Ian to Phoebe and back.

“I don’t see that you have a choice,” Phoebe told Ian. “But you do have the opportunity to negotiate with him from a position of power, at least for the next few minutes. That changes, dramatically, after Aaron’s in police custody.”

Ian was silent and completely still, just standing there gazing back at her.

“Who’s Martell Griffin?” Aaron repeated his question, and Ian didn’t turn toward his brother, but he did briefly close his eyes.

Phoebe didn’t back down. She just calmly stood there, waiting for him to look at her again, even though in truth her heart was pounding in her chest. Almost unbelievably, Martell’s plan had worked. “Think of it as a win/win. Especially for those kidnapped children.”

Ian made a sound that was roughly laughterlike at that, as behind him, Aaron sat heavily down on the bunkbed with a heartfelt “Jesus H. Christ. Really? You really just said the words kidnapped children?”


Ian still didn’t turn toward his brother as he finally nodded. “All right,” he said. “But I think it’s more you win. Call Martell. But tell him to get a pen and start writing, because the list of what I want is massive.”

He took a breath to elaborate, but Phoebe cut him off. “First, here’s what I want,” she said. “A shirt and a dry pair of jeans—whatever’s on that shelf’ll be big, but they’ll do. I want you both to turn around and sing, loudly, while I not only change my clothes but I also pee.”

“I’m gay,” Aaron pointed out.

She smiled tightly at him. “I really don’t care. And oh, yeah. Last but not least. I want my Glock back. And I want it now.”

* * *

Was Phoebe Kruger a potential problem?

Martell would’ve answered FBI Agent Deb Erlanger’s question differently fifteen minutes ago—before his phone rang, and he answered it to find Phoebe herself on the other end.

Gladness and relief quickly morphed into annoyance that she hadn’t called him sooner, since Ian Dunn obviously hadn’t murdered her.

But after he’d put the call on speaker and she’d gotten past her assurances that she was fine—but refused to reveal where she and Dunn were hiding, not that he’d expected her to—she’d started in on some full-scale, nuclear lawyering. Her sentence had started with the phrase Ian Dunn will help with the rescue of the kidnapped children only if …

And then she hadn’t stopped with her bullet-pontification for a good long time.

The woman was scary good. Martell looked down the list of demands again and, yup. She’d thought of everything, and then some things he himself never would’ve come up with. Access to high-tech equipment and weaponry, funds to hire a team of fellow “security breach specialists” to assist Dunn, access to surveillance information, full autonomy in all stages of the op, and money. Lots and lots of money.

Deb had already passed the lengthy list on to her FBI superiors.

“Other than being a kickass lawyer,” Martell now told Deb as they sat in wait mode in the parking lot of a pizza parlor, and ate a real lunch, “I don’t think Phoebe’s a problem. At least not in the way you mean. I think she’s exactly what and who she says she is.”

When Martell had first met Phoebe, he’d thought pushover and nepotism-tastic; undergunned and in over her head. He may have even included a misogynistic chuckle and a poor thing in there, too.

But then they’d had a conversation during which he’d revised that first impression all the way up to definitely in possession of smarty-pants, but possibly a little underexperienced and absolutely overwhelmed.

She’d apparently since handled whatever had been overwhelming her, because this phone call had been from a lawyer-shark hybrid who didn’t know the meaning of fear.

No doubt about it, Martell had just gotten chewed up into a million little pieces, at which point Phoebe had ended this first part of their negotiation-slash-extortion by letting him know that Dunn was going to set up his own private safe house location, thank you very much, so they would take a pass on whatever the FBI was already putting into play. However, they were going to need more manpower, so Martell should consider himself necessary, because somebody’s sister and baby son were going to need security, so his new job was gonna be to help keep them safe. And that was code for Regardless of that law school diploma on your wall, homeboy, congratulations, you are going to be doing some babysitting.

And no doubt about it, life was bitchslapping him for his sexist arrogance. He was a better-than-average small-town lawyer whose expertise went a long way toward helping people with minor legal problems. Or even major-but-simple legal problems, like the genius clients who’d “caught a case” by walking into a liquor store with gun in hand, demanding the cashier deliver the contents of the cash register.

