“So you can give me time to figure it out.”

He laughed. And it made me feel good.

Another glance at my watch. “Three minutes.”

He looked back at the road and shot through another yellow light. “How am I going to accomplish anything if you don’t want me to use my gun. Why would you care whether Dez is hurt or not?”

I stared past my father at the side of a building where a fat, smiling Buddha was painted in bright colors-an advertisement for a bar called Funky Buddha Lounge. “Two months ago, I found my friend a few minutes after she was killed. And I saw Maurizio yesterday. I don’t want to be a witness to any more death.”

He said nothing.

“Plus, I don’t believe in an eye for an eye. If we hurt Dez, or someone else, when we don’t need to, it just hurts us in the long run.”

My father stayed silent.

“You don’t agree with that?” I asked.

“No.”

I held up my wrist to my face. “Two minutes. Thank God we’re almost at Lake Street. When you get there, take a left.”

My father nodded and leaned forward a bit as if he could make the car move faster. His mouth moved back and forth, his eyebrows pulled together under his copper-rimmed glasses. He opened his cell phone and started to dial.

“Who are you calling?” I asked.

“One of the men you saw outside the airport. I’ve changed my mind. I’m calling them in as backup.”

“But we were told not to bring backup. He said if we do that, he’ll kill Charlie.”

My father’s jaw worked more intensively. He breathed out a loud puff of air through his nostrils and threw down the phone. “No one should ever have to be in this situation. No one should ever have to do this on behalf of their son.”

“You brought it on yourself,” I said, then immediately regretted it. “I’m sorry.” My words shot out fast. “I shouldn’t have said that. I know you did the best you could do but…”

My father pulled to a stop at the light at Lake and looked at me. “You’re right. I brought this on myself, and I will handle it.”

We found the building easily. We got out of the car and looked at it. My heart thumped as we walked to the door. I looked at my dad. What were we supposed to do here? I had left my purse in the car, putting my cell phone and my ID in my pocket-in case they need to identify me-and now I felt naked, unarmed.

But my dad wasn’t.

His head swiveled, his eyes searched the neighboring buildings. What was he looking for? Snipers? I had no idea.

I let my eyes do the same, trying to learn from him, even though I wasn’t sure what we were studying.

At the door, my dad found a buzzer and pushed it. He looked at his watch.

“Are we here in time?” I said.

He gave me a terse nod.

The door popped open but only a crack. Nothing else happened. I stared at that sliver of black in between the door and the frame. It seemed vast, as if an entire galaxy might be contained within it.

My dad pulled it open. We stepped inside. We had to blink until our eyes adjusted to the faint light.

But then I saw him clearly. Dez Romano. He wore a dark suit, black shoes and a blue tie with tangerine and white dots. He looked dressed for a wedding or some other fashionable social event.

“Isabel,” he said with a big grin. “Or I hear you prefer Izzy.” He waved his left hand, as if to say, It doesn’t matter. “You ran away from me that night at Gibsons. You won’t be running away from me tonight.”

I heard a gurgle behind me, sort of a half laugh, half clearing of the throat. I spun around, flinched. That Ransom guy. The guy with the fucked-up tattoos on his neck. He was smiling big at me as if he was really happy to see me. His lips were thick and moist and one of them had a couple sores on it. I tried not to make a disgusted face. But he must have seen it, and it only made him smile more.

He took a step toward us. I noticed he wore a walking boot on his foot, probably because of Mayburn running over it outside the nature museum.

“Spread your legs,” Ransom said. His words were the most sadistic I had ever heard-garbled and rough, as if he had stones in his mouth, but with a leer, as though he loved to say them.

When neither my father nor I complied, Dez Romano shouted, “Spread your legs. Both of you. Or I’ll kill little Charlie. In front of you. Do it. Right. Now.”

I snapped into action. My father was slower to do the same. I saw him shaking his head. Ransom went to him first, easily found his gun and tossed it to Dez, who looked at it, then back at my father. “I suppose I can let you get away with this. I didn’t tell you not to bring any weapons. But I did tell you not to bring any backup. If you did, the deal is beyond dead. And so are you two.”

Ransom stepped in front of me then and grinned, his mouth wide and wet.

He ran his hands over my arms first, then my waist. He took my ID and cell phone and tossed those at Dez, too. Then he dropped to his knees, the walking boot not seeming to affect his movements at all. He looked up at me, and I wanted to kick him in the face. I wanted to smash his nose and crush his windpipe with the heel of my shoe, but instead I let him grin, let him look up at me as if he was about to perform some sort of sexual act. He drew his hands up one of my legs, then the other. When he got near the middle of the left leg, he paused, then his hand kept moving up. It was horrible. I stopped my body from trembling, stopped myself from showing terror, and the monumental effort caused something to bubble up inside me, caused movement of the one thing I’ve never been able to control. My mouth.

“Just so you know,” I said, “I’m easy, but I’m not cheap.”

Ransom’s hand jerked away, and when I looked down, his face went blank. He looked over his shoulder at Dez, who started to laugh.

And then I couldn’t control it-I kneed him. Not hard. I knew I couldn’t get away from him, and I knew kicking him too hard would only bring more of his sick wrath upon me, but I couldn’t help but give him a firm knee into his shoulder when he looked at Dez, just so he knew I could do it.

The action didn’t make Ransom fall from his crouch, but it did make him pissed. He glared up at me with a snarl, his wet lips open in surprise, then stood and leaned over me.

“Oh, Isabel,” Dez said. “You really, really don’t want to make him mad. You wouldn’t believe what he wants to do to you already. Don’t make him want it more.”

His words made my stomach churn with sickness and fear. But I wouldn’t show it.

“Get away from her, Ransom,” Dez said.

Ransom licked his lips, but then finally moved behind me. I could feel his breath on the side of my neck.

Dez pointed to my father, using the gun. I flinched instinctively. Dez saw it and shot me a small smile, the way you would a little kid who’d done something adorable.

“You and I,” Dez said to my father. “We need to talk privately. In case that talk doesn’t go well, I’m going to let you say goodbye to your son first.”

“That’s not necessary,” my father said.

“Sure, it’s necessary,” Dez said. “I think goodbyes and that kind of thing are important.”

“Really, that’s not-” my father started to say.

But Dez interrupted. “Plus your wife is in there, too. I’m sure you’ll want to have a chat with her.”

We both froze, looked at each other.

Did he just say “your wife”?

Dez cracked a big smile now. “Ransom, let’s show these folks where the rest of the little family is.”

Ransom put a hand on my biceps and squeezed hard. Instinctually, I flinched and tried to yank my arm away, but then I heard a soft, distinct click.

I turned to look at Ransom. And found myself looking at the barrel-was that even the right word?-of a handgun. I forced myself to look away, to look at Dez. He was pocketing my dad’s gun, holding one of his own and pointing it at my dad. “Mr. McNeil, if you’ll walk down this hallway, we’ll just follow you.”