The Witness

1

June 2000

Elizabeth Fitch’s short-lived teenage rebellion began with L’Oréal Pure Black, a pair of scissors and a fake ID. It ended in blood.

For nearly the whole of her sixteen years, eight months and twenty-one days she’d dutifully followed her mother’s directives. Dr. Susan L. Fitch issued directives, not orders. Elizabeth had adhered to the schedules her mother created, ate the meals designed by her mother’s nutritionist and prepared by her mother’s cook, wore the clothes selected by her mother’s personal shopper.

Dr. Susan L. Fitch dressed conservatively, as suited—in her opinion—her position as chief of surgery of Chicago’s Silva Memorial Hospital. She expected, and directed, her daughter to do the same.

Elizabeth studied diligently, accepting and excelling in the academic programs her mother outlined. In the fall, she’d return to Harvard in pursuit of her medical degree. So she could become a doctor, like her mother—a surgeon, like her mother.

Elizabeth—never Liz or Lizzie or Beth—spoke fluent Spanish, French, Italian, passable Russian and rudimentary Japanese. She played both piano and violin. She’d traveled to Europe, to Africa. She could name all the bones, nerves and muscles in the human body and play Chopin’s Piano Concerto—both Nos. 1 and 2, by rote.

She’d never been on a date or kissed a boy. She’d never roamed the mall with a pack of girls, attended a slumber party or giggled with friends over pizza or hot fudge sundaes.

She was, at sixteen years, eight months and twenty-one days, a product of her mother’s meticulous and detailed agenda.

That was about to change.

She watched her mother pack. Susan, her rich brown hair already coiled in her signature French twist, neatly hung another suit in the organized garment bag, then checked off the printout with each day of the week’s medical conference broken into subgroups. The printout included a spreadsheet listing every event, appointment, meeting and meal, scheduled with the selected outfit, with shoes, bag and accessories.

Designer suits; Italian shoes, of course, Elizabeth thought. One must wear good cuts, good cloth. But not one rich or bright color among the blacks, grays, taupes. She wondered how her mother could be so beautiful and deliberately wear the dull.

After two accelerated semesters of college, Elizabeth thought she’d begun—maybe—to develop her own fashion sense. She had, in fact, bought jeans and a hoodie and some chunky-heeled boots in Cambridge.

With cash, so the receipt wouldn’t show up on her credit card bill, in case her mother or their accountant checked and questioned the items, which were currently hidden in her room.

She’d felt like a different person wearing them, so different she’d walked straight into a McDonald’s and ordered her first Big Mac with large fries and a chocolate shake.

The pleasure had been so huge, she’d had to go into the bathroom, close herself in a stall and cry a little.

The seeds of the rebellion had been planted that day, she supposed, or maybe they’d always been there, dormant, and the fat and salt had awakened them.

But she could feel them, actually feel them, sprouting in her belly now.

“Your plans changed, Mother. It doesn’t follow that mine have to change with them.”

Susan took a moment to precisely place a shoe bag in the Pullman, tucking it just so with her beautiful and clever surgeon’s hands, the nails perfectly manicured. A French manicure, as always—no color there, either.

“Elizabeth.” Her voice was as polished and calm as her wardrobe. “It took considerable effort to reschedule and have you admitted to the summer program this term. You’ll complete the requirements for your admission into Harvard Medical School a full semester ahead of schedule.”

Even the thought made Elizabeth’s stomach hurt. “I was promised a three-week break, including this next week in New York.”

“And sometimes promises must be broken. If I hadn’t had this coming week off, I couldn’t fill in for Dr. Dusecki at the conference.”

“You could have said no.”

“That would have been selfish and shortsighted.” Susan brushed at the jacket she’d hung, stepped back to check her list. “You’re certainly mature enough to understand the demands of work overtake pleasure and leisure.”

“If I’m mature enough to understand that, why aren’t I mature enough to make my own decisions? I want this break. I need it.”

Susan barely spared her daughter a glance. “A girl of your age, physical condition and mental acumen hardly needs a break from her studies and activities. In addition, Mrs. Laine has already left for her two-week cruise, and I could hardly ask her to postpone her vacation. There’s no one to fix your meals or tend to the house.”

“I can fix my own meals and tend the house.”

“Elizabeth.” The tone managed to merge clipped with long-suffering. “It’s settled.”

“And I have no say in it? What about developing my independence, being responsible?”

“Independence comes in degrees, as does responsibility and freedom of choice. You still require guidance and direction. Now, I’ve e-mailed you an updated schedule for the coming week, and your packet with all the information on the program is on your desk. Be sure to thank Dr. Frisco personally for making room for you in the summer term.”

As she spoke, Susan closed the garment bag, then her small Pullman. She stepped to her bureau to check her hair, her lipstick.

“You don’t listen to anything I say.”

In the mirror, Susan’s gaze shifted to her daughter. The first time, Elizabeth thought, her mother had bothered to actually look at her since she’d come into the bedroom. “Of course I do. I heard everything you said, very clearly.”

“Listening’s different than hearing.”

“That may be true, Elizabeth, but we’ve already had this discussion.”

“It’s not a discussion, it’s a decree.”

Susan’s mouth tightened briefly, the only sign of annoyance. When she turned, her eyes were coolly, calmly blue. “I’m sorry you feel that way. As your mother, I must do what I believe best for you.”

“What’s best for me, in your opinion, is for me to do, be, say, think, act, want, become exactly what you decided for me before you inseminated yourself with precisely selected sperm.”

She heard the rise of her own voice but couldn’t control it, felt the hot sting of tears in her eyes but couldn’t stop them. “I’m tired of being your experiment. I’m tired of having every minute of every day organized, orchestrated and choreographed to meet your expectations. I want to make my own choices, buy my own clothes, read books I want to read. I want to live my own life instead of yours.”

Susan’s eyebrows lifted in an expression of mild interest. “Well. Your attitude isn’t surprising, given your age, but you’ve picked a very inconvenient time to be defiant and argumentative.”

“Sorry. It wasn’t on the schedule.”

“Sarcasm’s also typical, but it’s unbecoming.” Susan opened her briefcase, checked the contents. “We’ll talk about all this when I get back. I’ll make an appointment with Dr. Bristoe.”

“I don’t need therapy! I need a mother who listens, who gives a shit about how I feel.”

“That kind of language only shows a lack of maturity and intellect.”

Enraged, Elizabeth threw up her hands, spun in circles. If she couldn’t be calm and rational like her mother, she’d be wild. “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

“And repetition hardly enhances. You have the rest of the weekend to consider your behavior. Your meals are in the refrigerator or freezer, and labeled. Your pack list is on your desk. Report to Ms. Vee at the university at eight on Monday morning. Your participation in this program will ensure your place in HMS next fall. Now, take my garment bag downstairs, please. My car will be here any minute.”

Oh, those seeds were sprouting, cracking that fallow ground and pushing painfully through. For the first time in her life, Elizabeth looked straight into her mother’s eyes and said, “No.”

She spun around, stomped away and slammed the door of her bedroom. She threw herself down on the bed, stared at the ceiling with tear-blurred eyes. And waited.

Any second, any second, she told herself. Her mother would come in, demand an apology, demand obedience. And Elizabeth wouldn’t give one, either.

They’d have a fight, an actual fight, with threats of punishment and consequences. Maybe they’d yell at each other. Maybe if they yelled, her mother would finally hear her.

And maybe, if they yelled, she could say all the things that had crept up inside her this past year. Things she thought now had been inside her forever.

She didn’t want to be a doctor. She didn’t want to spend every waking hour on a schedule or hide a stupid pair of jeans because they didn’t fit her mother’s dress code.

She wanted to have friends, not approved socialization appointments. She wanted to listen to the music girls her age listened to. She wanted to know what they whispered about and laughed about and talked about while she was shut out.

She didn’t want to be a genius or a prodigy.

She wanted to be normal. She just wanted to be like everyone else.

She swiped at the tears, curled up, stared at the door.

Any second, she thought again. Any second now. Her mother had to be angry. She had to come in and assert authority. Had to.

“Please,” Elizabeth murmured as seconds ticked into minutes. “Don’t make me give in again. Please, please, don’t make me give up.”

Love me enough. Just this once.

But as the minutes dragged on, Elizabeth pushed herself off the bed. Patience, she knew, was her mother’s greatest weapon. That, and the unyielding sense of being right, crushed all foes. And certainly her daughter was no match for it.

Defeated, she walked out of her room, toward her mother’s.

The garment bag, the briefcase, the small, wheeled Pullman were gone. Even as she walked downstairs, she knew her mother had gone, too.

