He nodded sagely. “Right. So we’re going to have a big blowup about me reading the letter, and we’ll just gloss over the fact that once again you decided to shut me out of your life.”

I love Brian to death, but right now, I wanted to smack him. “Don’t be a drama queen about this. There are a couple of children whose lives are in imminent danger, and you want to argue about the lack of openness in our relationship? Get a sense of proportion already.” He puffed up indignantly, and no doubt if I’d let him get a word out he’d have put me right in my place. So I didn’t let him get a word out.

“I didn’t want to tell you because yes, I was afraid you’d want to go to the police, and yes, I think that’s a piss-poor idea. If I’m wrong and you’d never dream of calling the police, then by all means please, continue to tar and feather me. Otherwise, stuff a sock in it.”

His lips quirked into a grin that seemed completely out of place given the situation. “May I use your stove?”

“What?” I asked, wondering if he’d suddenly misplaced his mind.

“To heat up the tar.”

I opened my mouth to say something, but my brain went on strike and refused to feed me any pithy replies.

“Here’s my suggestion,” he said, and I swear even though he was pissed at me he was enjoying my discomfiture. “Since you’re such bosom buddies with the Director of Special Forces, you call him. I suppose technically that’s calling the police, but he’ll probably be able to make a better judgment on whether to take this on in an official capacity or whether to keep it off the books.”

Once again, I couldn’t think of a good reply—unless it was duh! Maybe the sleep deprivation had stolen more brain cells than I realized. Or maybe I’d just been picking a fight, because hey, I’m ornery that way.

“You still shouldn’t have read it,” I said, but there was no heat left in my words.

“Are you going to call Adam, or aren’t you?”

I wanted to ask what he would do if I said no, but I was too chicken. I was pretty sure he’d say he’d call Adam himself, and that would lead to more arguing. For once, I wasn’t up for that.

“Yeah, I’ll call him.”

I should have known better than to expect Brian to trundle on home like a good little lawyer. I hoped he was sticking around for the reason he stated—that he wanted to help me—not because he didn’t trust me to make the call. Not that I had any room to throw stones where trust was concerned.

I hated the idea of calling Adam when he and Dom were in the middle of their own personal crisis—assuming Adam had done as he’d said and let Dom know about the crisis. But Claudia Brewster’s daughters couldn’t wait until the love boat sailed on smooth waters, so I picked up the phone and dialed his number.

No one answered, and this wasn’t exactly the kind of message I could leave on an answering machine. I figured he was probably at work, so I called his cell phone, but that went straight to voice mail. I bit my lip. It seemed silly, and maybe even a bit hypocritical, to worry about Adam. If there was anyone more capable of taking care of himself than Adam, I didn’t know him. I left a terse message for him to call me ASAP, then decided to try his office number. I hated calling his office. Everyone who’d ever answered the phone there was an asshole—including Adam, now that I thought about it—but I called anyway.

“He called in sick today,” said the man who answered the phone. He had a nasally voice that made everything he said sound like a whine, though so far he’d been perfectly polite.

I held the phone away from my face for a moment and stared at it as if it were somehow responsible for the crap I’d just heard. “He’s a demon,” I said with forced patience when I decided the phone wasn’t to blame. “Demons don’t get sick.” One of the fringe benefits that went with being possessed, though giving up your entire life seemed a bit too much to pay.

“No,” the officer whined, “but they do get sick days. And Director White took one. I’ll put you through to his voice mail.”

“No, that’s not—” But he’d already hit the transfer button. Like I said, assholes all. “. . necessary,” I finished, hanging up the phone. This was a shitty time for Adam to go AWOL. He was probably at home, just ignoring the phone. I so didn’t want to go there in person looking for him. If he and Dom were in the Dreaded Black Room, they probably wouldn’t even hear the bell.

However, I didn’t have any better ideas, and I was all too conscious that the clock was ticking. I didn’t know what the chances were that the kidnappers were ever planning to let those kids go, but I figured that as with all missing persons cases, our best hopes of finding them were in the first forty-eight hours.

“Road trip,” I said to Brian, and he followed me without question.

When we got to my car, I found I had a flat tire—a nuisance I so didn’t need right now. I didn’t feel like taking the time to change the tire, so we took a cab to Adam’s place. It was past rush hour, so it didn’t take long to snag one, and since the cabbie drove at somewhere around the speed of light, we were at Adam’s practically before we left my apartment. A peek at the small parking lot across the street showed me that both Adam’s and Dom’s cars were in residence.

Ever the gentleman, Brian paid the cabbie—which was probably a good thing, since I didn’t think I had any cash on me—and together we climbed the steps up to Adam’s door. I pressed the doorbell, but I didn’t hear any sound. I pressed again, harder. Still nothing. Great! A broken doorbell reduced the chances of anyone hearing me from about twenty percent to about zero.

I grabbed the knocker and gave it a few heavy thumps. The sound was gratifyingly loud, but after a good sixty seconds of waiting, no one came to the door. I tried again, with the same result.

“I guess no one’s home,” Brian said.

“Their cars are in the lot.”

He shrugged. “It is actually possible to get places in this city without driving.”

“Remember, I’m the smart-ass. You’re the nice guy.”

He grinned. “Oh yeah. Sorry, forgot about that.” I rolled my eyes at him, then backed down the steps and craned my head upward. There didn’t appear to be any lights on in the house, but then it was the middle of the day.

“You don’t happen to know how to pick locks, do you?” I asked. Brian just gave me a look that said I was crazy. It was my turn to shrug. “Never hurts to ask.”

Any moment now, Brian was going to decide it was time to give up on Adam, and I felt sure his next suggestion would be a call to 911. I couldn’t let that happen.

If you let me in, I can break the door, Lugh whispered in my head.

I hesitated. The fact that I could hear him at all meant my defenses were already weak. Weak enough for me to voluntarily let Lugh take over? A shiver crawled down my spine then back up again. I grabbed Brian’s arm and dragged him around the corner. I didn’t want too many people watching us as we cased the place. The last thing I needed was some Good Samaritan calling us in as suspicious loiterers.

“Let’s go sit down for a moment,” I said, jerking my chin toward a bus stop half a block down. A bus was just pulling away, so the bench was empty when we got there.

“Okay,” Brian said slowly, watching me suspiciously. But he didn’t press until we’d both sat down. “What’s up?”

I took a deep breath and ordered myself not to panic. “I’m going to try to let Lugh take over so he can break the door down.”

Brian’s eyebrows shot up in almost comical surprise. “That’s ridiculous! They’re almost certainly not home, and I doubt Adam would appreciate having you vandalize his house.”

“Not me, Lugh. And I’m pretty sure they’re home.”

“They can’t be. You knocked loud enough to raise the dead.”