The whoopsie-that-was-a-misunderstanding-slash-accident defense never worked, but Genius and his vast array of brothers-from-other-mothers had to be talked down off that legal ledge. And that was something Martell excelled in doing. His Dude, you cannot win this, so let’s take their generous deal and get you into a detox and rehab program while we’re at it speech was a thing of true beauty.

He’d also been a better-than-average small-town police detective, too. Yes, Sarasota was a city, but its problems were mostly small-town. And he’d liked that. He may have thought about it a time or two, but he’d never truly aspired to join up with the FBI or the CIA.

Which meant that right about now, undergunned and in over his head applied rather poetically to Martell’s own desperately dog-paddling ass.

Deb, however, was flatly unimpressed by Phoebe’s first-class lawyering. “Look at these demands. This is insane. Five million dollars? No one’s going to approve that kind of a payment. It’s just not going to happen. Some of this other stuff—immunity, plus a major clean-slate sweep, not just for Dunn, but for all these other people whose names he gave you … Aaron Dunn—that must be his brother. That we can do, assuming he’s not a serial killer or a terrorist.” She looked over at Martell as she tapped the legal pad with one finger. “This, by the way, is what Ian Dunn really wants. The money’s just a distraction. Or a negotiating tactic. Something for him to give up.” She smiled. “Although, really, it all depends on how dire Dunn’s current situation is.”

Current situation? Calling from the parking lot of some nice restaurant while he sat beside his attractive lady lawyer, breathing in that new-car smell? “I’m pretty sure he’s got the upper hand,” Martell pointed out as he gathered up their trash.

“The fact that he initiated the negotiation means that something’s going on,” Deb countered. “I’d bet it’s something major.”

“Well, you’re the FBI agent,” Martell conceded, with plenty of but I don’t believe you in his tone.

She looked over at him. “Yes. I am,” she said, and okay, he’d admit it, when she got quiet and intense like that, she was a tad scary, even with the constant threat of impending nipple pop hanging over her head.

“I’ll throw this away,” he announced, way too cheerfully, trying his best not to trip as he got out of the car.

When he came back, Deb was chewing on her lip and aiming all of her attitude at her phone. “FBI headquarters just texted me an address,” she said. She clicked over to her GPS.

“Just an address?” Martell asked. “Nothing else, like, This is the self-storage unit where Dunn stashes the bodies of the women he kills, hashtag wait for the SWAT team?”

“My boss is having something of a crazy day himself,” Deb informed him. “This looks to me like a residential area. Twenty-four Monteblanc Circle?”

Martell leaned over to look at the tiny map on her phone. He became immediately aware of three things.

One, she smelled kind of like a man, with a not unpleasant trace of a product—deodorant or maybe hair gel—that Martell had smelled before, used in too-large quantities by some of the guys at the gym. And that probably meant that she had a boyfriend. A manfriend—excuse him—this was not a woman who dated boys. A full-grown, adult male friend—whose products she’d borrowed, most likely after a night of creative, athletic, inspiring lovemaking.


And wasn’t that disappointing?

Two, his face was now mere inches from that magnificent shelflike presentation of the top hemisphere of her bosom. Keep his eyes on the map, keep his eyes on the map …

And three, the address she’d been texted wasn’t that far from the intersection of Clark and Beneva, which, in turn, wasn’t all that far from where they were right now.

So Martell backed away from Deb, from her exposed boobtops and her regret-inducing man-smell, as well as her GPS map, and he put his POS into gear.

“I’m pretty sure Ian Dunn had Phoebe call to negotiate first and foremost because he wants money,” Martell said as he pulled out of the parking lot and headed back south on 41.

“Bet you your shirt you’re wrong,” Deb said, picking up his cell phone from the cup holder. “What’s your passcode?”

He looked at her in disbelief.

She held out the phone to him. “Or do it yourself. I need to use your Internet. I want to Google the address so we don’t go in there completely blind if it’s like, I don’t know, property owned by one of the Dellarosas maybe …?”

Martell keyed in his code. “Why would Dunn seek out the Dellarosas? And what do I get if I’m right and I win the bet?”

