Do or Die Reluctant Heroes

They were almost there.

“Which one is it?”

Martell glanced over at Francine, who was driving his car. She’d taken the left turn onto the street where the safe house was supposed to be and had slowed to a crawl. “Five eighty-five.”

They both peered through the darkness, searching for a house number.

“It’s down a bit more, on the left,” Martell said, pointing to the right, where the reflective numbers 240 were on a mailbox in front of what looked like a castle, complete with moat.

She nodded and drove a little faster. And then said, “If I were you, I wouldn’t be in such a big hurry to get there.”

He looked at her, waiting for further explanation, and she actually laughed as she shot him another glance. Sure, it was a laugh of disdain, but it transformed her, and damn, she was beautiful. Even with no makeup on, dressed in faded jeans and a no-frills tank, she still managed to be prettier than 99.9 percent of the women on the planet. With her long blond hair, blue eyes, and a body that killed …

And maybe there was something he was missing here, because he’d gone and gotten himself all distracted, but it sure seemed as if she were implying that … “You think Dunn is going to, what? Kick my ass?”

“He’s already kicking your ass,” Francine said, pointing to another mailbox, this time in front of a house that looked as if it had been built by Frank Lloyd Wright on meth. “Three ninety-seven.”

Martell nodded. They were almost there.

“Look at the assignment he gave you,” she continued. “Chauffeur-slash-babysitter.”

“Maybe he likes me the most,” Martell countered, even though he knew she was right. He was definitely on Dunn’s shit list. “Putting me in a car with an attractive young woman—”

She blew him a raspberry. “And a baby he expected to cry for the entire ride? No, he hates you. I wonder what he’ll have you do next? Surveillance from inside a Dumpster?”

“Please don’t suggest that to him,” he said as she slowed way down, because there came 585, on the left, as expected.

It did not look like a castle or as if a drug-addled famous architect had been anywhere near the blueprint. It was boxy and built long before Martell had been born. It was both small and unassuming.

“Is this really it?” he said aloud as she pulled up in front. It was quaint and even charming in an old-time Florida way, but he really would have preferred the descriptors that popped to mind be defensible and fortresslike.

Considering it was supposed to be a safe house.

“Maybe you should call your FBI contact,” Francine said. “Make sure we got the number right.”

Martell dug for his phone, but then didn’t have to, because there came Deb, still wearing his shirt, barreling down the driveway as if she’d come racing out of a back door. Before she hit the sidewalk, she was already scanning the street, looking both ways.

Martell opened his window, leaned out. “Hey. What’s up?”

He’d startled her, so much so that she nearly drew on him. Instead, she came over, leaned down to look in to see Francine and the baby. “Get this car back behind the house,” she said, pointing. “Now. But be ready to leave, immediately. We’re pulling out.”

“What? What happened?” Martell asked again.

“It’s Phoebe,” Deb told him grimly. “She’s gone. She must’ve just … walked away.”

* * *

“She lives nearby,” Aaron said as he helped the FBI agent nicknamed Yashi transfer the bags of groceries into Martell’s ancient car. Aaron had used Francie’s phone to call Ian on the burner cell, to let him know that Phoebe was gone, but his brother hadn’t picked up. Hopefully he’d call back soon. “Phoebe said that when we pulled up. Am I the only one who heard her?”

“I didn’t hear it,” Yashi said, as deadpan and unexcited as he’d been when they’d first arrived.

“I was on the phone,” Deb said. She was pissed. And not just because Phoebe had disappeared. She was pissed because the big, handsome black guy, Martell, had shown up with Rory and Francine—with his tongue hanging out.

France had that effect on the het male population. Even Yashi’s pulse rate seemed to have rocketed up to forty-five upon sight of her. Dude had even blinked. Twice in a row.