“She left me. She just left.”

Alone, she looked around the pretty, tidy living room. Everything perfect—the fabrics, the colors, the art, the arrangement. The antiques passed down through generations of Fitches—all quiet elegance.

Empty.

Nothing had changed, she realized. And nothing would.

“So I will.”

She didn’t allow herself to think, to question or second-guess. Instead, she marched back up, snagged scissors from her study area.

In her bathroom, she studied her face in the mirror—coloring she’d gotten through paternity—auburn hair, thick like her mother’s but without the soft, pretty wave. Her mother’s high, sharp cheekbones, her biological father’s—whoever he was—deep-set green eyes, pale skin, wide mouth.

Physically attractive, she thought, because that was DNA and her mother would tolerate no less. But not beautiful, not striking like Susan, no. And that, she supposed, had been a disappointment even her mother couldn’t fix.

“Freak.” Elizabeth pressed a hand to the mirror, hating what she saw in the glass. “You’re a freak. But as of now, you’re not a coward.”

Taking a big breath, she yanked up a hunk of her shoulder-length hair and whacked it off.

With every snap of the scissors she felt empowered. Her hair, her choice. She let the shorn hanks fall on the floor. As she snipped and hacked, an image formed in her mind. Eyes narrowed, head angled, she slowed the clipping. It was just geometry, really, she decided—and physics. Action and reaction.

The weight—physical and metaphorical, she thought—just fell away. And the girl in the glass looked lighter. Her eyes seemed bigger, her face not so thin, not so drawn.

She looked … new, Elizabeth decided.

Carefully, she set the scissors down, and, realizing her breath was heaving in and out, made a conscious effort to slow it.

So short. Testing, she lifted a hand to her exposed neck, ears, then brushed them over the bangs she’d cut. Too even, she decided. She hunted up manicure scissors, tried her hand at styling.

Not bad. Not really good, she admitted, but different. That was the whole point. She looked, and felt, different.

But not finished.

Leaving the hair where it lay on the floor, she went into her bedroom, changed into her secret cache of clothes. She needed product—that’s what the girls called it. Hair product. And makeup. And more clothes.

She needed the mall.

Riding on the thrill, she went into her mother’s home office, took the spare car keys. And her heart hammered with excitement as she hurried to the garage. She got behind the wheel, shut her eyes a moment.

“Here we go,” she said quietly, then hit the garage-door opener and backed out.

She got her ears pierced. It seemed a bold if mildly painful move, and suited the hair dye she’d taken from the shelf after a long, careful study and debate. She bought hair wax, as she’d seen one of the girls at college use it and thought she could duplicate the look. More or less.

She bought two hundred dollars’ worth of makeup because she wasn’t sure what was right.

Then she had to sit down because her knees shook. But she wasn’t done, Elizabeth reminded herself, as she watched the packs of teenagers, groups of women, teams of families, wander by. She just needed to regroup.

She needed clothes, but she didn’t have a plan, a list, an agenda. Impulse buying was exhilarating, and exhausting. The temper that had driven her this far left her with a dull headache, and her earlobes throbbed a little.

The logical, sensible thing to do was go home, lie down for a while. Then plan, make that list of items to be purchased.

But that was the old Elizabeth. This one was just going to catch her breath.

The problem facing her now was that she wasn’t precisely sure which store or stores she should go to. There were so many of them, and all the windows full of things. So she’d wander, watch for girls her age. She’d go where they went.

She gathered her bags, pushed to her feet—and bumped into someone.

“Excuse me,” she began, then recognized the girl. “Oh. Julie.”

“Yeah.” The blonde with the sleek, perfect hair and melted-chocolate eyes gave Elizabeth a puzzled look. “Do I know you?”

“Probably not. We went to school together. I was student teacher in your Spanish class. Elizabeth Fitch.”

“Elizabeth, sure. The brain trust.” Julie narrowed her sulky eyes. “You look different.”

“Oh. I …” Embarrassed now, Elizabeth lifted a hand to her hair. “I cut my hair.”

“Cool. I thought you moved away or something.”

“I went to college. I’m home for the summer.”

“Oh, yeah, you graduated early. Weird.”

“I suppose it is. Will you go to college this fall?”

“I’m supposed to go to Brown.”

“That’s a wonderful school.”

“Okay. Well …”

“Are you shopping?”

“Broke.” Julie shrugged—and Elizabeth took a survey of her outfit—the snug jeans, riding very low on the hipbones, the skinny, midriff-baring shirt, the oversized shoulder bag and wedge sandals. “I just came to the mall to see my boyfriend—my ex-boyfriend, since I broke up with him.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Screw him. He works at the Gap. We were supposed to go out tonight, and now he says he has to work till ten, then wants to hang out with his bros after. I’ve had it, so I dumped him.”

Elizabeth started to point out that he shouldn’t be penalized for honoring his obligations, but Julie kept talking—and it occurred to Elizabeth that the other girl hadn’t spoken more than a dozen words to her since they’d known each other.

“So I’m going over to Tiffany’s, see if she wants to hang, because now I’ve got no boyfriend for the summer. It sucks. I guess you hang out with college guys.” Julie gave her a considering look. “Go to frat parties, keggers, all that.”

“I … There are a lot of men at Harvard.”

“Harvard.” Julie rolled her eyes. “Any of them in Chicago for the summer?”

“I couldn’t say.”

“A college guy, that’s what I need. Who wants some loser who works at the mall? I need somebody who knows how to have fun, who can take me places, buy alcohol. Good luck with that, unless you can get into the clubs. That’s where they hang out. Just need to score some fake ID.”

“I can do that.” The instant the words were out, Elizabeth wondered where they’d come from. But Julie gripped her arm, smiled at her as if they were friends.

“No bull?”

“No. That is, it’s not very difficult to create false identification with the right tools. A template, photo, laminate, a computer with Photoshop.”

“Brain trust. What’ll it take for you to make me a driver’s license that’ll get me into a club?”

“As I said, a template—”

“No, Jesus. What do you want for it?”

“I …” Bargaining, Elizabeth realized. A barter. “I need to buy some clothes, but I don’t know what I should buy. I need someone to help me.”

“A shopping buddy?”

“Yes. Someone who knows. You know.”

Eyes no longer sulky, voice no longer bored, Julie simply beamed. “That’s my brain trust. And if I help you pick out some outfits, you’ll make me up the ID?”

“Yes. And I’d also want to go with you to the club. So I’d need the right clothes for that, too.”

“You? Clubbing? More than your hair’s changed, Liz.”

Liz. She was Liz. “I’d need a photo, and it will take a little while to construct the IDs. I could have them done tomorrow. What club would we go to?”

“Might as well go for the hottest club in town. Warehouse 12. Brad Pitt went there when he was in town.”

“Do you know him?”

“I wish. Okay, let’s go shopping.”

It made her dizzy, not just the way Julie piloted her into a store, snatched up clothes with only the most cursory study. But the idea of it all. A shopping buddy. Not someone who preselected what was deemed appropriate and expected her to assent. Someone who grabbed at random and talked about looking hot, or cool, even sexy.

No one had ever suggested to Elizabeth that she might look sexy.

She closed herself in the dressing room with the forest of color, the sparkle of spangles, the glint of metallic, and had to put her head between her knees.

It was all happening so fast. It was like being caught in a tsunami. The surge just swept her away.

Her fingers trembled as she undressed, as she carefully folded her clothes, then stared at all the pieces hanging in the tiny room.

What did she put on? What went with what? How did she know?

“I found the most awesome dress!” Without even a knock, Julie barged right in. Instinctively, Elizabeth crossed an arm over her breasts.

“Haven’t you tried anything on yet?”

“I wasn’t sure where to start.”

“Start with awesome.” Julie shoved the dress at her.

But really, at its length it was more of a tunic, Elizabeth thought, and in a screaming red, ruched along the sides. Its razor-thin straps sparkling with silver.

“What do you wear with it?”

“Killer shoes. No, lose the bra first. You can’t wear a bra with that dress. You’ve got a really good body,” Julie observed.

“I’m genetically predisposed, and maintain fitness and health through regular daily exercise.”

“Get you.”

And the naked—or nearly—human body was natural, Elizabeth reminded herself. Just skin, muscle, bone, nerve.

She laid her bra on her folded clothes, then shimmied into the dress.

“It’s very short,” she began.

“You’re going to want to ditch those Mom panties and buy a thong. That is definitely club-worthy.”

Elizabeth took a breath, turned to the triple mirror. “Oh.”

Who was that? Who was that girl in the short red dress?

