“Yes, sir, General Stark.” Dante saluted him with tired smile.

“Hey! There is only one general in this family, and it ain’t him.” Bob wagged his finger at him.

Dante chuckled, as he dragged himself off the bed. Exhaustion sank in. He walked the house with his father and uncle to help them get their bearings. They took pictures of how the place looked, so they could return the house to an almost identical state before they left. They resolved to use electricity and heat for as little as possible, to reduce the likelihood anyone in the Marshals Service would catch their intrusion. Then they took turns showering quickly, before falling into bed exhausted.

***

Laurie

Laurie raised her head up from the toilet. She gripped the seat, pushing herself off the floor with trembling arms. She still felt so nauseous, but nothing was happening. She might as well go downstairs.

Laurie walked back into her bedroom in shuffling steps. The wind outside the house rattled the windows and sent a chill through her. She looked at her bed, sighing. She’d hardly slept since Dante left. Her nightmares had come back, more vivid than ever. When she wasn’t at their mercy, she lay awake wondering where Dante was and if they were all okay.

She dressed, throwing her hair back into a ponytail. She knew there were bags under her eyes and her skin was blotchy from lack of sleep, but she didn’t have enough energy to put on make-up. She made her way down the stairs holding tight to the railing, as she worked hard to put one foot in front of the other. When she reached the kitchen, Emma and Gabriella looked up, then exchanged worried glances.

“Oh honey, are you still not feeling well?” Emma clasped her hands together.

“No. Not at all.” She dropped into a seat at the kitchen table.

“How about some juice?” Emma got up. “Do you want anything to eat?”

“I can’t eat anything, but I’ll take the juice.” Laurie rested her head in her hands.

“Laurie, you’ve been like this for a few days now. I think we need to take you to the doctor.” An edge of authority slipped into Gabriella’s voice.

Laurie sighed. She hated doctors, but she was so tired of fighting them on this.

“Okay.” She laid her head down on the table as her stomach turned over again. She might not want to go, but if the doctor could at least tell her what was going on, it would be worth it.

Emma set down some juice and saltines in front of her. Laurie picked up the juice, taking a small sip.

“Well, the nearest doctor’s down in Fremont.” Emma rubbed Laurie’s shoulders.

“Great.” She spared the saltines a heated glare before turning her attention back to her juice.

“I know something that might make you feel better.” Gabriella flicked her eyes up at Emma.

Laurie eyed them suspiciously.

“My lovely son sent us a message.” Emma walked over to the kitchen counter and picked up a piece of paper.

Laurie almost dropped her juice. She tightened her grip on the glass, then she swallowed and looked at Emma.

“What? When? Where?” Laurie leaned forward onto the table.

“He e-mailed me, from a generic account.” Emma handed Laurie a piece of paper.

Laurie read the header, an e-mail from ‘John Smith.’ It was a rambling e-mail about gardening. Her brows knit together as she looked to Emma.

“It’s in code.” Emma nodded to the paper. “I used to play a game with him when he was a child. He would write in code. Take every third letter in each sentence and it makes a different sentence.”

Emma reached over and flipped the piece of paper. On the back, scribbled in Emma’s handwriting, were two simple sentences:

Close to Kaimi. We are fine.

“They’re okay.” Laurie breathed a sigh of relief.

The barest edge of Laurie’s tension slid away from her shoulders. She placed the piece of paper down on the table. Laurie stroked it with her index finger. Dante was okay. They were getting close to Kaimi. She hoped it were true on one hand, wanting to see the man behind bars. On the other, she wished Dante would give up this insane hunt and come back home.

“They’re just fine.” Emma said with a sneer as she walked away from the table.

Emma looked so wound with tension, Laurie thought she might explode. Every movement she made nudged her along the path of a dangerous fuse.

“What’s wrong, Emma? Aren’t you glad they’re okay?” Gabriella quirked an eyebrow at her.

“Oh, I’m glad, Gabriella. I’m very glad my retired husband and son are out hunting a killer.” Emma jerked open the pantry door, turning toward them.

“They’re going to be okay. They’re all highly trained—” Gabriella began.

“That’s what I’m worried about.” Emma came toward her. “That they all come out of this just fine, and then they’ll come back here full of their own invincibility. Then what happens next time? What happens when my husband goes running off on yet another mission and Bob and Dante aren’t around? He just can’t…he can’t keep doing this forever.”

Emma dissolved into tears, as she sat back down at the table.

Laurie reached over to rub Emma’s shoulder.

Gabriella got up to hug her.

Emma had voiced a secret fear they all had. They hated to admit it, but the men coming home unharmed was the least of their worries.

Laurie loved Dante. Yet, if he succeeded and found Kaimi, she would have to go back to Hawaii. Dante would go back with her to stand in the line of fire, ready to protect her for as long as they let him. There was no guarantee the Marshals Service would let him protect her for long. They would hide her somewhere. Who knows if they would even let her speak to him. God, she might never even see Dante again. The thought made her heart twist in her chest.

However, the Marshals Service didn’t know where she was hiding. If…no, she wouldn’t go there. When Dante returned safely, they could stay here for as long as they wanted.

Laurie pushed that thought away as well. Without her testimony, the prosecutor would have little proof that Kaimi killed Katherine and Easton, at least not enough to convict. She was the evidence that tied him to the crime. She couldn’t just let that go.

She would have to make a choice. She honestly didn’t know what she would do when the time came, so she stared at the table in despair.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Dante

The rain began to pour down, running into Dante’s open window. In the minute it took to roll up the window in the piece-of-crap rental car he was in, his arm and shoulder were soaked. Annoyed, he brushed the drops from his arm with more force than necessary.

His father sat beside Dante in the passenger’s seat. Albert hadn’t moved at all during the three hours they sat outside of the house they were watching.

Dante jumped when Albert suddenly grabbed his shoulder. Dante’s annoyance grew as he turned to his father.

Albert nodded toward the house.

Dante glanced back at the house. They had been watching it for the past four days. After culling through all of the CIA reports on Kaimi, they had narrowed the pool of potential hideouts to three. This house was at the top of the list. Owned by one of Kaimi’s long-standing rivals in the gun trade, it appeared in report after report after report, going all the way back to Kaimi’s first rise to law-enforcement attention. Though it had never been a reported safe-haven, the shear frequency of its occurrence in the documents outnumbered other locations almost two to one. Kaimi’s men had come here for numerous meetings, Kaimi had come for parties and dinners. There had been an altercation or two between Kaimi’s men and the men in his rival’s staff. It would also make the perfect hideout, since the Feds would discount it because of who owned it. The mansion was on a hill near Kukio Bay in a multimillion-dollar resort, within easy reach of a marina. The dark foliage around the walled mansion also made surveillance almost impossible. Albert had sniffed out the only real vantage point after a day or so of searching. It was the driveway of a deserted home downhill from the mansion.