“I have three contact numbers for Phoebe,” Martell said. Aaron still wasn’t sure exactly what his deal was, other than that he was a lawyer who seemed to be working closely with the feds. Also, whatever upper-body workout the man did was highly effective. As Aaron watched, Martell stopped helping with the groceries and got out his phone. “Work, cell, and home phone—”


“Do not call her.” Aaron said it at the same time as both Yashi and Deb. He was pretty sure Francine would’ve joined in the chorus, too, if she hadn’t ducked inside, upon arrival, to use the bathroom.

“Give me her home number, though,” Yashi offered. “I’ll do a reverse lookup to get her address.” He had his own phone out and working, Internet connected.

Martell was still frowning, so Aaron explained. “If the Dellarosas are watching her place, they’ve hacked into her phone line. If you call and she picks up, they’ll know for sure that she’s there. That’s if they don’t know it already.”

There were numerous possibilities to this scenario. One, that Phoebe had walked home, arriving before Davio’s men staked out the place.

Two, that they’d been there when she’d arrived and they’d already grabbed her, and …

Three, that they’d been there when she’d arrived but she’d walked right past them, unrecognizable due to her funky clothes, thanks to her repeated dunkings in his swimming pool.

Martell was still skeptical. “You really think she’s under surveillance? By Manny Dellarosa?”

“Davio, probably,” Aaron said. “Manny’s in the hospital.”

“Phoebe lives, literally, one block south of here, two streets down,” Yashi reported.

“And the Dellarosas have already IDed her,” Martell pushed, “by … osmosis?” He answered his own question as he remembered, “Her car was parked out in front of the crime scene. Of course. Sorry. My bad. It’s been a while since I’ve done police work. But just as an FYI, if I wasn’t thinking about that, Phoebe probably wasn’t either. Also, as a lawyer, you kinda get used to having meetings with alleged criminals. You expect them to call you, not abduct you.”

“At this point, for all we know,” Deb said shortly, “she’s working for the Dellarosas.”

Holy shit. Aaron was stunned. The FBI didn’t know …?

And now there was a fourth possibility—that Phoebe was working for Davio and had gone home so that she could call him and divulge the current whereabouts of Aaron, Francine, and Rory.

“Forget the rest of the food,” Aaron said, looking over at Rory, who was waiting patiently in the back of Martell’s car. “We need to leave. Now.”

“I’m sorry, what did she just say?” Francine was back from the bathroom and focused on Deb. She stood now in the kitchen door, angelically backlit. The look on her face, however, was not beatific. She turned to glare at Martell. “You told me Phoebe’s a lawyer.”

“She is,” he said. “She works for Bryant, Hill, and Stoneham.”

“There was a slight SNAFU,” Deb admitted. “We didn’t get a chance to clear her—”

“That, I didn’t know,” Yashi said, his eyes wider open than Aaron had yet seen them.

“We don’t know all that much about her,” Deb continued grimly, “other than she has no criminal record, and yes, she passed the bar in Florida, and as of last week has been employed by BH and S.”

Francine came down the stairs. “Are you”—she looked at Rory, his car seat still belted into the back of Martell’s car—“effing kidding me? And you just let her walk away …?”

“That’s my fault,” Yashi started, but Deb cut him off.

“No, it’s mine,” she said. “I should have told you. I just assumed you’d stick around until I got off the phone.”

The cell phone that Aaron was holding rang, sparing him from joining in the self-blamefest with his own recrimination of I shouldn’t’ve taken a shower and left her alone. It was Ian on the other end, and he’d apparently listened to Aaron’s message about Phoebe being gone. Unlike Francine, he didn’t bother to curb his language.

“How the f*ck did this happen?” Ian asked, plainly pissed.

“Overwhelm,” Aaron told his brother. “I’m pretty sure Deb hasn’t slept in three days. Plus with you gone, there’s no clear chain of command. Typical charlie foxtrot.” That was military radio code for the letters C and F, which was the short form for clusterf*ck, synonymous with goatf*ck. A goat was an ineffective leader whose head was up his or her ass. Sometimes due to lack of sleep.

“I need her home address,” Ian said. The her he was referring to was, of course, Phoebe.

“Bad idea,” Aaron countered. “A waste of time, when we need to find Shel.”