“I look …”

“Awesome,” Julie declared, and Elizabeth watched a smile bloom on her own face.

“Awesome.”

She bought the dress, and two others. And skirts. She bought tops that rode above her waist, pants that rode below it. She bought thongs. And she rode that tsunami to shoes with silver heels she’d have to practice walking in.

And she laughed, like any ordinary girl shopping with a friend at the mall.

She bought a digital camera, then watched Julie make up her face in the bathroom. She took Julie’s picture, and several backups against the pale gray of the stall door.

“That’s going to work?”

“Yes, I can make it work. How old should you be? I think it’s best if we stay as close as possible to the legal age. I can use everything from your valid driver’s license and just change the year.”

“Have you done this before?”

“I’ve experimented. I’ve read and studied identity fraud, cyber crimes. It’s interesting. I’d like to …”

“Like to what?”

“I’d like to study computer crimes and prevention, investigation, more seriously. I’d like to join the FBI.”

“No bull? Like Dana Scully.”

“I don’t know her.”

“X-Files, Liz. Don’t you watch TV?”

“My viewing of popular and commercial television is limited to an hour a week.”

Julie rolled her big, chocolate eyes. “What are you, six? Jesus Christ.”

“My mother has very definite opinions.”

“You’re in college, for God’s sake. Watch what you want. Anyway, I’ll come to your place tomorrow night. Say nine? We’ll take a cab from there. But I want you to call me when you finish the ID, okay?”

“Yes.”

“I tell you what, breaking up with Darryl was the best thing I ever did. Otherwise, I’d’ve missed all this. We’re going to party, Liz.” Laughing, Julie did a quick, hip-swiveling dance right there in the ladies’ room. “Big time. I’ve gotta go. Nine o’clock. Don’t let me down.”

“No. I won’t.”

Flushed from the day, Elizabeth hauled all the bags to her car. She knew what girls in the mall talked about now.

Boys. Doing it. Julie and Darryl had done it. Clothes. Music. She had a mental list of artists she needed to research. Television and movie actors. Other girls. What other girls wore. Who other girls had done it with. And back to boys.

She understood the discussions and topics were a societal and generational trope. But it was one she’d been shut out of until today.

And she thought Julie liked her, at least a little. Maybe they’d start to hang out. Maybe she’d hang out with Julie’s friend Tiffany, too—who’d done it with Mike Dauber when he’d come home on spring break.

She knew Mike Dauber, or she’d had a class with him. And he’d passed her a note once. Or he’d passed her a note to pass to someone else, but that was something. It was contact.

At home, she laid all the bags on her bed.

She’d put everything away in plain sight this time. And she’d remove everything she didn’t like—which was nearly all she owned—and box it up for charity. And she’d watch The X-Files if she wanted to, and listen to Christina Aguilera and ’N Sync and Destiny’s Child.

And she’d change her major.

The thought of it had her heart spearing up to her throat. She’d study what she wanted to study. And when she had her degrees in criminology, in computer science, she’d apply to the FBI.

Everything had changed. Today.

Determined, she dug out the hair color. In the bathroom, she arranged everything, performed the recommended spot test. While she waited, she cleaned up the shorn hair, then purged her closet, her dresser, neatly hung or folded her new clothes.

Hungry, she went down to the kitchen, heated one of the prelabeled meals and ate while studying an article on falsifying IDs on her laptop.

After she’d done the dishes, she went back upstairs. With a mix of trepidation and excitement she followed the directions for the hair color, set the timer. While it set, she arranged everything she needed for the identification. She opened the Britney Spears CD Julie had recommended, slid it into her laptop’s CD player.

She turned up the volume so she could hear as she got in the shower to wash the color out of her hair.

It ran so black!

She rinsed and rinsed and rinsed, finally bracing her hands on the shower wall as her stomach began to churn in anticipation and not a little dread. When the water ran clear, she toweled off, wrapped a second towel around her hair.

Women had altered their hair color for centuries, Elizabeth reminded herself. Using berries, herbs, roots. It was a … rite of passage, she decided.

It was a personal choice.

In her robe, she faced the mirror.

“My choice,” she said, and pulled the towel off her hair.

She stared at the girl with pale skin and wide green eyes, the girl with short, spiky raven-black hair that framed her narrow, sharp-boned face. Lifting a hand, she scratched her fingers through it, feeling the texture, watching it move.

Then she stood straighter, and she smiled.

“Hi. I’m Liz.”

2

Considering all the help Julie had provided, it seemed only fair to Elizabeth to work on Julie’s driver’s license first. Creating the template was simple enough. Everything she’d researched claimed the quality of the identification depended largely on the quality of the paper and laminate.

That presented no problem, as her mother didn’t believe in cutting corners on supplies.

With scanner and computer she produced a decent enough replica, and through Photoshop she added the digital photo, tweaked it.

The result was good but not good enough.

It took several hours and three attempts before she felt she’d created something that would pass the check-in at a nightclub. Actually, she thought it might very well pass a more rigorous police check. But she hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

She set Julie’s aside.

It was too late to call Julie, Elizabeth noted when she checked the time and found it was nearly one in the morning.

In the morning, then, she thought, and started on her own identification.

Photo first, she decided, and spent the best part of an hour with her new makeup, carefully copying the steps she’d watched Julie take at the mall. Darkening the eyes, brightening the lips, adding color to the cheeks.

She hadn’t known it would be so much fun—and considerable work—to play with all the colors and brushes and pencils.

Liz looks older, she thought, studying the results. Liz looks pretty and confident—and normal.

Flushed with success, she opened the hair products.

Trickier, she discovered, but she believed—with practice—she’d learn. But she liked the careless, somewhat messy spikes. So different from her reddish brown, long and straight and uninspired hair, this short, spiky, glossy black.

Liz was new. Liz could and would do things Elizabeth hadn’t even imagined. Liz listened to Britney Spears and wore jeans that showed her navel. Liz went to clubs on Saturday night with a girlfriend, and danced and laughed and … flirted with boys.

“And boys flirt back with Liz,” she murmured. “Because Liz is pretty, and she’s fun, and she’s not afraid of anything.”

After calculating and setting the angles, the background, she used her new camera on a timer for several shots.

She worked till after three, finding the process simpler with the second document. It was nearly four by the time she put away all the tools and equipment, dutifully removed her makeup. She was certain she’d never sleep—her mind was so full, so busy.

She went under the moment she shut her eyes.

And for the first time in her life, barring illness, she slept soundly until noon. Her first act was to rush to the mirror to make certain she hadn’t dreamed it all.

Her second was to call Julie.

“Are we set?” Julie asked, after she’d answered on half a ring.

“Yes. I have everything.”

“And it’s totally good, right? It’ll do the job?”

“They’re excellent counterfeits. I don’t foresee any problem.”

“Awesome! Nine o’clock. I’ll get the cab, have it wait—so be ready. And make sure you look the part, Liz.”

“I tried the makeup last night. I’m going to practice with it, and my hair, this afternoon. And practice walking in the heels.”

“You do that. I’ll see you later. Party time!”

“Yes, I’ll—” But Julie had already hung up.

She spent all day on what she now thought of as Project Liz. She dressed in new cropped pants and top, made up her face, worked with her hair. She walked in the new shoes, and when she felt she had that process down, danced.

She practiced in front of the mirror, after finding a pop-music station on the radio. She’d danced before like this—alone in front of the mirror—teaching herself the moves she’d observed at dances in high school. When she’d been miserably on the sidelines, too young and too plain for any boy to notice.

The heels made the moves, the turns somewhat problematic, but she liked the way they kept her just a little off balance, forced her to loosen her knees, her hips.

At six, she took out her labeled meal, ate it while checking her e-mail. But there was nothing, nothing at all from her mother. She’d been sure there would be—some lecture, something.

But Susan’s patience was endless, and her use of silence masterful.

It wouldn’t work this time, Elizabeth determined. This time Susan was in for a shock. She’d walked out on Elizabeth, but she’d come home to Liz. And Liz wouldn’t be taking that summer program at the university. Liz would be amending her schedule and classes for the coming term.

Liz wasn’t going to be a surgeon. Liz was going to work with the FBI, in cyber crimes.

She gave herself thirty minutes to research universities with the highest-rated programs in her new field of study. She may have to transfer, and that might pose a problem. Though her college fund was tied to her trust—and came through her grandparents—they might cut her off. They’d listen to their daughter, follow her lead.

If so, she’d apply for scholarships. Her academic record would hold her there. She’d lose a semester, but she’d get a job. She’d go to work. She’d earn her way to her own destination.

