Chapter 6

The bell rang. I moved with Denise and Janis like we were one body. Triplets with different parents. Inseparable, right down to nearly identical class schedules. Leaving physics and rushing out of the lab. And at 17, I was as I should have been - giggling and carefree.

It was the last single moment in my life when I was ever carefree.

They were waiting for me as we came moving out of physics. Three men and a woman. I don't know why, but some sixth sense told me they were there for me. When the principal reached across Janis and touched my arm, I went with them like it had been pre-ordained.

Trembling into wakefulness, body drenched in cold sweat as I fought the dream away from my mind. Terry's arm dislodged from my waist. He stirred but didn't wake. I slipped from bed, pulled on my robe and padded downstairs to the bar in the grand living room. Standing in front of the back window, sipping a scotch. Shuddered suddenly, almost violent in my trembling.

I hadn't hugged my father goodbye that morning.

When they told me, it wasn't real. I waited a long time for them to admit it wasn't true. Even over the distance of years, I remembered that feeling as if it were happening to me just then. And I could also remember each time I cried. It only happened three times. Once about an hour after they told me and only because I was standing inside the principal's office listening and watching my classmates walking between classes and not comprehending why the world hadn't stopped yet. A second time when their caskets went into the earth and the priest threw clumps of red mud at them. And a third time when my father's cousin was driving me away from our house for the last time and I made her go back because I'd forgotten my father's fishing pole.

He died, I hadn't hugged him and I'd been too much a teenager to understand that life was so fragile and that I shouldn't take it for granted. After that? I didn't take life for granted but I was pretty lackadaisical about death.

Sometimes, I was mad at my father. Even to that day. I got angry at him because my mother died with him. They weren't trying to kill her and the only reason she died with him was because he was taking her away for the weekend to celebrate his promotion and their anniversary. A double reason to celebrate, he'd joked with us.

My father. He had raised me to be his daughter. Lord, I thought as I eyed my reflection in the window panes, he'd die if he knew just how well he'd raised me to be his heir. I was a month shy of being 18 years old when he died; he never knew just how close I came to being another him, how much I measured my career by his. How I'd dedicated that part of my life to him.

My mother. She raised me to be a carefree spirit. Her wishes for me died when she did. But she would have been proud of me, I always knew it. She would have seen the passion, she would have loved the devotion. She would have simply wanted me to have been surrounded by love and would have hated the years I wasted thinking I couldn't afford to need it in my life. She would have loved Terry. She would have understood the way I felt about him.

Our last morning together, I had rushed out of my bedroom and across the hall for the bathroom. My father made a grab for me, to get his morning hug, which had become less a routine the older I got. "Not now, Dad. Please. Gotta get ready for school." I blew past him with a frown.

"You're going to miss your old man when you go away to college," he growled, making another lunge as I dodged him.

"Yeah, like a hole in the head," I sassed and slammed the door in his face. I was running out of the house twenty minutes later, laughing at my father because he wanted me to come back and 'have a proper breakfast' and kissing my mom's cheek as she handed me lunch money and the check for my class ring on my way out the door. Her last words to me were to remind me I was staying with Janis and her family for the weekend and telling me where the emergency phone numbers would be in case I needed them.

An hour later, they packed the car. He was probably grumbling with my mother for taking so long to get ready as he fired up the ignition. The bomb that ripped them into shreds went off seconds after he started the car.

An hour after that, two agents from his agency accompanied my principal and guidance counselor to find me and tell me the bad news. I never asked why it happened. I think I was too young to grasp the fact that not every father did work that placed his life in jeopardy. I think I was too young to realize I could have asked those kinds of questions. I only looked at the records once; it was while I was working a case in Nashville. I was working with an agent from the Memphis office of the ATF on a case and asked him if I could get a copy. He had the case files shipped up by courier that afternoon and I'd spent a week glancing at them, not able to really study them because I guess there was a part of me that didn't want my truth that raw. Still lying to myself about it and pretty much okay with that.

My father was the head of the Memphis ATF office. He had been targeted by Joshua Hullett's militia, a now-defunct group called Sons of Tennessee Pioneers Militia. Billy Ray's father was the group's tactical officer and he was talented with car bombs.

I went to the trial. I had to. I was called as a government witness. What a joke. I sat outside in a cold marble hallway for six days waiting to testify about the timeline that morning. And then, some clerk came out and told me I could leave, that I wasn't needed anymore because the defense had stipulated to my testimony. I remember wondering why they'd made me come all the way back there from Virginia where I was in college by then. For that? Waited almost two years for the trial and this was it?

That's all I saw; it's as close as I got to the trial. Never heard a lick of testimony; only saw Joshua Hullett when they'd lead him in and out of the courtroom under a phalanx of guards.

I don't remember much about the days after my parents were killed. I stayed with Janis and her family until my father's cousin came down from St. Louis. Together, we made the arrangements. I remember signing shit loads of papers. Funeral. Burial. Sale of the house. Disposal of the furniture. Stuff about the will and the trust fund created for me.

Only two months left in high school and they decided I didn't need to stick around to finish. Best to make a new start, my father's cousin advised. I moved in with her at her condo outside St. Louis until I left for college. Never saw Memphis again after the trial, which came when I was a sophomore in college. Never went back for the appeals. Barely read the notices they sent me whenever he challenged his death penalty. Too many fucking years later and he was still alive, still appealing his sentence from a federal high-security prison in southwest Virginia.

After college, I went in the military because that's how my father started. I had planned on going in the ATF after I left the military to follow the natural progression of his career. The agents he commanded in Memphis sent me one too many letter telling me just how high he had hung the moon; I knew making it in his agency, following that closely in his footsteps -  that it would never work. I'd never measure up to his memory. It's the only reason Kirk was able to talk me into joining the DEA. I saw it as being close enough to the ATF that my Dad would approve but far enough removed that I could still carve out my own professional niche.

