"My name is Special Agent Joseph Bellacera, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and I need a patrol officer immediately. It's an emergency."

Charlotte had regained some of the feeling in her hands, but Bonnie still held the paper bag to her mouth and repeated the instructions to breathe slowly. The last time Charlotte had hyperventilated like this, she'd been in labor with Hank.

That memory caused her to burst into tears again. She ripped the bag from her face, crumpled it, and tossed it into the bed of marigolds near the garage door* where someone had apparently propped her up.

The driveway was jammed with cars. The FBI was there, and so were a bunch of guys in black ball caps and windbreakers slapped with three huge white letters: DEA. And now there was a Minton Police squad car screeching up to the curb and she didn't understand-the note Ned had read to the agents specifically said no police. And the neighborhood was swarming with them!

Joe.

She watched him run across the lawn and cut through the sea of men in suits and windbreakers and squat down right in front of her-so close that she could see that his eyelashes were wet. He shook when he squeezed her hands in his.

"I'll get them, Charlotte."

How she hated him for endangering her family! She hated him for leaving! But he was back, and the relief flooded her, bringing with it a small bud of hope.

She wanted to hit him. She wanted to hold him.

She wanted to tell him all of that, but she was drowning in fear. The fear was stronger than anything else, and it was pulling her down.

Then she felt his kiss on her lips and his breath on the side of her face.

"I swear to you, nothing will happen to your children." His whisper was rough and he clutched her hard to his chest "I will make sure they come home to you."

Joe pulled away, and as he lanced her with his dark gaze she understood that he was saying good-bye-that he fully expected to trade his life for the lives of her kids, just like the ransom note said.

"I love you, Charlotte."

She nodded then, able to get her mind around one pure thought, one true feeling-that she loved this man with her heart and soul. She always had and always would.

"I wanted all of us to love each other, Joe."

He nodded, tears streaming down his cheeks. "We do, baby. We already do."

That's when the DEA agent who seemed to be in charge walked up behind Joe, put a hand on his shoulder, and spoke in a gentle voice. "We don't have much time,"

Joe shared the photos with agents and reread the note, scrawled in black felt tip marker on a piece of ripped notebook paper.

Pretty Lady: Have Agent Joe Bellacera here in two hours for exchange. No police or your children will die.

Every single word in that note filled Joe with anguish. The expression "Pretty Lady" made him sick to his stomach.

"What's the best guess on the timing?"

"I got here just a little after nine," Ned said. "Charlotte said she'd been inside for no more than five minutes, so I'm estimating the abduction occurred about four minutes before nine."

Joe's mind raced-it was already 9:37. Every minute the kids stayed with those animals brought them a minute closer to dying. He couldn't afford to let his thoughts wander to Steve and Reba and Daniel. He couldn't look at Charlotte, sitting cross-legged in the driveway, her face contorted with fear and grief. He couldn't even think that this was all his fault-what good would that do now?

And what good would it do to admit that Roger had been right-that he'd had no business getting involved with Charlotte and her kids?

He and Cincinnati Field Office Supervisor Rich Baum had already had a little private chat: There were only two ways this situation could have a happy ending. One, FBI snipers could take Guzman's men at the exchange before Joe and/or the kids got killed; or two, if they could figure out where the kids had been taken-and get there in time- they might be able to use the element of surprise to get the kids out alive.

The only problem was that no one even knew which way they'd turned on the state highway. The neighbors saw nothing.

Joe was about to discuss sniper placement with the FBI agent in charge when another car pulled into the drive. LoriSue Bettmyer got out of her BMW along with what looked to be a street person. The closer they got, the more the guy looked like Jimmy.

"What in the world is going on?" LoriSue's fists rested on her hips, and Joe watched her eyes fall on Charlotte, then widen in horror. "Where's Justin?"

Rich Baum stepped forward. "Mrs. Bettmyer, it seems that your son-"

"Where is he?" LoriSue's voice hit a supersonic screech just before she began to sob. "Oh, my God!"

"What's this about?" Jimmy demanded. "Where's Justin?"

Rich seemed too flustered by LoriSue's hysteria to answer, so Joe told the parents as calmly and quickly as he could, storing for later the obvious fact that Jimmy had just had the snot beaten out of him and was wearing something straight out of someone's home garage. "We believe all three kids were taken as hostages. We are doing everything we can to determine where-"

"Hostages?" they both screamed.

Joe and Rich wasted at least five precious minutes getting the Bettmyers calm enough to listen to all the specifics they could give them. When they were done, Jimmy mumbled something under his breath that sounded a lot like "holy shit" and looked around in a panic. Then he said to Joe, "Can you describe these guys?"

It struck Joe as an odd question, but he asked one of the FBI agents to give Jimmy the photo of Guzman's men.

Jimmy took it in one bloody hand, and Joe watched the edge of the photo tremble. Jimmy looked up, his eyes full of what Joe identified immediately as guilt.

Ned put a hand on Jimmy's shaking arm. "Do you recognize them?"

Several, agents heard Ned's question and gathered close. Charlotte and Bonnie pushed into the circle. Lori-Sue raised her head from Rich Baum's jacket and glared at her husband. "Jimmy?"

"I know where they are," he whispered.

Between them, they had four bobby pins, a penknife, three shoelaces, a safety pin, and a half bag of Nerds. It wasn't much, Matt knew, but it was a start.

They'd explored every inch of that dark pantry with their hands and discovered a fire extinguisher bolted to the wall just inside the door. They'd determined that the wooden shelves were removable. They found a metal towel rack on the inside of the pantry door.

They'd also explored the doorknob and door frame, figuring that the men had somehow jammed the door from the outside, because the knob turned freely and there was no boty or lock that they could find.

So the challenge was how to use the resources and information they had to get them out of there.

Justin suggested using the pocketknife to unscrew the door hinges, which would have been good, except that they couldn't get to the hinges when the door was shut.

Hank suggested using the shelves to beat down the door, which was stupid, because they'd make such a racket that the men would know what they were up to and be waiting for them even if they managed it. But Matt thanked her anyway, figuring she didn't need to hear that her idea sucked eggs.

He was wondering how they could use the fire extinguisher to their advantage when he heard the men's voices coming closer, getting louder. It sounded like they were arguing.

"Do you think now's a good time to tell them I need to use the bathroom?" Hank asked.

"No!" he and Justin said in unison.