Ian sighed. Hard. “I’m not leaving her,” he said.

“That’s right,” Aaron said. “You’re not. She walked away.”

“She’s not working for Davio,” Ian said. “I know this.”

“Do you know this with your brain or with your dick?” Aaron asked.

“Home. Address.”

Aaron rattled off the address and apartment number.

“Now get the f*ck out of there. Is Francie with you?” Ian asked. “She must be—you’re on her phone.”

“Yeah,” Aaron said. “Why?”

“Tell her to get you to Contact Point Zebra. She’ll know where that is, she’ll know what to do. Chain of command? F*ck the FBI. She’s now in charge. I’ll meet you there soon.” And with that Ian cut the connection.

Aaron turned to his sister-in-law and repeated Ian’s words. “He said to tell you Contact Point Zebra—and that you’re now in charge.” He got up in Francine’s face. “Why would Eee do that? What the hell do you know, that I don’t?”

Francine didn’t back down. She lifted her chin and said, “I’ve been working with Ian all this time, most of which he’s spent in prison, down in Northport.”

“What?” Aaron felt all of the air leave his lungs—in fact, all of the oxygen in Florida left Sarasota as he struggled to keep breathing and to understand. Prison? Ian had been in prison?

“I’ll tell you as much as I can,” Francine said, “which isn’t a lot. But right this second? We’re leaving. So get your ass in the car. Now.”

* * *

Ian was pissed.

As a Navy SEAL, he’d been trained to expect disaster.

Murphy’s Law was a given—whatever can go wrong, will go wrong—and Ian was never surprised when he got bitchslapped by the universe.

But this entire day had been clown-car ridiculous. He was trapped in an ugly spinning vortex of Are you f*cking kidding me?

And that vortex had just been kicked to a higher speed, thanks to Phoebe Kruger.

And this was on top of Ian’s arriving at the hospital to discover—of course—that Manny Dellarosa was in prep for an angiogram, which meant he was out of reach until tomorrow. Ian had already reached the acceptance stage of his grief about that, and was out in the hospital’s parking garage when he’d gotten Aaron’s message about Phoebe going AWOL.

It hadn’t taken him long to “borrow” a car to rush to her rescue—although the way this day was going, he’d half-expected the damn thing to be infested with rats or maybe poisonous snakes.

He’d ditched the car without getting bitten—a small victory, but he’d take it—about a block away from “The Dockside,” Phoebe’s fancy-ass condo complex. Since he had no idea what was coming, he preferred to go in on foot, so he could keep to the shadows.


As he moved through the humid evening, Ian hoped that Phoebe wasn’t there, in her condo, but he knew that she probably was.

He also knew that his carelessness was in part, at least, to blame—he should’ve been more aggressive about the fact that she was in danger from the Dellarosas. Clearly, she hadn’t believed him. Lawyers. Jesus. They actually thought they were bulletproof. We deal with criminals all the time. Yeah, well, not like the Dellarosas, honey.

Of course, there was also the idea that Ian couldn’t quite shake—that Phoebe’s na?veté was just an act, that she herself might work for the Agency. The Glock in her bag, her sharp mind, and her ability to think on her feet, plus her relative coolness under fire …

Maybe she hadn’t innocently and/or stupidly gone home, but instead had faded back to Agency HQ, wherever that was.

And that thought pissed Ian off even more than the sweat that dripped down his back. Oddly enough, he hated the idea that this woman might’ve vanished, possibly forever, since her mission had been accomplished when Ian had agreed to help rescue those kidnapped kids.

He spotted a Dellarosa-dark car with two occupants, parked across the street from Phoebe’s condo building’s driveway at the exact moment that the burner phone shook in his pocket. He blended into the foliage as he pulled it out and glanced at the number. It was Martell, so he took the call.

“Yeah.”

“Sorry to be the bearer of more bad news,” Martell told him. “But Phoebe just called my cell from her condo landline.”

“Shit.”

“Yeeeeah.” The lawyer drew the word out. “She wanted me to tell you that she was running a little late, that she’d be another fifteen minutes before she returned.”