“You get to keep your shirt,” Deb said, frowning at his phone. “Property is owned by someone named S. Jackson, which sounds like an alias to me. The title changed hands around a year ago. It’s a four-bedroom house on a double lot.” She glanced up. “Take the next left.”

“Is it me,” Martell said as he did just that, “or is there suddenly an overabundance of police cars in this ’hood?”

The patrol cars weren’t just idling at the sides of the road—they were parked. And yes, the SWAT team was already here.

Uniformed officers were out of their vehicles and were crawling damn near everywhere.

In fact, one of them—much too young to have been on the force back in Martell’s day—stepped out into the street and signaled them to stop.

Deb already had her FBI ID out. She started to lean forward, to talk to the officer through Martell’s open window, but then stopped, no doubt thinking xylophone.

Definitely thinking xylophone. She met Martell’s eyes and smiled wryly, handing him her ID instead. “Tell him to come around to my side.”

“Good plan.” Although he would ask instead of tell.

“I’m gonna win your shirt.”

“Not sure I ever agreed to that bet.”

“Your silence was implicit agreement.”

“I don’t believe I was silent. Good afternoon, Officer.”

One look at Deb’s ID, and the uniformed cop sputtered and quickly moved, not to talk to her, but instead hurrying to find his boss.

Martell meanwhile parked since it was clear that they could drive no farther. All kinds of emergency vehicles were blocking the road.

Deb got out of the car and he followed as the junior policeboy came back with Sarasota’s newest lieutenant, who was, happily, an old friend of Martell’s.

He leaned in closer to Deb to say, “Lieutenant Lora Newsom. Transplanted here in Florida as a uniformed officer, originally from someplace where they grow a lot of corn. She’s the real deal. Earned this job the hard way. Be as honest with her as you can, and she’ll be an ally.”

Deb nodded.

The blond-haired lieutenant’s eyes widened very slightly at her first look at Deb’s attire, but other than that, she didn’t blink. She just nodded tersely to Martell, as if not at all surprised to see him with an FBI agent. She handed Deb’s ID back to her. “Why do I already hate this? That’s a rhetorical question, Martell. You don’t have to try to answer that.”

“Nice to see you, too, Lora.”

Deb jumped right in. “Twenty-four Monteblanc?”

Newsom sighed and nodded, leading them back past the rescue vehicles. “That’s our crime scene. It was quite the Wild West shootout.”

“Anyone dead?” Deb asked.

“Miraculously no,” Newsom reported. “But we’ve currently got something of a standoff. An unknown number of perps have taken shelter in some kind of dedicated safe room on the first floor of the home. We’re confident they can see us via camera access. I’ve got people holding up a handwritten sign with a phone number in front of their video cams, and a negotiator standing by, but so far no contact. Are there hostages? We don’t know. The car out front belongs to a lawyer named Phoebe Kruger. We’ve found her phone number, but she’s not answering our calls.” Her blue eyes narrowed. “So what can you tell me?”

“We’re pretty sure this incident is related to an important national security case I’m working on,” Deb said. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you much more than that. I’m hoping the people inside the safe room are mine. If they are, it’s best if they remain anonymous for now.”

Clearly unhappy, Newsom nodded as she glanced at Martell again, obviously wondering what kind of SNAFU he’d gotten himself involved with this time.

But then, holy Jesus God on high.

They rounded the last SWAT truck, and 24 Monteblanc Circle came into view.

Martell had thought Lt. Newsom was exaggerating about that Wild West shootout thing, but the place was trashed. Nearly all the windows in the house had been shattered, and the walls riddled by bullets that had left behind lines of gray holes—chips and gouges in the painted stucco.

And there was Phoebe’s new car. It had gotten the shit shot out of it, too. Windows broken, tires flat. Finish dented and pierced in those same telltale automatic-weapon-fire lines.

Martell could see the security camera positioned near the front door. It seemed intact, so he took out his phone as he approached it. And then he took off his button-down super-lawyer dress shirt and he handed it to Deb.

She was right behind him. She tried to hide her smile but failed. “Thanks,” she said, as she put her arms into his sleeves and buttoned the damn thing up to her neck.

Martell held out his phone and pointed to it as he stood there in his white beater and smiled cheerfully up into the camera.

Any second now, his phone was gonna ring.