There were a lot of times when I was working undercover that I would wonder if my father had ever felt like me. If he'd been scared or lonely or uncertain or cowardly. Or if he'd always known the right thing to do, if he'd always been the hero.

Measuring myself against the greatest hero in my life. He remained an ideal for me; I lived my life with the knowledge that someday I'd be with him and we'd have something to talk about.

But I never talked to people about my father. He was too mythical by the time I was resolutely seeking to walk a path he'd already blazed for me. It was too deep of a hurt, too painful of a wound. Besides, from the moment I was in the military, I was surrounded by tough men and I was determined to be just that tough. Emotions were a luxury I wouldn't waste in that time.

For the longest time, Kirk was a father figure to me. It's why it took so long for me to see him for what he was. 

I didn't tap into my mother until I was pregnant. It was the first real, solid connection I had to her since she'd died. It was the first time I understood why she loved me in the particular and devoted way she had. It was like I opened my eyes for the first time in my life and understood why she used to be happiest when our little family was alone together.

Perhaps the absence of the truth about my parents' death was the biggest and most fragile lie in my life with Terry. All I'd ever told Terry was that my parents had been killed. He had tried probing me about it; the most he ever got out of me was that I hated to remember it. I did tell him about how it felt to leave high school early and how hard it had been to not have my parents around at the holidays when I was in college.

On the other hand, Terry was the only person I'd ever told about the good times with my parents. About the way it had felt to be part of that family, to be loved without reserve and to know without any doubt that you belonged. I remember so clearly telling him how I'd never thought I'd have that again but that he was the only person capable of making me feel like I mattered in the way my parents had made me feel. Didn't it count that I'd at least told him the whole truth about that small aspect of me?

Now with all these crappy coincidences happening, he was learning a whole Hell of a lot more than he'd ever realized there was to learn about their murders. The careful and oh-so-fragile lies of omission were lies nonetheless.

I'd already had to tell Terry about Joshua Hullett assassinating my parents. He'd been good enough to not press for details in that moment; although, I imagine that was mostly due to the fact that when he learned this little tidbit, he was busier reaching out for me as we struggled to come back together as a couple in that night.

I'm not sure if I could remember the last time I'd ever talked to anyone about what had happened to my parents.

He came looking for me when he woke to find me vanished from the bed and the suite. "Are you suddenly developing an aversion to waking up next to me?" he asked lightly as he drew near me. His arms gathered me to him. He probably felt the tension in me.

"Bad dream," I said. "Didn't think I should bother you."

He tugged me behind him and we ended up sitting snuggled up together on the couch. I curled up in his lap and flashed across the million things I could have told him about my parents and what losing them had meant to my life.

"Want to talk about it?" he asked me softly. 

"You think Henry worries about you dying?" I asked him.

"What?" He leaned over and looked in my eyes. "I don't know, Lisa. Don't know I've ever thought about it. Why?"

"I was wondering ... well, my father ... I always knew he had a dangerous job. But I never worried about him dying." My God. I couldn't believe I had said it. Bald. Bold. Out there in the open. "For a long time after they were killed, I wondered why I'd never worried about the possibility of him dying. I guess I just wondered if Henry ever did because I sometimes wonder if I was abnormal for not worrying."

"Teenagers never worry about death. They just take life for granted," he said. "I would think you were pretty normal in that respect."

Sudden memory. Ribbons and a bow. Velvet lined box that snapped open. Tears because he'd understood I was growing up and then looking up at my father to see that he had tears in his eyes, too. I'd always been his daughter. I had loved being his daughter.

 "My father gave me the pearl earrings for my birthday when I was 17. He told me he wanted to be the first man to give me jewelry," I told Terry in a soft voice. "I felt like such an adult. That's the way he was. He just seemed to know me."

"Why did they kill your father? What did he do to them?" Terry asked me.

I looked at him, sharp eyes and suddenly alert. Hushed voice. "For a long time, I didn't know. I didn't care, much less want to know. But I got a look at the files once. It didn't help to find out."

His hand touched me, smoothing along my back, a gesture meant to bring me comfort. "I'm sorry. But I really want to know, Lisa."

Sighed and looked out into the night. "He'd just been promoted. He was moving into a position in Washington and we were going to be moving there with him after I graduated. Hullett and his group hated him because his team had been the ones to bust up an operation dealing with automatic weapons. During a raid, my Dad's agents had taken them so unaware and it had really embarrassed the militia. 'Caught 'em with their pants down,' my Dad was quoted in the newspapers saying. They'd arrested most of the members, including their leader. But a few of the militia had been killed in the raid. On the other hand, Hullett and a few of the other officers of the militia weren't there so they ran to ground."

Leaned away and looked at Terry. Noting his serious eyes. Sweeping my hand along his chest and leaning in to kiss those lips.

"What can I say, Terry? He challenged their manhood. Publicly. And to add to their humiliation, he let the media come to film his guys destroying the weapons they'd captured. When he got promoted right after that, Hullett figured he was getting the new job because of what he'd done to his militia brothers." Laughing softly. "Funny thing was, the promotion had nothing to do with the work with the militia. It had been in the works before the raid."

"So, that's why? Hullett targeted your father out of revenge?"

Revenge. Yeah, good Lord. A shiver raced through me because I suddenly captured how revenge had been something I'd always identified with. It was an impulse I was so familiar with. I understood the need for revenge. Ironic. And odd that it was Terry's remark that had been the first time I'd gotten that particular insight into my make-up.

"Revenge. Hullett got it, didn't he?" I was crying and didn't even know it. "One time, during the trial, they were bringing him in and we came face-to-face in the hallway. He took one look at me and called me Little Orphan Annie. He knew who I was. I spit on him and told him he was a coward. A picture of it made the front page of the paper the next morning."

Terry started laughing. It started with just his chest shaking with the force of keeping it in and then he was laughing out loud and it made me smile even though I didn't know why he was laughing.