She shut everything down, reminding herself tonight was for fun, for discovery. Not for worries or plans.

She went upstairs to dress for her first night out. Her first night of real freedom.

Because she’d dressed so early, Elizabeth had too much time to think, to question, to doubt. She was overdressed, under-made-up and her hair was wrong. No one would ask her to dance, because no one ever did.

Julie was eighteen, older and experienced, and knew how to dress, how to behave in social situations, how to talk to boys. She herself was bound to do or say something inappropriate. She’d embarrass Julie, then Julie would never speak to her again. That tenuous bond of friendship would be broken forever.

She worked herself up into such a state of panicked excitement she felt feverish, queasy. Twice she sat down, head between her knees, to fight off anxiety attacks, and still she answered the door at Julie’s buzz with sweaty palms and a thundering heart.

“Holy shit!”

“It’s wrong. I’m wrong.” All the doubts and fears peaked into self-disgust and mortification as Julie stared at her. “I’m sorry. You can just take the ID.”

“Your hair.”

“I don’t know what I was thinking. I only wanted to try—”

“It’s awesome! You look totally awesome. I wouldn’t’ve recognized you. Oh my God, Liz, you completely look twenty-one, and really sexy.”

“I do?”

Julie cocked a hip, fisted a hand on it. “You’ve been holding out.”

The pulse in her throat throbbed like a wound. “Then it’s all right? I look right?”

“You look so way right.” Julie circled a finger in the air, got a blank look. “Do the turn, Liz. Let’s see the whole package.”

Flushed, nearly teary, Elizabeth turned in a circle.

“Oh, yeah. We’re going to slay tonight.”

“You look awesome, too. You always do.”

“That’s really sweet.”

“I like your dress.”

“It’s my sister’s.” Julie did a turn and posed in the halter-neck black mini. “She’ll kill me if she finds out I borrowed it.”

“Is it nice? Having a sister?”

“It doesn’t suck to have an older one who wears the same size I do, even if she is a bitch half the time. Let me see the ID. Meter’s running, Liz.”

“Oh. Yes.” Liz opened the evening bag she’d chosen from her mother’s collection, took out Julie’s fake license.

“It looks real,” Julie said after a frowning study, then stared up at Elizabeth with wide, dark, eyes. “I mean, you know, real real.”

“They came out very well. I could do better, I think, with more sophisticated equipment, but for tonight, they should do.”

“It even feels real,” Julie murmured. “You’ve got skills, girl. You could make a serious fortune. I know kids who’d pay big-time for docs like this.”

Panic flooded back. “You can’t tell anyone. It’s just for tonight. It’s illegal, and if anyone finds out—”

Julie swiped a finger over her heart, then her lips. “They won’t find out from me.” Well, except Tiffany and Amber, she thought. She shot Elizabeth a smile, certain she could convince her new BFF to make up a couple more just for close friends.

“Let’s get this party started.”

After Elizabeth shut and dead-bolted the door, Julie took her hand and pulled her along in a run for the waiting cab. She slid in, gave the driver the name of the club, then swiveled in her seat.

“Okay, plan of action. First thing is to be chilly.”

“Should I have brought a sweater?”

Julie laughed, then blinked when she realized Elizabeth was serious. “No, I mean we have to be cool, act like we go to clubs all the time. Like this is no big deal for us. Just another Saturday night.”

“You mean we stay calm and blend in.”

“That’s what I said. Once we’re in, we grab a table and order Cosmos.”

“What are they?”

“You know, like the Sex and the City girls?”

“I don’t know who they are.”

“Never mind. It’s fashionable. We’re twenty-one, Liz; we’re in a hot club. We order fashionable drinks.”

“Oh.” Elizabeth slid closer, lowered her voice. “Won’t your parents know if you’ve been drinking?”

“They split last winter.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Julie shrugged, looked away out the window for a moment. “It happens. Anyway, I don’t see my dad until Wednesday, and my mom’s away for the weekend on some retreat with her boring friends. Emma’s out on a date, plus she doesn’t care, anyway. I can do what I want.”

Elizabeth nodded. They were both the same. No one at home to care. “We’ll have Cosmos.”

“Now you’re talking. And we scope. That’s why we’ll dance with each other at first—it gives us time to check out the guys—and let them check us out.”

“Is that why girls dance together? I wondered.”

“Plus, it’s fun—and a lot of boys won’t dance. You got your cell phone?”

“Yes.”

“If we get separated, we call. If a guy asks for your number, don’t give him your home number. The cell’s okay, unless your mother monitors your calls.”

“No. No one calls me.”

“The way you look, that’s going to change tonight. If you don’t want him to have your number, give him a fake one. Next. You’re in college, anyway, so you’re cool there. We’ll say we’re roommates. I’m a liberal arts major. What are you majoring in again?”

“I’m supposed to go to medical school, but—”

“Better stick with that. Truth when possible. You don’t get as mixed up.”

“I’ll be in medical school, then, starting an internship.” Even the thought of it depressed her. “But I don’t want to talk about school unless I have to.”

“Boys only want to talk about themselves, anyway. Oh, God, we’re like almost there.” Julie opened her purse, checked her face in a little mirror, freshened her lip gloss, so Elizabeth did the same. “Can you get the cab? I got a hundred out of my mother’s cash stash, but otherwise I’m tapped out.”

“Of course.”

“I can pay you back. My dad’s an easy touch.”

“I don’t mind paying.” Elizabeth took out the cab fare, calculated the tip.

“Oh, man, I’ve got goose bumps. I can’t believe I’m going to Warehouse 12! It’s totally the bomb!”

“What do we do now?” Elizabeth asked as they climbed out of the cab.

“We get in line. They don’t let everybody in, you know, even with ID.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s a hot club, so they turn off the dorks and dogs. But they always let in the hot chicks. And we are so the hot chicks.”

It was a long line, and a warm night. Traffic grumbled by, rumbling over the conversations of others who waited. Elizabeth took in the moment—the sounds, the smells, the sights. Saturday night, she thought, and she was queuing up at a hot club with beautiful people. She was wearing a new dress—a red dress—and high, high heels that made her feel tall and powerful.

No one looked at her as if she didn’t belong.

The man checking IDs at the door wore a suit and shoes with a high shine. His dark hair, slicked back in a ponytail, left his face unframed. A scar rode his left cheekbone. A stud glinted in his right earlobe.

“He’s a bouncer,” Elizabeth whispered to Julie. “I did some research. He removes people who cause trouble. He looks very strong.”

“All we have to do is get by him and get in.”

“The club’s owned by Five Star Entertainment. That’s headed by Mikhail and Sergei Volkov. It’s believed they have ties to the Russian Mafia.”

Julie did her eye roll. “The Mafia’s Italian. You know, The Sopranos?”

Elizabeth didn’t know what singing had to do with the Mafia. “Since the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union, organized crime in Russia has been on the rise. Actually, it was already very organized, and headed by the SS, but—”

“Liz. Save the history lesson.”

“Yes. Sorry.”

“Just pass him your ID, and keep talking to me.” Julie pitched her voice up again as they wound their way to the door. “Dumping that loser was the best thing I’ve done in months. Did I tell you he called me three times today? God, as if.”

A quick smile for the bouncer, and Julie held out her ID as she continued her conversation with Elizabeth. “I told him forget it. He can’t make time for me, somebody else will.”

“It’s best not to commit to one person, certainly not at this stage.”

“You got that.” Julie held out her hand for the club stamp. “And I’m ready to check out the rest of the field. First round’s on me.”

She stepped around the bouncer while he performed the same check and stamp on Elizabeth, and her grin was so huge Elizabeth wondered it didn’t swallow the man whole.

“Thank you,” she said, when he stamped the back of her hand.

“You ladies have fun.”

“We are the fun,” Julie told him, then grabbed Elizabeth’s hand and pulled her into the wall of sound.

“Oh my God, we’re in!” Julie let out a squeal, mostly drowned out by the music, then bounced on her heels as she gave Elizabeth a hug.

Stunned by the embrace, Elizabeth jerked stiff, but Julie only bounced again. “You’re a genius.”

“Yes.”

Julie laughed, eyes a little wild. “Okay, table, Cosmos, dance and scope.”

Elizabeth hoped the music covered the pounding of her heart as it had Julie’s squeal. So many people. She wasn’t used to being with so many people in one place. Everyone moving or talking while the music pumped, pumped, pumped, a flood saturating every breath of air. People jammed the dance floor, shaking, spinning, sweating. They crowded into booths, around tables, at the long curve of the stainless-steel bar.

