She hung up.

Nick exhaled in relief and made sure the call had disconnected. That hadn’t been too bad. When he didn’t call Lisa back, she’d move on. After all, it had been just sex. No sweet nothings, no endearments, no promises of the future. Soon enough, she would realize that she could get a better deal elsewhere.

He had just exited off the highway at Ohio Street when his cell phone rang again. He glanced over and checked the caller ID.

Shit.

He quickly backtracked, thinking about how long it had been since their last conversation, and realized he undoubtedly had another pissed-off woman on his hands. Perhaps this was one of the reasons he preferred to stay undercover. No accountability.

Bracing himself, he clicked the button on the steering wheel to answer. “Ma – I was just about to call you.”

“Right. I could be dead and you wouldn’t even know it.”

Nick grinned. Despite being perfectly healthy and fit at almost sixty, his mother issued frequent proclamations about her death and the ways in which people would inevitably wrong her in it. “I think Dad, Matt, or Anthony would probably call me if that happened.”

His mother, the illustrious Angela Giuliano, who had once disappointed every smitten, fiery Italian man of marriageable age in Brooklyn (as the story was frequently told to Nick and his brothers) by allowing the strong, silent, and decidedly non-Italian John McCall to drive her home from the Moonlight Lounge on a fateful New Years Eve thirty-six years ago, snorted in disagreement. “What do your brothers know? They both live less than fifteen miles from this house, and your father and I never see them.”

Nick happened to know that both of his brothers, as well as practically every living relative in New York on his mother’s side of the family, had dinner at his parents’ house at three o’clock every Sunday afternoon, no exceptions. His father had long ago accepted the weekly Italian invasion as the price one paid for marrying into the Giuliano family.

As happened every time he spoke to his parents or his brothers, Nick felt a pang of guilt. He was more independent than his two younger brothers, and in that sense, the thousand-mile separation from his parents wasn’t entirely a bad thing. But still, he sometimes missed those Sunday dinners. “You see Matt and Anthony every week. You see everyone every week.”

“Not everyone, Nick,” his mother said pointedly. Then her voice changed and turned warmer. “Well, except for this upcoming weekend.”

Nick paused at this. It could’ve been a trap. Perhaps his mother suspected something was up with her birthday and was fishing for information. Although it was surprising that she’d come to him – she usually went after Anthony, who had the secret-keeping skills of a four-year-old.

“Why? What’s happening this weekend?” he asked nonchalantly.

“Oh, nothing much. I just heard something about a sixtieth birthday party your father and you boys are planning for me.”

Fucking Anthony.

“And don’t go blaming Anthony,” his mother said, quick to protect her youngest. “I’d already heard about it from your aunt Donna before he slipped.”

Nick knew what her next question would be before the words left her mouth.

“So? Are you bringing a date?” she asked.

“Sorry, Ma. It’ll just be me.”

“There’s a surprise.”

He pulled into the driveway that led to the parking garage of his condo building. “Just a warning, I’m about to pull into the garage – I might lose you.”

“How convenient,” his mother said. “Because I had a really nice lecture planned for you.”

“Let me guess the highlights: it involved me needing to focus on something other than work, and you dying heartbroken and miserable without grandchildren. Am I close?”

“Not bad. But I’ll save the rest of the lecture for Sunday. There’s going to be a lot of gesturing on my part, and the phone doesn’t quite capture the spirit.”

Nick smiled. “Shockingly, I’m looking forward to it. I’ll see you Sunday, Ma.”

Her voice softened. “I know how busy you are, Nick. It means a lot to me that you’re coming home.”

He knew it did. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

EARLY SATURDAY MORNING, Nick received yet another call.

He opened his eyes and saw that it was still dark outside. He rolled over in bed and peered at the clock on the nightstand. Five thirty-eight A.M.

He reached for his phone and checked the caller ID. Huxley.

Today was the big day, and Nick could certainly appreciate the junior agent’s enthusiasm. Huxley had every right to be excited about his first undercover operation.

Just not at 5:38 A.M.

He answered the phone, his voice low and rough with sleep. “At this hour, somebody better be dead, Huxley.”

There was a tortured groan on the other end of the line. Nick sat up in bed. “Huxley?”

A weak voice answered.

“No one’s dead. But I think I might be close.”

NICK RANG THE bell to Huxley’s wood-frame duplex. As he waited on the front steps, he took a look around. Despite the blizzard that had hit earlier that week, the steps, walkway, and front sidewalk were shoveled pristinely. The yard had not one speck of litter, and the evergreens in front of the porch were shaped in a neat row of perfect triangles.

Definitely Huxley’s place.

He rang the bell again and waited a few more seconds before trying the door. Huxley had said to come in if he didn’t answer, in the event he was indisposed. Nick pushed open the front door and entered the quiet house cautiously. He instinctively reached for the gun holstered in the shoulder harness underneath his jacket, then caught himself. From the sound of things, whatever had gotten ahold of Huxley could not be stopped by bullets.

Nick paused in the entranceway. “Huxley? You alive?” There was a staircase to his left leading upstairs, and a dark hallway in front of him. No lights appeared to be on anywhere inside the place. He checked the bathroom to his right. Empty.

Then came a feeble voice. “In here.”

Following the voice, Nick cut through the hallway, the soft thud of his footsteps on the hardwood floors the only sounds in the house. The hallway opened into a spacious great room and kitchen area that looked like something out of a Pottery Barn catalog. There, he spotted Huxley.

Or at least, what he thought was Huxley.

The well-groomed agent he was used to seeing in three-piece suits and sweater vests sprawled facedown across the beige sectional couch, with one hand limply clutching a garbage can on the floor next to him. Far from a three-piece suit, he was dressed in a navy sweatshirt and checkered flannel pants. Strangely, he wore only one sock.

Nick slipped off his coat and came around the couch. Huxley weakly lifted his head. His eyes were glazed, and the hair on the left side of his head shot up into the air in a blond Mohawk.

“I wouldn’t get too close,” Huxley warned. The effort of holding up his head proved too much, and his face fell back into the pillow.

Nick took a seat on the far opposite end of the sectional. “Wow. You look awful.” He peered more closely. “What’s going on with your hair?”

Huxley spoke into the pillow, his voice muffled. “The stomach pains came on when I was in the shower. I had to get out ASAP. Mid-shampoo.”

Nick nodded. “And the missing sock?”

“In the laundry. I puked on my foot.”

“Oh.”

With painstakingly slow movements, Huxley rolled himself over. He groaned and his head lolled against the pillow. “The good news is, I haven’t thrown up for twelve minutes. Before that I only made it nine.”

“I don’t think it’s like labor contractions, Seth. Whatever you’ve got doesn’t look like something that will pass quickly. Could it be food poisoning?”