Looking at him as he held a hand over his mouth and tried to stop laughing. Finally, he choked out, "Sorry, love. That just sounds like classic you. You spit on the bastard? I mean, fuck, he's trying to scare you and you spit on him? I've never known a woman quite like you."

And before we knew it, we were both laughing so hard we were weak from it. And somehow, seeing that side of it, it was a bonding experience. Terry knew so much of my bad side - the part of me that flared into instant reaction, the part that never wanted to back down, the part that plotted my revenge, the part that was secretive, the part that found it so hard to reveal myself - and he loved me in spite of it all.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side," he finally wheezed out, wiping tears from his eyes. They glittered on his face in the sudden shattering of the dawn's light through orange-sparkled tree tops.

"Don't give me that shit. Your bad side is every bit as impressive as mine, Mr. Thorne," I replied. "In fact, seeing you in full mode is much more impressive than me."

"Yeah? Think so?" I nodded solemnly at him and he raised his eyebrows at me in a mock challenge. His voice was a low growl. "Do I scare you, little girl?"

It was this flicker in time. Like a shiver went right through a delicate moment.  He pivoted on a dime, from warm support to heated interest.

"Should I be scared?" I whispered, my body leaning fully into him of its own accord. Still ravenous for unity with him, still seeking reassurance and salvation on the altar of him. And my own pivot happened. Harsh undertones, serious low voice and I was telling him, "You do scare me sometimes, Terry. It's when I see the predator in you, when you are capable of anything. You become this other man and ..."

His hands on my face jerked me into a rough kiss. Moving into me like his tongue couldn't get deep enough to satisfy his desire. Then shoving me flat onto the couch and kissing so hard into me that I knew a part of him was still trying to fight back the way he'd felt to intercept a message to me from an old lover and the sense he had that there might have been something that had happened in that long-ago affair that might worry him to know this man had re-entered my life. Not that he was jealous; but, I knew him well enough to know he was always frustrated that he didn't have the ability to have saved me from all the bad things that had ever happened to me in my life.

"Come," he commanded, rising instantly from atop me and dragging me to my feet. Pulling me resolutely behind him until we reached the suite. Shoving the door closed behind us by shoving my body up against it.

Locked instantly into this kiss that blazed across both our bodies. Picking me up by putting his big hands on my ass and then forcing my legs around his waist. Still not breaking this kiss. He was hungry and he was absolutely a darker Terry. The one that could lose control; I saw him so rarely and it was always an absolute turn on for the part of me that recognized what he gave up to me when he let me see him this way.

One arm under my ass and one arm locked around my back, he pulled us away from the door and walked across the room toward the bed. His lips sought my neck and I arched it sideways to give him total access. Closing my eyes and feeling him lower me to the edge of the bed. Flat on my back and he pried my hands from around his neck. Leaning over me, his hands on either side of my head, looking down at me, standing right up against me, in between my legs and not even breathing hard while I was panting.

"Lisa. You do know that you've never failed me. Inside here, you know that," he told me solemnly, his index finger rubbing softly over my heart. It had taken him almost two days to respond to what I'd told him that night. "And I've never stopped loving you. You do know that, don't you?"

Reaching a hand up to stroke his cheek. Ready to lie to him because there was a need in him to hear me say it. Just starting to nod to him and open my mouth when his hand touched my face to stop me.

"You were always home to me. I need to come home, baby," he told me in this deep voice that was so low it almost oozed out of him. One more hard kiss and he pulled away from me again. He was looking down at his hand as it undid my robe before it slid over my bare skin.

I trembled hard underneath his hand when it cupped my sex and his eyes flicked up to mine. A lost look on his face that lasted for just a moment. "Do you have any idea how much I need you?" I whispered to him as he was slipping to his knees and spreading my legs further apart.

He kissed slowly up a thigh and paused just when he reached my juncture. I was staring at the ceiling and trying to remember to breathe. And then my eyes clamped shut when he kissed me there, like he wanted to devour me. I was coming apart almost before he finished driving his tongue inside me because I knew what was coming next. No mercy for me as I writhed beneath him and nearly bucked him off me. His mouth was over my clit and he was alternating between slowly flicking there with his tongue and suctioning hard with his mouth.

He didn't stop until he heard me crying, choking out his name and reaching for him to come hold me. His body was gliding over mine and his eyes on mine were dark with his dominance over me. Murmuring to him and all he did was slide his big hands under my back as he thrust his cock into me below.

And from there, it was just this all-out fucking session. All about his need to work through his frustrations. And all about my need to understand that I'd never lose him.

By the time we woke in the morning, we were so in tune that it was almost eerie. Confident again with each other in this way that we would need in the coming days to meet the challenges that were even then being set for us.

Chapter 7

Two days before the deadline. Waking with a start and we both felt it in the wind. Life was about to ramp up.

The phone was ringing; my TBI friend Jason calling with news. And a demand.

"I've got what you need. Maybe more than you asked for even. Cid's not happy you called me, by the way," he said with a short chuckle. I snorted before he went on. "My boss wants to meet you before we do this. Cid's telling him your firm needs to be controlled. I'm telling him we can trust you two because you're professionals. So, Lisa, be on your best behavior, okay?"

As I prepared for the meeting, I was telling Terry about the relationship between TBI and FBI agents. My cell rang part way in and it was like he knew we were talking about him. Mark was calling to chew me out about going where I didn't belong.

"Mark, give it a rest, okay? You said you looked into us; if so, you know we'll negotiate but we also prepare to go in if it's the only answer," I said, interrupting his tirade. "What did you think that meant? Of course I'm going to see who else can help us out. Besides, I know you, and this thing with the TBI only bothers you because you want us dependent on you."

"I can bring this all to a stop. Don't think I won't, Lisa. All I have to do is tell the TBI and Washington about your relationship with Hullett's daddy."

That's what told me. He was going to make a stand at the meeting with the TBI boss, hoping it wouldn't get back to his own bosses. "We'll see you at the meeting, Mark. Bring it on." Hung up and looked at Terry. Shook my head and then scowled out the window. "He's acting like a fucking bureaucrat. And you know how much I hate bureaucrats."