She was determined to be “chilly,” but a sweater wouldn’t be necessary. Body heat pulsed everywhere.

Getting through the crowd—dodging, weaving, bumping bodies—kicked Elizabeth’s heart rate to a gallop. Anxiety clutched at her throat, pressed on her chest. Julie’s death grip on her hand was the only thing that kept her from bolting.

Julie finally beelined for a table the size of a dinner plate.

“Score! Oh my God, it’s like everybody’s here. We’ve gotta keep scoping a table closer to the dance floor. This is so completely awesome. The DJ is slamming it.” She finally focused on Elizabeth’s face. “Hey, are you okay?”

“It’s very crowded and warm.”

“Well, yeah. Who wants to go to an empty, cold club? Listen, we need drinks and now, so I’m going to go to the bar. I’ll buy, since you paid for the cab. That’ll give me time to start scoping. You do the same from here. Two Cosmos, coming up!”

Without Julie’s hand to anchor her, Elizabeth gripped hers together. She recognized the signs—anxiety, claustrophobia—and deliberately focused on steadying her breathing. Liz didn’t panic just because she’d been swallowed up in a crowd. She ordered herself to relax, starting with her toes and working her way up.

By the time she reached her belly, she’d calmed enough to take on the role of observer. The owners—and their architect—had made good use of the warehouse space, utilizing an urban industrial motif with the exposed ductwork and pipes, the old brick walls. The stainless steel—bar, tables, chairs, stools—reflected back the flashing color of the lights—another pulse, she thought, timed to the music.

Open iron stairs on either side led up to a second level, open as well. People crowded the rails there, or squeezed around more tables. There was likely a second bar on that level, she thought. Drinks were profit.

Down here, on a wide raised platform, under those flashing lights, the DJ worked. Another observer, Elizabeth decided. Raised in a position of authority and honor where he could see the crowd. His long, dark hair flew as he worked. He wore a graphic T-shirt. She couldn’t make out the art with the distance, but it was virulent orange against the black cloth.

Just beneath his perch, several women moved sinuously, rocking their hips in an invitation to mate.

Calm again, she tuned in to the music. She liked it—the hard, repetitive beat; the pounding of drums; the rough, metallic scream of guitar. And she liked the way different dancers chose to move to it. Arms in the air, arms cocked like a boxer’s with hands fisted, elbows jabbing, feet planted, feet lifting.

“Wow. Just wow.” Julie set martini glasses filled with pink liquid on the table before she sat. “I nearly spilled these coming back, which would have bummed. They’re eight dollars each.”

“Alcoholic beverages make up the biggest profit margin in clubs and bars.”

“I guess. But they’re good. I drank a little of mine, and it’s like pow!” She laughed, leaned in. “We should make them last until we find some guys to buy us drinks.”

“Why would they buy us drinks?”

“Duh. We’re hot, we’re available. Drink some, Liz, and let’s get out there and show our stuff.”

Obediently, Elizabeth sipped. “It’s good.” Testing, she took another sip. “And it’s very pretty.”

“I want to get lit and loose! Hey, I love this song. Time to shake it.”

Once again, Julie grabbed Elizabeth’s hand.

When the crowd closed in around her, Elizabeth shut her eyes. Just the music, she thought. Just the music.

“Hey, nice moves.”

Cautiously, Elizabeth opened her eyes again, concentrated on Julie. “What?”

“I was afraid you’d be dorky, you know. But you’ve got moves. You can dance,” Julie elaborated.

“Oh. The music’s tribal and designed to stimulate. It’s simply a matter of coordinating legs and hips. And mimicry. I’ve watched others dance a lot.”

“Whatever you say, Liz.”

Elizabeth liked moving her hips. Like the heels, it made her feel powerful, and the way the dress rubbed her skin added a sexual element. The lights made everything surreal, and the music itself seemed to swallow all.

Her discomfort with the crowd eased, so when Julie bumped hips with her, she laughed and meant it.

They danced, and danced more. Back at their tiny table, they drank Cosmos, and when a waitress came by, Elizabeth carelessly ordered more.

“The dancing makes me thirsty,” she said to Julie.

“I’ve got a nice buzz going already. And that guy over there is totally checking us out. No, don’t look!”

“How can I see him if I don’t look?”

“Take my word, he’s totally cute. I’m going to give him the eye and the hair toss in a second, then you, like sort of really casual, turn in your chair. He’s got blond hair, kind of curly. He’s wearing a tight white T-shirt and a black jacket with jeans.”

“Oh, yes, I saw him before, over by the bar. He was talking to a woman. She had long, blond hair and wore a bright pink dress that showed a lot of cleavage. He has a gold hoop earring in his left ear, and a gold ring on the middle finger of his right hand.”

“Jesus, do you actually have eyes in the back of your head like my mom used to say she did? How do you know when you haven’t looked?”

“I saw him, over by the bar,” Elizabeth repeated. “I noticed him because the blond woman seemed very angry with him. And I remember because I have an eidetic memory.”

“Is it fatal?”

“No, it’s not a disease or condition. Oh.” Flushing a little, Elizabeth hunched her shoulders. “You were joking. It’s commonly called a photographic memory, but that’s not accurate, as it’s more than visual.”

“Whatever. Get ready.”

But Elizabeth was more interested in Julie—the eye, which included a tipped head, slow, secretive smile and a shift of the eyes from under the lashes. This was followed by a quick shake and toss of the head that lifted Julie’s hair and had it drifting down again.

Was it innate? Was it learned behavior? Some combination of both? In any case, Elizabeth thought she could emulate it, though she no longer had hair to toss.

“Message received. Oh, he’s got such an adorable smile. Oh my God, he’s coming over. He’s like actually coming over.”

“But you wanted him to. That’s why you … sent the message.”

“Yeah, but—I bet he’s at least twenty-four. I bet. Follow my lead.”

“Excuse me?”

Elizabeth looked up as Julie did but didn’t risk the smile. She’d need to practice first.

“I wonder if you can help me with something.”

Julie executed a modified hair toss. “Maybe.”

“I’m worried my memory is failing because I never forget a beautiful woman, but I can’t recall either of you. Tell me you haven’t been here before.”

“First time.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

“I guess you’re here a lot.”

“Every night. It’s my club—that is,” he said with a dazzling smile, “I have an interest in it.”

“You’re one of the Volkovs?” Elizabeth spoke without thinking, then felt the heat rise as he turned sizzling blue eyes on her.

“Alex Gurevich. A cousin.”

“Julie Masters.” Julie offered a hand, which Alex took, kissed stylishly on the knuckles. “And my friend Liz.”

“Welcome to Warehouse 12. You’re enjoying yourselves?”

“The music’s great.”

When the waitress came with the drinks, Alex plucked the tab off the tray. “Beautiful women who come to my club for the first time aren’t allowed to buy their own drinks.”

Under the table, Julie nudged Elizabeth’s foot while she beamed at Alex. “Then you’ll have to join us.”

“I’d love to.” He murmured something to the waitress. “Are you visiting Chicago?”

“Born and bred,” Julie told him, taking a long swallow of her drink. “Both of us. We’re home for the summer. We’re at Harvard.”

“Harvard?” His head cocked; his eyes dazzled. “Beautiful and smart. I’m half in love already. If you can dance, I’m lost.”

Julie took another drink. “You’re going to need a map.”

He laughed, held out his hands. Julie took one, rose.

“Come on, Liz. Let’s show him how a couple of Harvard girls get down.”

“Oh, but he wants to dance with you.”

“Both.” Alex kept his extended hand out. “Which makes me the luckiest man in the room.”

She started to decline, but Julie gave her another version of the eye behind Alex’s back, which involved a lot of rolling, eyebrow wiggling, grimacing. So she took his hand.

He wasn’t actually asking her to dance, but Elizabeth gave him credit for manners when he could have left her sitting alone at the table. She did her best to join in without getting in the way. It didn’t matter, she loved dancing. She loved the music. She loved the noise rising around her, the movements, the smells.

When she smiled it wasn’t practiced, just a natural curve of her lips. Alex sent her a wink and a grin as he laid his hands on Julie’s hips.

Then he lifted his chin in a signal to someone behind her.

Even as she turned to look, someone took her hand, gave her a quick spin that nearly toppled her on her heels.

“As always, my cousin is greedy. He takes two while I have none.” Russia flowed exotically through the voice. “Unless you take pity and dance with me.”

“I—”

“Don’t say no, pretty lady.” He drew her close for a sway. “Just a dance.”