And that was that. No experienced Agency operative, she. Although it was interesting that Phoebe’s intention had been to return to the safe house. She was doubly na?ve for not realizing that the FBI would’ve already gone into red alert and bugged out the moment she’d turned up missing.

“I told her to stay put,” Martell continued. “That we had a situation that needed my attention, that I’d have to call her back. I didn’t let her say anything else, just stressed that she should stay where she was and wait for contact.”

And wasn’t that unexpected and remarkably astute? “Thanks,” Ian said, and he must’ve sounded surprised.

Because Martell added, “Yeah, I’m not a total idiot, Dunn. Call me if there’s anything I can do to help. FYI, we’re safely on the move.” He hung up.

A helo extraction would’ve been helpful, but as of yet, Martell and his FBI buddies hadn’t even managed to get Ian a sandwich—let alone extra handguns to arm his motley crew. And since no way had Ian been willing to leave Aaron without a weapon, that meant he himself was currently out here carrying only a Bic pen.

Ian moved closer to the complex, mentally working out a Plan B, since his Plan A was no longer feasible. Of course, his Plan A had been super-simple—walk up the driveway, find condo 204, knock on its door. Hey, Phoebe. C’mon. Get your stuff. Let’s go. Move it.

Now, thanks to that car parked out front, he was going to have to go all covert and shit.

Fricking pain in his ass.

Ian focused on the building, looking past the decorative railings to the layout and architectural structure.

The Dockside was an artfully arranged series of attractively stuccoed buildings. It had a lot of windows and ornate balconies—i.e. hoo-hahs to grab and swing from, should grabbing and swinging become necessary. It also had copious waterfront views, with several of the structures overlooking one of Sarasota’s many canals. There was a relatively high wall around the nonwater side of the property, with one driveway leading both in and out, and a pedestrian gate at the north end of the grounds.

He was pretty sure, from the relaxed postures of the two men he could clearly see sitting in the car, that they hadn’t recognized Phoebe as she’d walked past them.

While Ian’s Plan A had been to grab her and leave, his Plan B was to do the exact same thing, but without the men in the car seeing them.

Except now that he’d found out that Phoebe’d used her landline to call Martell …?

Any minute, whoever was tapping her home phone was going to sound the alarm, and call the thugs in that car. They were about to find out that their target had just made an outgoing call, therefore, she must be home. She was there, and she was abduc-table.

And Ian knew that the men in the car would abduct her rather than attempt to follow her, because she’d obviously evaded them once already. Rather than risk her getting past them again, they’d play it safe and get Ian’s whereabouts from her the good old-fashioned way.

By tying her to a chair and beating her up.

Sure enough, as Ian watched, the two men now got out of the car. The driver was on the phone. And because he didn’t know Ian was lurking in the bushes, he didn’t bother to keep his voice down.

“Well, what’s their facking ETA?” he asked in an accent that screamed Boston Southie, with an attitude that dripped of ripe annoyance. It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to theorize that he’d been chastised and told to wait for backup before going in after Phoebe.

And that was both good news and bad. Good, because the waiting-for-backup thing gave Ian a little more time to get into Phoebe’s condo, explain what was happening, and get her the hell out of there. Bad, because if something went wrong, he’d have to deal not just with two Dellarosa goons, but instead a larger, undetermined number.

As Ian kept to the shadows, soundlessly moving closer to the Dockside’s wall, Southie ended the phone call, his aggravation radiating from him. “Go keep an eye on the other gate,” he told his compatriot. “Yeah, the footpath. She must’ve come in that way. Although, Jesus. Who the fack walks around in this heat?”

The other guy’s voice didn’t carry, but Southie responded to whatever he’d said with, “No, watch and wait. Mr. D’s on his way.”

Ian went up and over the wall, dropping lightly into one of the Dockside’s many courtyards. He was well aware that the Mr. D in question was Davio Dellarosa, and that Davio wouldn’t show up with anything less than a small army to protect him. Particularly since he knew that Ian was on the loose.