"Maybe you should let me do the talking," he said quietly. I slid my eyes toward him. "In fact, maybe you shouldn't even be there."

He was right. He'd always be more diplomatic than me in these types of situations. And he sure as Hell didn't have the emotional baggage I was carting around like a five-ton rock of resentment. "Okay, Terry. Just don't let Mark rattle you."

They were meeting in a motel that was off the interstate exit just before Nashville's city limits. Jason had deliberately chosen a place where all the people attending would be able to shake any tails well before they got there. I called Jason after Terry left and told him something had come up that I needed to attend to. Described Terry to him so he'd be able to find him in the lobby.

Sometimes, I wonder why we don't foresee disasters? I mean, this had all the clues for a pretty stupid mistake on my part ... yet, when I envisioned the meeting, all I could see was how Jason's boss was going to be like all big bosses were with Terry. They never failed to trust him with that confident, understated and deadly professional demeanor of his. All I could imagine was how well Terry was going to measure up against Mark and his petty ranting. It never once crossed my mind to picture Terry and Mark in the same room and the opportunity that gave them to talk to each other.

While Terry was gone, I poured through the files and background material that I'd only had time to give the most cursory examination to. Inside the files, I picked up a scent. A whiff of something that nagged at me. It wouldn't let me go but yet I couldn't put any real order to what was there to give me that sense. My ability to see patterns, the thing that had always made me stand out at State, was needed in this moment because I was convinced my eyes were seeing a pattern that my brain had not yet mapped out.

My head was pounding from the strain and I knew myself well enough to know it would never come to me if I just sat there worrying over it. I dressed in running shorts and a loose sweatshirt over a singlet. Bound my hair into a ponytail that bopped along in time with my loping run. Pounding down the drive, working up a fine sheen of sweat by the time I made it to the paved road. Running in place, I looked both ways, trying to decide which way to go. Then remembered the people who'd been watching the house through binoculars from the woods and headed up the road in the rough direction where they'd been.

At that point, I can honestly say, I had no real plan to do anything about the watchers. I only turned in that direction because they popped into my mind. But somehow, pushing myself physically had the ability to make my mind work clearer. I was concentrating on breathing, on pace, on form ... and it snapped right into my brain. I saw a new pattern so clearly. Like someone wrote it out for me.

And then I saw the van. Parked off the road, hidden behind bushes and I might never have seen it except I was suddenly seeing a lot of things I hadn't seen before.

I ran past the van and then started laughing. If anyone had seen me, they would have thought I was one crazy bitch. But what I was was something else - I was back in the game. At least that's how I felt. Like I'd gotten that sharp edge back, that ability to analyze complex situations.

When I had reached the next hill, I crossed the road and ran back toward the house. My eyes were steady on the woods pressing in on the roadside. There was no movement and I saw nothing to fear as I drew even with the van. Darting across the road, I was stalking noiselessly and carefully around the van in seconds.

My eyes picked up the trail they'd taken from the van into the woods. At least two people had walked that way and they had to still be at their lookout spot, watching the house. I wondered briefly why they hadn't worried that I might stumble across their van while out running. Hell, if I'd been them, I would have assumed I was using the run as subterfuge to come find out about whoever was watching.

Not such old hands after all, I thought. Sloppy. But wouldn't it make things easier for us if at least a few of these militia members were amateurs in this game they had started?

My head turned back toward the van. I crept along, peering inside the windows while staying alert to my surroundings. Memorized the license plate and the VIN. Tested the doors gently and they were locked. Smiled and pulled a bobby pin from my hair. Locks. Pfft. And I didn't even need my picks.

Opened the passenger door and started rifling through all the storage bins, the glove compartment and console. Then slid my hands around the seat folds and behind the visors, then peering under the seats. Quick, efficient and thorough; using the tricks I'd been taught long ago about making these lightning searches.

And here's what I found: registration that was traceable and that we could cross reference with the license plate and VIN; receipts for gas that gave us credit card information; mileage on the odometer that I could check the next day so we could figure out a rough idea of how far they were driving each day; an empty Coke can that might have forensics for which Mark would kiss my feet. But there were two things in that van that were priceless: a small address book that a quick rifle through turned up a few names that rang my chimes, and a notebook that even a cursory glance provided me with an almost instant confirmation of what was at the bottom of this kidnapping. Both these last items were inside a small cloth satchel that had been hidden under one of the back panel seats. It was a risk to take them with me because the owner was likely to miss them, but they held such value that I simply couldn't leave them behind.

I wrapped the can inside a small paper bag crumpled on the floor. I shoved the address book and the notebook inside my running bra and pulled my sweatshirt back down over them. Locked the car up tight and zipped back across the street.

By the time I was running up the drive, I was feeling on top of the world. I couldn't be bothered to take the time to shower off the sweat from the run. The only thing I wanted to do was start working on this stuff.

Got through the notebook and found it was essentially a manifesto of why the Shapiro family was chosen. It was more than the fact that they were wealthy. It all tied into a subsidiary of Samuel Shapiro's company. And it was personal to Hullett. It confirmed that every pattern that I'd suddenly seen before me that morning was right on target.

And the address book was a gold mine. Names? Oh, sweet Lord. Hullett was in there. But so was another name. The anomaly who had raised my antenna from almost the beginning. They had a connection and it didn't even surprise me.

I heard Terry's steps at the door and almost jumped into his arms when he walked in. Babbling to him as he backed me up and closed the door. His eyes steady on me and raising his hands to get me to slow down. It took two tries but I finally took a deep breath and told him about the van and what I'd found inside.