She could only stare up at him. He was tall, his body hard and firm against her. Where Alex was bright, he was dark—the long wave of his hair, eyes that snapped nearly black against tawny skin. As he smiled at her, dimples shimmered in his cheeks. Her heart rolled over in her chest and trembled.

“I like your dress,” he said.

“Thank you. It’s new.”

His smile widened. “And my favorite color. I’m Ilya.”

“I’m … Liz. I’m Liz. Um. Priyatno poznakomit’sya.”

“It’s nice to meet you, too. You speak Russian.”

“Yes. Well, a little. Um.”

“A beautiful girl wearing my favorite color who speaks Russian. It’s my lucky night.”

No, Liz thought, as, still holding her close, he lifted her hand to his lips. Oh, no. It was her lucky night.

It was the best night of her life.

3

They moved to a booth. It all happened so smoothly, so seamlessly, it seemed like magic. As magical as the pretty pink drink that appeared in front of her.

She was Cinderella at the ball, and midnight was a lifetime away.

When they sat he stayed close, kept his eyes on her face, his body angled toward hers as if the crowds and the music didn’t exist. He touched her as he spoke, and every brush of his fingers over the back of her hand, her arm or shoulder was a terrible thrill.

“So, what is it you study at Harvard?”

“I’m in medical school.” It wouldn’t be true, she promised herself, but it was true enough now.

“A doctor. This takes many years, yes? What kind of doctor will you be?”

“My mother wants me to follow her into neurosurgery.”

“This is a brain surgeon? This is big, important doctor who cuts into brains.” He skimmed a fingertip down her temple. “You must be very smart for this.”

“I am. Very smart.”

He laughed as if she’d said something charming. “It’s good to know yourself. You say this is what your mother wants. Is it what you want?”

She took a sip of her drink, and thought he was very smart, too—or at least astute. “No, not really.”

“Then what kind of doctor do you want to be?”

“I don’t want to be a doctor at all.”

“No? What, then?”

“I want to work in cyber crimes for the FBI.”

“FBI?” His dark eyes widened.

“Yes. I want to investigate high-tech crimes, computer fraud—terrorism, sexual exploitation. It’s an important field that changes every day as technology advances. The more people use and depend on computers and electronics, the more the criminal element will exploit that dependence. Thieves, scam artists, pedophiles, even terrorists.”

“This is your passion.”

“I … I guess.”

“Then you must follow. We must always follow our passions, yes?” When his hand brushed over her knee, a slow, liquid warmth spread in her belly.

“I never have.” Was this passion? she wondered. This slow, liquid warmth? “But I want to start.”

“You must respect your mother, but she must also respect you. A woman grown. And a mother wants her child to be happy.”

“She doesn’t want me to waste my intellect.”

“But the intellect is yours.”

“I’m starting to believe that. Are you in college?”

“I am finished with this. Now I work in the family business. This makes me happy.” He signaled the waitress for another round before Elizabeth realized her glass was nearly empty.

“Because it’s your passion.”

“This is so. I follow my passions—like this.”

He was going to kiss her. She might not have been kissed before, but she’d imagined it often enough. She discovered imagination wasn’t her strong suit.

She knew kissing imparted biological information through pheromones, that the act stimulated all the nerve endings packed in the lips, in the tongue. It triggered a chemical reaction—a pleasurable one that explained why, with few exceptions, kissing was part of human culture.

But to be kissed, she realized, was an entirely different matter than theorizing about it.

His lips were soft and smooth, and rubbed gently over hers, with the pressure slowly, gradually increasing as his hand slid up from her hip to her rib cage. Her heart tripped above the span of his hand as his tongue slipped through her lips, lazily glided over hers.

Her breath caught, then released with an involuntary sound, almost of pain—and the world revolved.

“Sweet,” he murmured, and the vibration of the words against her lips, the warmth of his breath inside her mouth, triggered a shiver down her spine.

“Very sweet.” His teeth grazed over her bottom lip as he eased back, studied her. “I like you.”

“I like you, too. I liked kissing you.”

“Then we must do it again, while we dance.” He brought her to her feet, brushed his lips to hers again. “You aren’t—the word, the word … jaded. This is the word. Not like so many women who come in to dance and drink and flirt with men.”

“I don’t have a lot of experience with any of that.”

Those black eyes sparkled in the pulsing lights. “Then the other men aren’t so lucky as me.”

Elizabeth glanced back toward Julie as Ilya drew her to the dance floor and saw that her friend was also being kissed. Not gently, not slowly, but Julie seemed to like it—in fact, was fully participating, so—

Then Ilya drew her into his arms, swaying with her unlike all the others who rushed and shook and spun. Just swaying while his mouth came to hers again.

She stopped thinking about chemical reactions and nerve endings. Instead, she did her best to participate fully. Instinct brought her arms up to lock around his neck. When she felt the change in him, the hardening pressing against her, she knew it was a normal, even involuntary, physical reaction.

But she knew the wonder of it all the same. She’d caused the reaction. He wanted her, when no one ever had.

“What you do to me,” he whispered in her ear. “Your taste, your scent.”

“It’s pheromones.”

He looked down at her, brow knitted. “Is what?”

“Nothing.” She pressed her face to his shoulder.

She knew the alcohol impaired her judgment, but she didn’t care. Even knowing the reason she didn’t care was because of the impairment, she lifted her face again. This time she initiated the kiss.

“We should sit,” he said after a long moment. “You make my knees weak.”

He held her hand as they walked back to the table. Julie, eyes overbright, face flushed, popped to her feet. She teetered a minute, laughed, grabbed her purse.

“We’ll be right back. Come on, Liz.”

“Where?”

“Where else? The ladies’.”

“Oh. Excuse me.”

Julie hooked arms with her as much for balance as solidarity. “Oh my God. Can you believe it? We like got the hottest guys in the club. Jesus, they’re so sexy. And yours has that accent. I wish mine had the accent, but he kisses so much better than Darryl. He practically owns the club, you know, and like has this house on the lake. We’re all going to get out of here and go there.”

“To his house? Do you think we should?”

“Oh, we should.” Julie shoved open the bathroom door, took a look at the line for the stalls. “Typical, and I really have to pee! I’ve got such a buzz! How’s your guy—does he kiss good? What’s his name again?”

“Ilya. Yes, he’s very good. I like him, very much, but I’m not sure we should go with them to Alex’s house.”

“Oh, loosen up, Liz. You can’t let me down now. I’m totally going to do it with Alex, and I can’t go over there with him alone—not on the first date. You don’t have to do it with Ilya if you’re all virginal.”

“Sex is a natural and necessary act, not only for procreation but, certainly in humans, for pleasure and the release of stress.”

“Get you.” Julie elbowed her. “So you don’t like think I’m a slut for doing it with Alex?”

“It’s an unfortunate by-product of a patriarchal society that women are deemed sluttish or cheap for engaging in sex for pleasure while men are considered vital. Virginity shouldn’t be a prize to be won, or withheld. The hymen has no rewarding properties, grants no powers. Women should—no, must—be allowed to pursue their own sexual gratification, whether or not procreation is the goal or the relationship a monogamous one, just as a man is free to do so.”

A lanky redhead fluffed her hair, then gave Elizabeth a dazzling smile as she walked by. “Sing it, sister.”

Elizabeth leaned close to Julie as the woman continued out. “Why would I sing?” she whispered.

“It’s just an expression. You know, Liz, I figured you for a cross your legs, no touching below the waist and only over the clothes sort.”

“A lack of experience doesn’t make me a prude.”

“Got it. You know I sort of thought I’d ditch you once we were in and I hooked up, but you’re fun—even if you talk like a teacher half the time. So, you know, sorry for sort of thinking it.”

“It’s all right. You didn’t. And I know I’m not like your friends.”

“Hey.” Julie wrapped an arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders for a squeeze. “You are my friend now, right?”

“I hope so. I’ve never—”

“Oh, thank God.” On that fervent call, Julie made a staggering dash as a stall opened. “So we’re going to Alex’s, right?”

Elizabeth looked around the crowded restroom. All the women freshening makeup and hair, waiting in line, laughing, talking. She was probably the only virgin in the room.

Virginity wasn’t a prize, she reminded herself. So it wasn’t a burden, either. It was hers to keep or lose. Her choice. Her life.

“Liz?”

“Yes.” On a steadying breath, Liz walked toward the next open stall. “Yes,” she said again. Closing the door, and her eyes. “We’ll go. Together.”

At the table, Ilya lifted his beer. “If these girls are twenty-one, I’m sixty.”

Alex only laughed, shrugged. “They’re close enough. And mine’s in heat, believe me.”

“She’s drunk, Alexi.”