Ian moved swiftly through the courtyard, searching for condo 204 … 204 … Please let it be in the long, low building—only three stories high—that sat right at the edge of the canal. And yes. It was.

The other buildings, on the noncanal side of the complex, were taller—seven or eight stories—with upper-level condos that offered excellent views despite their distance from the water.

Of course, this meant that the roof of Phoebe’s building was probably decorative and sloping, not flat and ugly. Since it could be looked down upon from all of those high-rise balconies, the roof was probably covered with barrel tiles, which could be slippery as all hell.

Going up to the roof to escape Davio’s men was Ian’s backup Plan C, or maybe he was up to D by now. He bypassed the elevator and took the outside staircase up to the second floor, where he spotted a sign telling him that 204 was down toward the left. But he quickly went up one more flight—to get a partial view of the street where Davio’s goons were parked.

He couldn’t see their car, but he could see what looked like three, no four, no—shit—five additional vehicles pulling up, their headlights blazing.


Apparently, Davio’s ETA was now.

Ian took the express route back to the second floor, making each half-flight in a single jump, holding on to the banister for support.

He sprinted down the outside hallway to condo 204, skidding to a stop as he hammered on the door with one hand, even as he found and leaned on the doorbell with his other.

“Come on, come on, come on,” he muttered, and he finally heard movement from inside, so he stepped back slightly so that Phoebe could see him through the peephole.

As she unfastened the locks, he saw that although she had three on the door, they were nothing special. Davio and his army would blow through them in short order. And that meant that Ian and Phoebe had to leave. Now.

“What are you doing here?” Phoebe asked in amazement as the door finally opened. She’d washed her hair, and it hung around her face in shiny waves.

Ian lost a full two seconds just staring at her before he pushed past her. “Glock,” he said, aware as hell that she smelled really good. “I need it. Now.”

“My Glock?” she asked. “Why?”

“Yes, your Glock. Hello. Does anyone else here have a Glock?”

She was wearing jeans that fit her far better than the pair he’d given her in Aaron and Shel’s panic room. And while the shoes she had on were significantly less stupid than the heels that had come off in the swimming pool, she was going to need something with better traction.

“Sneakers,” he told her, snapping his fingers and pointing at her feet. “Get your sneakers.”

But she was standing there, staring at him, her brown eyes wide behind her glasses as she waited for an explanation, so he clapped his hands and added, “Move! Now!” even as he realized that this was, absolutely, the proof beyond all proof that she wasn’t Agency or even former military. This woman had no clue how to take an order.

Ian had learned through time that when dealing with civilians, concise explanations worked better than Because I’m in charge and I say so, so do it, God damn it! So he went with “Davio Dellarosa has tracked you here. Get your sneakers. We’ve got to leave, now.”

But he could tell from the way she was looking at him that she still honestly didn’t think she was in danger, so he continued, “He’s got six cars out there. At least twice as many men. All armed. These are not people who only want to talk to you. In fact, what Davio wants is for you to talk to him. To tell him where I am. To reveal the location of the safe house.”

“But I’d never do that,” she said.

“You might,” he countered. “After the second or third beating.”

Doubt flickered in her eyes. “You seriously think …?”

“I don’t think it, I know it. I know Davio. There’s a very good chance that Sheldon’s getting the shit kicked out of him right now. And I’m standing here, screwing around with you,” Ian told her. “This isn’t a game. Glock and sneakers. Now.”

Finally, thank God, Phoebe leapt into action, dashing from her foyer and into a condo unit that was virtually empty of furniture, with unpacked boxes lining the wall. She called back to him, “The Glock’s in my bag—kitchen counter. I’ll get my cross-trainers.”

“Yeah, ’cause you wouldn’t want badminton shoes at a time like this,” he fired back at her. Cross-trainers, Jesus.

The condo’s great room—a spacious, high-ceilinged Floridastyle combination of living and dining room—was barely separated from the equally enormous kitchen by a granite island counter. The big combined room had one wall that was entirely glass, made up of a series of huge sliding doors that led onto a massive screened lanai-style balcony, complete with three giant ceiling fans overhead.