"Joshua Hullett is imprisoned in a maximum security federal penitentiary in Virginia. Wait. Let me start again," grinning at him and my hands uncharacteristically waving in front of me. "Okay, okay. About ten years ago, the feds decided to start getting smart about putting inmates to work. The state prisons had already moved beyond license plates, gardening and breaking rocks. I guess they figured they had all this cheap labor that no one had to pay benefits to or anything. So, anyway, they entered into contracts with private businesses and they'd have the inmates make things for the businesses who'd then turn around and sell them for a profit, of course. It was cheaper labor than going to Mexico, I guess."

"Lisa, is this going anywhere?" he asked me, sighing, taking a seat behind the desk. If I hadn't been overflowing with news, I might have seen something was wrong.

"Yeah, it is, Terry. Joshua Hullett is working on an assembly line making cardboard boxes. Inside the federal pen. And guess what company the boxes are being made for?" He shrugged his shoulders. "A subsidiary of Shapiro's main company. It's in the notebook and I've already verified it with Samuel. You have to read this notebook; you cannot believe how much Billy Ray hates the fact his father is spending his life working for a Jew whose company supplies cardboard boxes to the federal government to use to ship IRS forms and booklets."

His eyes flipped up to mine. "No fucking way."

I nodded and giggled. "Way. Shit, if there's any agency they hate worse than the ATF, it's the IRS. He's convinced the feds are doing this on purpose to torment his dad."

"Fuck." The word oozed out of his mouth and his eyes narrowed at me. "You do know this makes things look a lot worse for Maria and Rachel? This is way too personal to end with just taking money from Samuel."

My heart sludged to a slow thud. I hadn't really thought about that. It was like he'd dunked me in an ice bath. "We have to go get them. Don't we?"

He nodded at me, his face almost gray in its solemnity at this prospect. Reaching in his briefcase and pulling out a map that he methodically unfolded. Eyes up at me. Nodding as he saw me get it. "We'll have back up when we go in."

"They gave you a map?"

"And a diagram of the entire camp. They don't like Cid quite as much as you do, Lisa." His eyes darted down away from mine on this comment; his voice had a slight edge that made me examine him.

"What happened, Terry?"

"We met. We talked. I explained what we could do. Your Agent Cid's superior attitude seems to have gotten old to the TBI men." He was clipping those words off so sharp it was like his tongue was getting ripped to shreds by their edges. Still not looking at me.

"What happened with Mark?"

"It's not important," he said, and I knew it was. "Here. The camp's about a three-hour drive, they said. They've already scoped out an approach and a staging area."

Whatever had happened between him and Mark would obviously have to wait. I leaned over the map and studied the layout as he walked me through what each of the buildings were. He showed me where Maria and Rachel were being kept, the communications shed, a training tent, dining and sleeping areas, and their arsenal storage building. Other structures that weren't really too important. And one small building where Hullett stayed when he was in camp.

When he was finished and I'd absorbed it all, I reached out and touched his arm. "How soon do you want to go in?"

His eyes examined me for a short while, but it was long enough for me to see my blue-green seas had some storm clouds reflecting across their surface. Then he looked down at his watch. "Hullett's calling in at 3 p.m. Let's see what happens with this negotiation session and I'll have a better feel for it."

"Will we go tonight?"

"Maybe, but we'd all rather wait until tomorrow night.  Actually, they'd like me to see if I can get an extension on the deadline and then we would be more flexible and delay it another night if we have to. The TBI's getting a message through to their inside man."

"What about the FBI or ATF?"

Folding the map up with more energy than it required. "Cid was not at the table when we got around to planning this. I got the impression the TBI will discuss it with him later this afternoon. Guess we'll see then."

He was walking away from me, heading down to the downstairs study where he'd take the phone call from Hullett. Between the realization that Maria's life was in even greater peril than I'd been hoping and the knowledge that Mark had almost certainly done something I'd kill him for, I felt like I was standing in the tumultuous waves of an angry surf. It's the only reason I forgot to tell him the last thing I'd gleaned from the van.

The fiancé. I rushed to catch up with Terry. When I reached the bottom step, I tugged on his arm. "Richard's the inside guy," I whispered.

He eyed me carefully. "You've had a feeling about him from the beginning."

Yes, indeed, I had. But then he was the anomaly. And, that feeling should have been something that made me a lot more cautious than it did. I've replayed that moment in my head so many times. If only I'd not let Terry agree to a condition Hullett made in that phone call when we didn't really understand everything yet. The chance he took had such horrible consequences. But at the time, we simply didn't guess that the fiancé had found a way, undetected, into our suite the day before.

While we were waiting on the phone call from Hullett, I asked Terry gently to tell me about whatever it was that had happened between him and Mark.

"What did he say to you?" I asked him and watched the way his jaw tightened instantly. Reached out and stroked his arm.

Quick sideways glance at me. "He was married."

Like I'd been slapped. It stung. I closed my eyes and groaned. "That asshole. How in God's name did that come up? What? He just up and said, 'By the way, Lisa and I had an affair while I was still married'?"

"Did you know he was married?"

"Fuck yes, Terry. What difference does it make? You never had an affair with someone you knew was married?" Letting my anger at Mark allow me to say something that made it sound like I was upset with Terry. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I could have swallowed my tongue. "God, baby. I didn't mean it that way."

"No? You think because I screwed up one time that ... Forget it. Forget I said anything at all."

"No, Terry, don't shut me out. You want to know about Mark and me?" I said, my heart thudding hard inside my chest. Watching him carefully and seeing him squirm in anger. "Okay. Yeah, I knew he was married. Wish I could say it just happened, that it was a transitory weak moment but the truth is, it wasn't. Want to know more?"

"No ... Yes ... Fuck." Each word coming out more clipped. He finally faced me full on and searched my eyes. "I don't trust him. Should I?"

Eyes down for a moment then sweeping back up his body until I could meet his eyes again. "I'd trust him with my life. That's what sucks so much about it. Because on a personal level, he hurt me pretty badly, but on a professional level he's always been one of those people I'd want going in with me on an arrest. He'd lay down his life before he'd let anything happen to a fellow agent, he's got this ability to leave every emotion outside the operation when you're moving in on a raid and I've never seen him make a mistake in those kinds of situations."