“So what? I didn’t pour the drinks down her throat. I’m up for some fresh meat, and I’m fucking getting laid tonight. Don’t tell me you’re not planning to nail down the hot brunette, bro.”

“She’s sweet.” A smile tugged at Ilya’s mouth. “And just a little underripe. She’s not so drunk as yours. If she’s willing, I’ll take her to bed. I like her mind.”

Alex’s lips twisted. “Give me a fucking break.”

“No, I do. It adds something.” He glanced around. Too much the same, he thought of the women who passed by, too much predictable. “Refreshing—this is the word.”

“The blonde’s setting it up so we’ll go to my place. All of us. She said she won’t go unless her friend goes. You can have the spare room.”

“I prefer my own place.”

“Look, it’s both of them or neither. I didn’t put in over two hours getting her primed to have her walk her fine ass out of here because you can’t close the deal with the friend.”

Ilya’s eyes went hard over his beer. “I can close the deal, dvojurodny brat.”

“And which do you think will close it tight, cousin? The crap apartment you’re still living in, or my house on the lake?”

Ilya jerked a shoulder. “I prefer my simpler place, but all right. We’ll go to yours. No drugs, Alexi.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.”

“No drugs.” Ilya leaned forward, stabbed a finger on the table. “You keep it legal. We don’t know them, but mine, I think, would not approve. She says she wants to be FBI.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“No. No drugs, Alexi, or I don’t go—and you don’t get laid.”

“Fine. Here they come.”

“Stand up.” Ilya kicked Alex under the table. “Pretend you’re a gentleman.”

He rose, held out a hand to Liz.

“We’d love to get out of here,” Julie announced, wrapping herself around Alex. “We’d love to see your house.”

“Then that’s what we’ll do. Nothing beats a private party.”

“This is okay with you?” Ilya murmured as they started out.

“Yes. Julie really wants to, and we’re together, so—”

“No, I don’t ask what Julie wants. I ask if you want.”

She looked at him, felt a sigh and a tingle. It mattered to him, what she wanted. “Yes. I want to go with you.”

“This is good.” He took her hand, pressed it to his heart as they wove through the crowd. “I want to be with you. And you can tell me more about Liz. I want to know everything about you.”

“Julie said boys—men—only want to talk about themselves.”

He laughed, tucked his arm around her waist. “Then how do they learn about fascinating women?”

As they got to the door, a man in a suit came up, tapped Ilya on the shoulder.

“One moment,” Ilya said to Liz as he stepped aside.

She couldn’t hear much, and that was in Russian. But she could see by her glimpse of Ilya’s profile that he wasn’t pleased with what he heard.

But she was reasonably sure his snarled chyort voz’mi was a curse. He signaled the man to wait, then guided Liz outside, where Alex and Julie waited.

“There’s something I must take care of. I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I understand.”

“Bullshit, Ilya, let somebody else handle it.”

“It’s work,” Ilya said shortly. “It shouldn’t take long—no more than an hour. You go, with Alexi and your friend. I’ll come as soon as I finish.”

“Oh, but—”

“Come on, Liz, it’ll be all right. You can wait for Ilya at Alex’s. He’s got all kinds of music—and a flat-screen TV.”

“You wait.” Ilya leaned down, kissed Elizabeth long and deep. “I’ll come soon. Drive carefully, Alexi. You have precious cargo.”

“So now I have two beautiful women.” Unwilling to lose the momentum, Alex took both girls by the arms. “Ilya takes everything seriously. I like to party. We’re too young to be serious.”

A dark SUV glided up to the curb. Alex signaled, then caught the keys the valet tossed him. He opened the door. Trapped by manners and obligation, Liz climbed in the back. She stared at the door of the club, craning her neck to keep it in view even when Alex drove away, with Julie singing along to the stereo.

It didn’t feel right. Without Ilya, the rush of excitement, anticipation, faded away, left everything flat and dull. Combined with the alcohol, riding in the backseat triggered a bout of motion sickness. Queasy, and suddenly brutally tired, she rested her head against the side window.

They didn’t need her, Elizabeth thought. Both Julie and Alex sang and laughed. He drove entirely too fast, taking corners in a way that made her stomach pitch. She would not be sick. Even as the heat flashed through her, she willed herself to breathe, slow and even. She would not humiliate herself by being sick in the backseat of Alex’s SUV.

She lowered her window a few inches, let the air blow over her face. She wanted to lie down, wanted to sleep. She’d had too much to drink, and this was yet another chemical reaction.

And not nearly as pleasant as a kiss.

She concentrated on her breathing, on the air across her face, on the houses, cars, streets. Anything but on her churning stomach and head.

As he wound along Lake Shore Drive, she thought how close they were, relatively, to her home in Lincoln Park. If she could just go home, she could lie down in the quiet, sleep off the nausea and spinning head. But when Alex pulled up at a pretty old two-story traditional, she thought at least she could get out of the car, stand on solid ground.

“Got some great views,” Alex was saying as he and Julie got out. “I thought about buying a condo, but I like my privacy. Plenty of room to party here, and nobody bitches the music’s too loud.”

Julie staggered, laughed a little wildly when Alex caught her and squeezed his hand on her ass.

Elizabeth trailed behind, a miserably queasy fifth wheel.

“You live here by yourself,” she managed.

“Plenty of room for company.” He unlocked the front door, gestured. “Ladies first.”

And he gave Elizabeth’s ass a teasing pat as she walked in.

She wanted to tell him he had a beautiful home, but the fact was everything was too bright, too new, too modern. All hard edges, shiny surfaces and glossy leather. A bright red bar, a huge black leather sofa and an enormous wall-screen TV dominated the living room, when the wide glass doors and windows leading to a terrace should have been the key point.

“Oh my God, I love this.” Julie immediately flopped onto the sofa, stretched out. “It’s like decadent.”

“That’s the idea, baby.” He picked up a remote, clicked, and pounding music filled the room. “I’ll fix you a drink.”

“Can you make Cosmos?” Julie asked him. “I just love Cosmos.”

“I’ll hook you up.”

“Maybe I could have some water?” Elizabeth asked.

“Oh, Liz, don’t be such a buzzkill.”

“I’m a little dehydrated.” And God, God, she needed more air. “Is it all right if I look outside?” She walked toward the terrace doors.

“Sure. Mi casa es su casa.”

“I want to dance!”

As Julie lurched up, began to bump and grind, Elizabeth pulled open the doors and escaped. She imagined the view was wonderful, but everything blurred as she hobbled to the rail, leaned on it.

What were they doing? What were they thinking? This was a mistake. A stupid, reckless mistake. They had to go. She had to convince Julie to leave.

But even over the music, she could hear Julie’s Cosmo-slurred laughter.

Maybe if she sat down out here for a few minutes, cleared her head, waited for her stomach to settle. She could claim her mother had called. What was one more lie in an entire night of them? She’d make up some excuse—a good, logical excuse to leave. Once her head cleared.

“There you are.”

She turned as Alex stepped out.

“One of each.” Gilded in the low light, he carried a glass of water and ice in one hand, and a martini glass of that pretty pink—that now made her stomach turn.

“Thank you. But just the water, I think.”

“Gotta feed that high, baby.” But he set the drink aside. “You don’t have to be out here all alone.” He shifted, pressed her back against the rail. “The three of us can party. I can take care of both of you.”

“I don’t think—”

“Who knows if Ilya’s coming? Work, work, work, that’s what he does. You caught his eye, though. Mine, too. Come back inside. We’ll have a good time.”

“I think … I’ll wait for Ilya. I need to use your bathroom.”

“Your loss, baby.” Though he only shrugged, she thought she caught something mean flicker in his eyes. “Go left. It’s off the kitchen.”

“Thank you.”

“If you change your mind,” he called off as she ran to the door.

“Julie.” She grabbed Julie by the arm as Julie tried to execute an unsteady dance-floor spin.

“I’m having such a good time. This is the best night ever.”

“Julie, you’ve had too much to drink.”

After a pffht sound, Julie shook Elizabeth off. “Not possible.”

“We have to go.”

“We have to stay and partay!”

“Alex said both of us should go to bed with him.”

“Eeuw.” Snorting with laughter, Julie spun again. “He’s just messing around, Liz. Don’t get all brainiac nerd on me. Your guy’ll be here in a few minutes. Just have another drink, chill.”

“I don’t want any more to drink. I feel sick. I want to go home.”

“Not going home. Nobody gives a shit there. Come on, Lizzy! Dance with me.”