“I’m assuming you had no luck contacting Manny at the hospital,” she called from the other room.

“He was unable to take a meeting,” Ian told her as he stepped closer to the balcony to see … Yes, it directly overlooked the canal. Which meant he now had a last-ditch Plan Z. “Hurry.”

But hopefully, it wouldn’t come to that.

Phoebe’s kitchen was chef-worthy, with a gas stove and rich wood cabinets, but Ian didn’t give it more than a quick glance as he beelined for what had to be her bag on the counter. It was different from the lady-luggage she’d had earlier in the day—a light beige leather, which wasn’t good for those hiding-from-the-bad-guys-in-the-night moments that were sure to come. But the darker one was probably still wet. This was equally gigantic though, with a zipper he had to unfasten before diving in.

Sweet Jesus, did she really carry all of this shite around with her, as necessities? Power bars, makeup, tampons, twenty thousand pens of various colors, an assortment of different-sized notebooks …

But he was not here to judge. Something as heavy as her Glock would’ve sunk to the bottom, so he searched with his hand, just gingerly reaching in and feeling around, on the assumption that the weapon would be hard to miss. He was right. He found it quickly enough and pulled it and its holster free, only to have a bra come with it. He untangled the two, jammed the bra back into the bag and the handgun into the back waist of his jeans. And look. His disturbance had caused her house keys to float to the top of the debris. He pocketed them, too.

“Any extra ammo?” Ian called out, even as he opened the cabinet under the sink, searching for trash bags. Bingo. A box. Except they were white. “Shit.”

“Some. Not a lot. It’s in one of these boxes,” Phoebe said, emerging from her bedroom with her sneakers—her cross-trainers, forgive him—already on. She’d grabbed a sweatshirt, too, which was provident, since it was dark blue and therefore exactly what he needed. “Sorry, I don’t know which one. Although, for the record, I’d prefer it if you didn’t kill anyone with my gun, please.”

Ian zipped her bag back up as he carried it and met her in the middle of the empty great room. “I’ll do my best not to,” he told her. She grabbed for her bag, but he held it out of reach as he took her sweatshirt from her instead. He put the light-colored bag inside the torso of the sweatshirt, turning it into an easier-to-carry hobo bundle by tying the two arms together. Only then did he hand it to her. “It’s dark out there.”

She nodded. “Your shirt?”

Was white. She clearly understood the concept.

“I’ll take it off,” he said. “If they see us. I can use it to misdirect.”

He could tell she didn’t quite understand, and Ian didn’t want to take the time to explain the vast intricacies of E&E—escape and evasion. One time-honored trick was the art of changing one’s appearance midchase. If everyone was looking for a tall man in a white T-shirt, then ditch the T-shirt.

“Just like this afternoon,” Ian told her instead as they moved to the door, “in the pool. When I tell you to do something you do it. No questions, no hesitation.”

Phoebe nodded, but then said, “I’m not sure why we’re not simply calling the police.”

“They won’t get here in time.” Ian opened the door just a crack to look out.

“Before what? Dellarosa’s men kick down my door, and drag me out, scratching and screaming? I think my neighbors might notice—”

“No,” he told her, pulling her out with him onto the outdoor corridor. “They won’t. Dellarosa’s men’ll do it quickly and quietly. You will not be conscious. They’ll make sure of that. Now, shh.”


To most people, shh meant stop talking. Phoebe chose to interpret it to mean that she shouldn’t speak quite as loudly. “So why don’t we make it noisy, right now?” she whispered. “Why don’t we start shouting and banging on doors—get as many of my neighbors out here as possible, create an anti-abduction flashmob?”

It was, at least in theory, an interesting idea. But it carried a huge amount of risk. “And put them in danger?” Ian asked. “That’s if anyone actually bothers to come to our aid. Which is assuming a lot. Most people won’t even open their door after dark. They’ll pretend they don’t hear.”