"He says you seduced him and then made sure his wife found out. That you cost him his marriage." Terry said it quietly and then just watched my reaction.

"What?" I felt a coldness sweep into me. "That son of a ... That is not what happened. I did not ... It wasn't like that at all. We met on a case that Kirk let me take lead on to help me earn management points I needed to be considered for promotion. And it just ... Christ. What an asshole. Why would he tell you something like that? He must have figured you'd never ask me about it."

"So then what really happened between you?" Terry asked me and I wished like anything that the truth was somehow sweeter than Mark's nasty lie.

You're only young once. Invincible. Arrogant. Incredibly stupid. That was me then.

"It was a joint operation; we were trying to stop some drug smuggling into this tiny airport just south of Nashville. I was coordinating our team; he was the lead FBI person working with us. Since I'd risen higher in the DEA chain than Mark had risen in the FBI ranks, I was the lead tactical to coordinate both teams. But Mark was older than me and, he felt, a whole lot more appropriate to be the lead tactical. We fought constantly. About everything and he challenged every decision I made. Then ... I thought it just was one of those things. You know? Where underlying those kinds of battles is an attraction you're denying? He made a pass at me and I jumped at it. No hesitation, Terry, none at all. I thought I was so tough that I could separate the act of sex from work. I didn't plan on really falling for him."

"How old were you?" his voice was losing its anger and in its place was something else I couldn't identify.

"Old enough to know better. But so inexperienced." Laughing sadly and looking out the window. "Kirk found out we were screwing around and confronted me. You know how he found out? Mark told him. Mark took over the operation when Kirk called me back to Washington with a written reprimand for inappropriate behavior. It killed my promotion. Mark came out smelling like a rose because the operation was successful. Of course, it was successful largely because of the work we'd already done before I was taken off the team."

"And that's it? You never saw him again until now?"

I shook my head. "No, it lasted for a few more months. Terry, I thought it was love, but I didn't realize he had just been using me. He told me he loved me and I believed him even though he told me he'd never leave his wife. And then he said that it was too hard to hear my voice anymore when he knew we could never be together so I stopped calling him. It really never occurred to me that he wasn't as sad as I was. About a year later, he was in Washington for a conference and we ran into each other. He was putting the moves on me within the first three minutes. Kirk saw it happening and told me that Mark had been the one to turn me in. That he'd done it on purpose to get me off the operation. That's how I found out that all I ever was to him was an easy lay."

His hand touched my thigh but I wouldn't look at him. Saying to me, "It's never easy to be used."

"He loved that he made me cry, Terry. He told me he was flattered. I've never forgiven him for telling me that," I whispered. "And I did tell his wife. He was right about that. I wanted some revenge."

"If it makes you feel any better, take it from me when I tell you that what happened between you meant something to him, baby. He would never have tried to make this an issue between us otherwise," he said in this soft, understanding voice that made me turn and look into his eyes. "I'm sorry I let him get under my skin. Okay?"

I have often wondered if Mark hadn't known exactly what buttons he was pushing and had done it on purpose. Challenging Terry's manhood in a way that men understood and women only tried to comprehend. Not that I believe that Mark honestly anticipated the particular way in which Terry would seek to demonstrate that he was the better man. Trying so damned hard to come through for me that he made a mistake.

Two minutes before the phone rang at 3 p.m., Samuel wandered in to where we were. We were so intent on each other that his presence barely registered. By the time the call was coming through, I had headsets on and Terry had flipped on the recorder. For me, it was the first time to hear Hullett's voice. For Terry, it was the continuation of this relationship he was trying to develop with the person who'd kidnapped Maria and Rachel.

I closed my eyes and listened to Hullett's Tennessee cadence do vocal gymnastics with Terry's smooth Australian timbre. All Samuel could hear was Terry's side to the conversation. When he heard Terry explain that they'd only been able to gather together a little more than half the money that Hullett was demanding, he put his hand on my shoulder.

Looking up into his troubled eyes, I smiled and mouthed to him that he shouldn't worry. Just a part of the game, I assured him; still so comfortable with my ability to lie. In my ear, I could hear Hullett's profanity and was glad that Samuel wasn't privy to this part of the conversation.

"The rest is going to be nearly impossible to get together by the deadline you've given us, man," I heard Terry's smooth voice tell Hullett. Just the day before, Terry had gotten Hullett to agree to lower the price from $6 million to $4 million. It made this so much more difficult to now be asking for more time to bring the agreed-upon amount together. "Even another day would make a huge difference in this. Would it really be that much of a problem for you to give us another 24 hours?"

More cursing and questioning of Terry's parentage. Then a long pause and I looked up at Terry. He had turned his back on us and was staring out the window.

"Fine. You want another day, I want something from you," Hullett said, his voice low and filled with menace. "I gave you proof the Jew girls were alive. I want proof their Jew daddy's coming through with my money."

Hackles on the back of my neck whizzed up. Terry's smooth voice said, "Tell me what you need."

"That's the attitude, buddy. I want a good faith payment. That's what I want. Proof he's planning to pay me," Hullett told him.

Turning in his chair and catching Samuel's eyes, Terry gave a tight smile and told Hullett, "What would you consider a good faith payment? Talk to me."

Hullett made a noise, like he was considering what to say. Then, accent thick as the smoke billowing from under an illegal still up in the Tennessee hollers, he said, "Ten percent. And I want it today."

"Let's just make sure we're on the same page. We bring you a ten percent down payment and you'll give us an extra 24 hours to finish getting the rest of the money together?" Terry was making notes on a notepad and I was nervous about the turn of events.

In all the time I'd worked with Terry and Dino, I couldn't remember another deal going down quite this way. But as Terry kept telling me, we were dealing with people who hadn't done this before. And if I was reading Terry's body language correctly, he wasn't too concerned about this turn of events. When I asked him later, he said he always expected to have to give up something when he was asking the other side to give up something.

Muttering out his agreement to the terms, Hullett said, "So that's $400,000. Today. You got it with you?"

"I've got it. How do I get it to you?"

"We'll make this easy. Leave now and drive to Knobb's Restaurant. Know it?"

"Yeah. It's down near the interstate. We passed it coming in. Then what?"

"Give me your cell phone number. When I see you've arrived without an escort, I'll call you and let you know where to go from there. Now, you and your partner listen careful, Aussie," Hullett said, his voice shifting into something soft and dark. My heart sped up at the way it made me feel. "We'll be watching you. You know we're watching the grounds, right? I want you and you alone coming to meet me. Leave the woman at home, Aussie. And no cops, no Fibbies, no tricks. If I sense anything, the princesses are dead. Got me?"

Terry closed his eyes and put a hand out, laying it atop mine. "I hear you, man. Loud and clear. It'll be just me. No tricks. We both want this to work out, right?"

When he hung up, he looked at Samuel. Told him to get $400,000 of the ransom money into some kind of a carrying case or satchel. When Samuel left, Terry finally met my eyes. "This is good news. We'll get this over with and then we'll have the time we need to plan the rescue the right way," he told me, solid voice of reason.

Swallowing down on worry that I told myself was an overreaction, I nodded to him. "You'll call me as soon as you make the drop? Actually, Terry, you should call me and let me know each hoop he makes you jump through. I want to be able to track you if something ..."

"Goes wrong?" He said it so low, his eyebrows quirking up and his eyes studying me. "Nothing's going to go wrong, Lisa. He's only getting ten percent today. He wants the rest. There's no way he's going to do anything to jeopardize the real money. He's doing this just to show he's still in charge. And, he is. So we need to play it his way. Okay?"

Nodding at him and watching as he came around the desk toward me. Glancing at the door to be sure Samuel wasn't about to walk in on us. Then hands sweeping along my jaw and bending for a light kiss and a whispered promise to me, "I'll be back before you know it. Promise me that you won't do anything stupid while I'm gone?"

"Like what?"

"Like coming after me, baby. No matter what happens, promise me you won't try to tail me. All it would take is for whoever's watching to call and let him know. We'd fuck the whole thing up. Promise me that no matter what, you'll stay put?" he asked.

Nodding into his gaze and feeling a bad sense of foreboding over this. But when he was walking out of the door, gripping an overnight case with the good faith payment, I put my hand on his arm and whispered to him, "See you soon, okay?"

Brief smile at me, tight with the tension of the moment. No matter how safe he might have felt on an operation, Terry always felt the tenseness and seriousness when things began to happen. I watched from behind a window as he got in the rental car and drove off. My eyes followed his movement until the car was absorbed within the trees that blocked the road from us.

It felt wrong. Something. And, while I couldn't put my finger on it, I felt it. I went up to the suite and paced for a while. Then called Dino and told him what was happening. Movement, he told me and I heard the grin in his voice. Dino loved this part of every operation - when things moved. Terry was right, he said; no way would Hullett try anything that would jeopardize the delivery in two or three days of the bulk of the ransom money.

An hour later, I was wearing a rut in the carpet. No call from Terry. I kept replaying the conversation. Maybe Terry hadn't really understood that I wanted him to call me as soon as they told him where to go from the restaurant. Maybe they'd just met there and were still meeting.

Another hour later and I knew I had to do something. Still no word from Terry. I called Dino but he didn't answer his cell so I left a voice message. I dialed Mark's number but hung up before he answered. What? Like I'd really ask him to go out and look for Terry after what he'd done? Dialed Jason's number but hung up before I hit the final number. No way did I want the TBI broadcasting an alert on Terry's car. Too much chance that Hullett would find out and I knew it was better that he not think we were working with any agency.

Called Dave instead. What do you want me to do to help, he asked me. I didn't have a clue. You know you're going to have to go look for him, Dave said, and it was what I'd needed him to say. Any other advice, I asked him. Leave your emotions at the door, he said in a hard voice, I can hear you starting to cave in.

A light knock at my door and I opened it to find Samuel. Something's wrong, isn't it, he asked me. I nodded and took the keys to one of his cars that he was handing me. Checked my Glock and slid it into my back waistband. Tucked my cell phone in the pocket of the jacket I slung on, grabbed my purse.

"It's possible that they're trying to draw Terry and me away from here so they can come in to get you," I told him. "Go get Eva. I want you two to drive away the same time I do. I want the watchers to see you're leaving. If they follow anyone, it'll be me. You guys go first and I'll follow you to the expressway. If everything's okay, I'll flash my lights three times and you head into the city. Go check in at a hotel for the night. I'll call your cell when I know something."

We met at the downstairs door leading to the garage. I followed them to the on-ramp; no tails detected so I flashed them on their way. Then crossed under the expressway and drove into the parking lot of the restaurant where Hullett had told Terry to go first.

Saw Terry's rental car immediately but I circled the building just to see if anything popped out at me. Parked near the car and approached it cautiously. Glanced in the window and a large manila envelope was sitting on the driver's seat. Written on the outside of the envelope, in large block letters: 'Little Orphan Annie.'

That's when I knew. It had just gotten much worse. I was calling Mark before I even opened the door. "I need your help. Hullett knows who I am," I told him. "He has Terry."

In my car and driving to meet Mark at the hotel the TBI had used for the meeting that morning. On the way there, I was calling Jason with the TBI to come meet us.

Off that call and I was on the phone to Dino. This time he answered and I told him what I'd found. Inside the envelope, three Poloroids of Terry. Two showed him standing by his car and the look on his face was one I recognized from other operations. Angry in a way that made him so dangerous. The third one showed him on the blacktop of the parking lot. I couldn't tell if he was drugged, slugged or mugged. But he was down for the count, I told Dino. Is he alive? Dino asked me. I can't tell, I told him, but there's only a little blood on his mouth so I think he's alive. I'm flying in to help, Dino told me. Unfortunately, he was in Seattle, Washington, and I'd never felt so alone.