And … fack, as the driver of the first car would say. Dellarosa’s men were already in the courtyard. There was no going down the stairs. Their only options were up to the roof, or back into Phoebe’s apartment.

Ian quickly unlocked her door and pulled her inside.

“This can’t be good,” Phoebe correctly surmised.

“It’s not,” he said, as he went into the great room and picked up the nearest box. Jesus, what did she have in here? Although the fact that the boxes were heavy was a good thing. “Help me.”

She caught on fast enough and helped him pile the boxes in front of the door, creating a barricade.

“This is not going to keep anyone out for very long,” she pointed out as he grabbed another and another. She was right behind him. “Not if they’re determined. I mean yes, it’ll slow them down—”

“That’s all we need,” Ian told her. “Just to slow them down.”

“Except I can’t help but notice that we still haven’t called the police,” she said.

“They still won’t get here in time,” he said again. “And even if they did, the Dellarosas have people working for them everywhere. We wouldn’t be safe.” Ian humped the last few boxes as she stood there, staring at him. “Grab a knife from the kitchen, will you? A paring knife if you have one. Something small and sharp.”

His request snapped Phoebe out of whatever disbelieving reverie she’d fallen into, and she swiftly went behind the island counter to open a drawer.

“Oh my God,” she said. “We’re going off the balcony, aren’t we? I have to warn you, I have terrible upper-body strength. The thought of climbing down … I just don’t think I can—”

Ian interrupted her. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Why?” she asked. “Do you really think you can carry me?”

“Don’t have to.” He smiled because he knew from the look in her eye that she’d already figured out what he was going to say next.

“Oh my God, Ian …”

He said it anyway. “We’re gonna jump.”

* * *

Phoebe looked down into the murky depths of the canal, to where the water came up against the wall just outside of the Dockside condos. She’d seen large, deep-keeled sailboats pull right up to that canal wall, so she knew that the water there was plenty deep enough for a two-story plunge.

She also knew that Ian could swim really well, being a former Navy SEAL.

That didn’t make it any better.

“Do you have a case or something for your glasses?” Ian asked, because no, they would not stay on her face when she hit that water, way down there. She untied the arms of her sweatshirt so that she could get her glasses case out of her handbag.

Oh my God, they were really going to do this—she was really going to do this. Still, she couldn’t help but make a small sound of pain and despair as he used one of her new kitchen knives to cut the balcony screen.

“This won’t be hard to fix,” he said.

“As opposed to the kicked-in door and the damage to the apartment done by looters after the place is left open?” Phoebe asked, taking off her glasses and closing the hard case with a snap. It was better not to watch.

“I’ll keep these in my pocket.” Ian took the case from her, which was his subtle way of telling her that she was probably going to lose the entire contents of her handbag in the canal.

This was all her fault. She’d naively refused to believe that she was in danger, refused to accept that she’d stepped into a situation that was right out of the pages of some fantastic fictional spy thriller. Although truth be told they hadn’t even gotten to the spy part, complete with its Mission: Impossible rescue of those poor kidnapped children. They were here, sidetracked—indeed, her fault entirely—by the murderous mob boss and his thugs, who were out for blood, and who could’ve gotten her to reveal the location of the safe house after her second beating, if not her first.

Phoebe had truly believed that her being a lawyer made her untouchable. But no doubt about it, she’d become the woman who idiotically went into the basement to check the circuit breakers when the lights went off, with a serial killer on the loose.

She was, officially, too stupid to live.

And yet Ian had come after her.

“I don’t want to do this,” Phoebe said.

Ian nodded. “I know. But you don’t have a choice.”

“God, I hate this. I hate you,” she said.

“Yeah, I know that, too. I’m sorry. Give me your bag, I’ll take it. Come on. Climb up here.” He patted the balcony railing.

She sat on it, intending to swing her legs over, but he shook his head. “Feet on the rail. We’ll need to push off. I know it looks like the canal is right below us, but it’s not. There’s a few feet of wall. We’ll need to get past that. It’ll help if you can push, but if you can’t, just hold on to me. I’ll get us where we need to go.”