Thirty minutes later, Mark was examining the pictures. Nonchalant shrug of the shoulders and saying Terry just looked like he'd been punched. He's fine, he told me. Looking at the note from Hullett that had been in the envelope with the pictures. He just wants the other $2 million, that's all, he told me. He just wants you scared enough to force Shapiro to get the entire amount Hullett first wanted.

"You're such an asshole, Mark. Do you know that?" I gritted out to him. "I don't know why I called you. Terry asked me if I trusted you and I told him I did. Pretty stupid of me, eh? What part of this are you really not getting? Hullett knows who I am. This is not just about the money anymore. Why did I think you'd get that?"

When Jason and his boss got to the room we were in, I got more bad news. They hadn't been able to reach their inside guy, Jason told me, so there was no way we could go into the camp until the next night.

"He's going to kill him." My words dropped into the silence of the room and three men avoided my eyes. "We have to go tonight. He'll kill Terry and use that as proof that he's not going to play around with us. He'll kill Terry because he might hate me worse than his father ever hated mine."

It was going on 7 p.m. and I answered my phone on one ring when it rang. In my ear: "Baby, I'm all right. Don't worry. Just do what he says."

And then another voice in my ear: "Your husband has not been cooperating with us. In fact, I'd say he didn't like our hospitality much from the lengths he's made us go to so we can keep him with us. You want him back, Lisa? It'll cost you. And I'm not giving you any more time. The original deadline stands and the original amount stands. This is what happens when you fuck around with me. Understand? Hope so because otherwise, I'm happy to give you an even better lesson in just how serious I am."

"I understand. And Hullett? If you hurt him, I will track you down." My voice was so hard. All three men in the room watched me with steady professional eyes while I stood there feeling like a little girl lost. "Where and when?"

Giggling at me and making me want to reach my hand through the phone lines so I could crush his windpipe. "Have the money ready. Two days, honey, that's what you've got. I'll be in touch with more news tomorrow." And then just before I thought he was going to hang up, he got this hard whisper going to tell me, "Lisa? Can you even imagine how it made me feel to find out who you were? Can you even imagine how much better this is for me? Do you know how long my daddy's been in prison just waiting to die for a righteous execution?"

I stared at the phone for so long after he hung up. Not wanting to face what I knew was happening.

"He's alive," I said to the men in the room with me. "But not for long. We need to go after them tonight."

Jason and his boss traded glances. The boss shook his head, telling me that there was no way on earth they'd jeopardize their entire case when we could wait another day. Bullshit, I said, we don't have another day. We have two days before they'll do anything, he said, two days to get them the money. Waiting one more night on a rescue raid won't be a problem. Then he stomped out of the room when I carefully explained to him just how big of a fucking idiot he was. Pausing as he went to follow his boss, Jason said, "Hullett won't kill him, Lisa. Waiting won't be a problem. We'll go in tomorrow night and get them all. Okay?"

I barely nodded as he walked out the door. My body dropped onto the bed. "Go away," I told Mark, resigned to the fact that the FBI wouldn't help if the TBI wouldn't. "You don't want to know what I'm willing to do to get him back and I'm not waiting another night."

On the phone to Dino and finding out that he couldn't get a commercial flight out until 10 p.m. and he wouldn't get to Nashville until 8 a.m. Too late, I knew, but I didn't tell him. No sense giving him more things to worry about. He was trying to get a private flight arranged but even then it'd be so many hours later than we needed to be moving.

On my back on the bed and clicking the phone off.  Staring at the ceiling and picturing the map in my mind. I can do this, I said inside and knew it wasn't a question of 'can,' but that it was a matter of 'must.' No doubt in me at all that we were talking a window of opportunity that was only a few hours wide. I didn't believe he'd be alive the next night or I would have waited.

"Lisa, I'll go with you," Mark said, his voice that quiet professional one that I'd first fallen for. "We'll get Terry out first and then there will be three of us to take them on if there's any trouble. It'll be a piece of cake to get the other two hostages and get out."

I sat up slowly and examined his face. "You'd do this? You'll get fired."

Shaking his head at me and coming to sit next to me on the bed. Bumping his shoulder against mine, grinning at me and saying, "I'll only get fired if they find out."

"What about back up? Your guys will come with us?"

"Nope. I can't ask them to put their careers on the line." His grin left his face and his hand took mine. "I'm only doing this because I believe you'll go alone if I don't help. No matter what else has happened between us, Lisa, I can't be this close to you and let you do that. I'm not that much of a bastard."

"We can do this, Mark. I've faced longer odds. And when we get Terry loose, they won't stand a chance against the three of us," I said, trying hard not to cry at this turn of events. Turning to sarcasm to disguise how confused he was making me. "And you are a bastard. A big one. This doesn't change that."

Outside, the Tennessee hills were turning blue and night was gathering. Inside that hotel room, we pored over the map and diagram that Mark had brought with him. We hashed out where we'd approach and how we'd move in. It took us one long hour to plan and walk through a rehearsal. Still talking it over, nerves tamped down, we drove to the nearby Wal-Mart. Back in the hotel room we dressed in the black waterproof sports clothes we'd picked up there. Black knit caps over our heads and looking in the mirror, I got a sudden fix on Dino. Mark was smearing camo paint on his face and I was calling Dino to tell him of the new plan. Listening to his plea to wait because he'd found a private jet that could have him there in five hours. It'll be over by then, I told him. Promised that I'd call when I had Terry. Then I called Samuel and lied to him, telling him everything would be fine but they should stay in the hotel that night.

As I smeared the paint over my face, ears and neck, I visualized the success of the mission. In my mind's eye, I saw Terry with me and occupied the rest of my brain with practiced wordplay.

Home free. Free as a bird. Take to the wing. Fly away home. Homecoming. Coming Into The Rye. Home at last. Come home, little Sheba. Home is where the heart is. I'm coming home. I'm coming to get you.