“Oh my God,” Phoebe said, as he helped her up, helped her balance, showed her where to hold on to the frame of the screen while he pulled himself up beside her.

“Do you know how to do a cannonball? That’s the best way to hit the water from this height—arms and legs in close, head tucked down.”

“I can try,” Phoebe told him.

Ian’s face was blurry in the dimness of the moonlight, but he came into focus as he leaned in close. “You’re gonna be great,” he told her with a smile that made his eyes impossibly blue. “After we hit the water, we’ll swim beneath the surface, and then we’re going to hide under a dock at that marina that’s just to the north.” He pointed, but without her glasses she couldn’t see that far. Still, she knew the marina in question, so she nodded. “We’ll need to be as quiet as possible each time we surface for air. No talking. At all. Do the best you can to control the sound of your breathing. You understand?”

She nodded again and whispered, “I’m sorry. I’m the one who should be sorry, and I am. I truly am. I’m—”

Ian leaned in even farther, and she was so surprised she didn’t move back—she just stood there clinging to the edge of her balcony—as he shut her up by brushing his lips against hers.

It was barely a kiss, but it still qualified, and then it definitely qualified as he did it again. Slower, longer, deeper.

Even sweeter.

“And I’m truly sorry that you hate me,” Ian whispered, and it would’ve been insanely romantic had they not been about to jump off her balcony. “On three. One … two!”

He jumped on two.

The bastard jumped—and he pulled her with him—on freaking two.

* * *


Shelly looked over at Berto, who was lost in his own thoughts, driving through the night. The darkness of silent citrus groves and fields for grazing cattle had finally given way to the chain restaurants, motels, strip malls, and gas stations on the outskirts of Sarasota.

Their destination—a copy and shipping store where he could use a computer and send Aaron and Francine an email—wasn’t too much farther away.

“Why didn’t you trust her?” Shel asked his half brother now.

Berto glanced at him. He knew exactly who Shel was talking about. Francine.

“You should have trusted her,” Shel said.

“Yeah,” Berto said. “I know.”

“She saved my life,” Shel said. “I remember sitting there, outside of the headmaster’s office, with Aaron and just thinking that I was going to die. That Davio was going to kill me.”

The sex tape had made its way into the email of the staff and administration of the private school, and Shel and Aaron had been called in. They’d spoken to the school social worker first—Mrs. Thompson was an older woman who was terrible at her job—and she’d informed them that both Aaron’s brother and Shel’s father had been notified and emailed a copy of the video.

Shelly had gone into shock at that news—and Aaron knew it. After Thompson had delivered them back to the waiting area outside the headmaster’s office, Aaron urged him to leave, to run away.

“But then Francine called my cell,” Shel told Berto. “She said she saw the video when she was at class, over at the community college, and she came home to make sure I was okay, but that Davio had gone ballistic. She was whispering, she must’ve been in the bathroom, and she said—I will remember this for the rest of my life. She said, I got this. It’s gonna be okay. And then she told me to tell Aaron to check his text messages.”

“She cut her hair,” Berto said. “I should’ve known, because she cut her hair.”

Francine had cut her hair. Really short. As short as Shel’s.

She must’ve done it herself, because the back was really ragged. Still, on her, the style had looked elegant. It drew attention to the shape of her face, and her astonishingly beautiful eyes. She was beautiful with long hair, but strikingly so with it cut that short.

“She sent Aaron a bunch of texts,” Sheldon told Berto. “LOL, baby, let’s do that again soon. And pictures.”

He knew Berto had seen them. Pornographic selfies that, once they were on Aaron’s cell phone, confirmed her confession: Francine was the one in that video with Aaron.

“She saved my life,” Sheldon said again. “You know that Davio would’ve killed me.”

Berto nodded now, his hands tight on the steering wheel as the muscles jumped in his jaw.

“I didn’t hit her,” he finally said. “That was Davio. But what I did? It was just as bad. I walked away and I let him do it. Francine needed my protection. My trust. And I abandoned her.”