“I can’t.” Liz pressed a hand to her stomach as her skin went clammy. “I need to—” Unable to fight it, she made the dash to the left, caught a glimpse of Alex leaning on the terrace doors, grinning at her.

On a half-sob, she stumbled through the kitchen and nearly fell on the tiles as she bolted for the bathroom door.

She risked the half-second it took to lock the door behind her, then fell to her knees in front of the toilet. She vomited sick, slimy pink, and barely managed a breath before she vomited again. Tears streamed out of her eyes as she pulled herself up, using the sink as a lever. Half blind, she ran the water cold, scooped some into her mouth, splashed more on her face.

Shuddering, she lifted her head, saw herself in the mirror—white as wax, with the mascara and eyeliner smudged under her eyes like livid bruises. More of it tracked down her cheeks like black tears.

Shame washed through her even as the next bout of sickness had her dropping to her knees again.

Exhausted, the room spinning around her, she curled on the tiles and wept. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this.

She wanted to go home.

She wanted to die.

She lay shivering, her cheek pressed to the cool tiles until she thought she could risk sitting up. The room stank of sickness and sweat, but she couldn’t go out until she’d cleaned herself up.

She did her best with soap and water, rubbing her face until her skin was raw, pausing every minute or so to lean over, fight off another wave of nausea.

Now she looked pale and splotchy, her eyes glassy and rimmed with red. But her hands trembled, so her attempt to repair her makeup was almost worse than nothing at all.

She’d have to swallow the humiliation. She’d go out on the terrace, in the fresh air, and wait until Ilya came. She’d ask him to take her home, and hoped he’d understand.

He’d never want to see her again. He’d never kiss her again.

Cause and effect, she reminded herself. She’d lied, and lied and lied, and the result was this new mortification, and worse, this glimpse of what might be, only to have it all taken away.

Lowering the lid of the toilet, she sat, clutching her purse, bracing herself for the next step. Wearily, she took off her shoes. What did it matter? Her feet hurt, and Cinderella’s midnight had come.

She walked with as much dignity as she could muster through the kitchen with its big black appliances and blinding white counters. But when she started to make the turn into the living room, she saw Alex and Julie, both naked, having sex on the leather sofa.

Stunned, fascinated, she stood frozen for a moment, watching the tattoos on Alex’s back and shoulders ripple as his hips thrust. Under him, Julie made guttural groaning sounds.

Ashamed of watching, Elizabeth backed up quietly and used the door off the kitchen to access the terrace.

She’d sit in the dark, in the air, until they were finished. She wasn’t a prude. It was just sex, after all. But she wished, very strongly, they’d had that sex behind a closed bedroom door.

Then she wished she had more water for her abused throat, and a blanket because she felt cold—cold and empty and very, very frail.

Then she dozed off, huddled in the chair in a dark corner of the terrace.

She didn’t know what woke her—voices, a clatter—but she came awake, stiff and chilled in the chair. She saw by her watch she’d slept for only about fifteen minutes, but she felt even worse than she had before.

She needed to go home. Cautious, she crept over to the doors to see if Julie and Alex had finished.

She didn’t see Julie at all, but Alex—wearing only black boxers—and two fully dressed men.

Biting her lip, she crept a little closer. Maybe they’d come to tell Alex that Ilya had been delayed. Oh, God, she wished he’d come, take her home.

Remembering what she looked like, she kept to the shadows as she eased toward the door Alex had left open.

“For fuck’s sake, speak English. I was born in Chicago.” Obviously annoyed, Alex stalked over to the bar, poured vodka into a glass. “What do you want, Korotkii, that can’t wait till tomorrow?”

“Why put off till tomorrow? Is that American enough for you?”

The man who spoke had a compact, athletic body. The short sleeves of his black T-shirt strained against his biceps. Tattoos covered his arms. Like Alex, he was blond and handsome. A relation? Elizabeth wondered. The resemblance was subtle but there.

The man with him was bigger, older and stood like a soldier.

“Yeah, you’re a fucking Yankee-Doodle.” Alex tossed back the vodka. “Office hours are closed.”

“And you work so hard.” Korotkii’s smooth voice glided over the words. But under the smooth, the intriguing accent, rough, jagged rock scraped. “It takes hard work, this stealing from your uncle.”

Alex paused in the act of pouring white powder from a clear bag onto a small square mirror on the bar. “What’re you talking about? I don’t steal from Sergei.”

“You steal from the clubs, from the restaurant; you take off the top from the Internet scams, from the whore profits. From all you can reach. You think this isn’t stealing from your uncle? You think he is a fool?”

Sneering, Alexi picked up a thin metal tool and began to tap it against the powder.

Cocaine, Elizabeth realized. Oh, God, what had she done coming here?

“Sergei has my loyalty,” Alexi said as he cut the powder, “and I’ll speak to him about this bullshit tomorrow.”

“You think he doesn’t know how you pay for the Rolex, the Armani, Versace, this house, all your other toys—and your drugs, Alexi? You think he doesn’t know you made a deal with the cops?”

The little tool rattled when Alex dropped it. “I don’t deal with cops.”

He’s lying, Elizabeth thought. She could see it in his eyes, hear it in his voice.

“They picked you up two days ago, for possession.” Korotkii’s gesture toward the cocaine was pure disgust. “And you dealt with them, mudak. Betray your family for your freedom, for your fine life. Do you know what happens to thieves and traitors, Alexi?”

“I’ll talk to Sergei. I’ll explain. I had to give them something, but it was bullshit. Just bullshit. I played them.”

“No, Alexi, they played you. And you lost.”

“I’ll talk to Sergei.” When he backed up, the second man moved—fast for his girth—trapped Alexi’s arms behind his back.

Fear lived on his face, and in fear he spoke in Russian. “Don’t do this. Yakov, we’re cousins. Our mothers are sisters. We share blood.”

“You’re a disgrace to your mother, to your blood. On your knees.”

“No. Don’t.”

The second man shoved Alexi to the ground.

“Don’t. Please. We’re blood. Give me a chance.”

“Yes, beg. Beg for your worthless life. I would let Yegor break you to pieces, but your uncle said to show mercy, for his sister’s sake.”

“Please. Have mercy.”

“This is your mercy.” Korotkii drew a gun from the small of his back, pressed the barrel to Alexi’s forehead and fired.

Elizabeth’s legs gave way. She fell to her knees, her hand clamped over her mouth to trap the scream.

Korotkii spoke softly as he put the gun to Alexi’s temple, fired twice more.

His expression never changed, held like a mask as he murdered. Then it sharpened as he looked up and toward the kitchen.

“I don’t feel good, Alex. I need to lie down, or maybe we should—Who are you?”

“Ah, fuck your mother,” he muttered, and shot Julie twice, where she stood. “Why didn’t we know he had his whore with him?”

The second man walked over to Julie, shook his head. “This is a new one. Very young.”

“She won’t be older.”

Elizabeth’s vision grayed. It was a dream. A nightmare. Because of the drinking and being sick. She’d wake up any second. Huddled in the dark, she stared at Alex. There was hardly any blood, she noted. If it was real, wouldn’t there be more blood?

Wake up, wake up, wake up.

But the terror only spiked when she saw Ilya come in.

They’d kill him, too. The man would shoot him. She had to help. She had to—

“God damn it, what have you done?”

“What I was ordered to do.”

“Your orders were to break his arms and to do it tomorrow night.”

“The orders changed. Our informant got us word. Alexi went to bed with the cops.”

“Christ. Motherfucker.”

Elizabeth watched in horror as Ilya kicked the dead Alex, once, twice, three times.

One of them, she thought. He was one of them.

Ilya stopped, pushed at his hair, then saw Julie’s body. “Ah, fuck. Was that necessary?”

“She saw us. We were told his whore left with another man.”

“It was this one’s bad luck he was looking for fresh meat. Where’s the other one?”

“Other?”

The beautiful dark eyes went to ice. “There were two. This one and another—short, black hair, red dress.”

“Yegor.”

With a nod, the big man drew a knife and started up the stairs. Ilya gestured, and, following orders, Korotkii moved toward the kitchen while Ilya walked to the terrace doors.

“Liz,” he murmured. “It’s all right, Liz. I’ll take care of you.”

He slid a knife out of his boot, held it behind his back, flipped on the outside lights.

He saw her shoes, scanned the terrace, rushed to the rail.

“There’s no one here,” Korotkii told him from the doorway.

“There was. Find her.”

4

She ran blindly, eyes wide and glazed, breath ripping out of her lungs in sobs and gasps. She couldn’t release the scream clawing at her throat. They might hear. If they heard, if they caught her, they’d kill her.

Like Julie.

She fought her instinct to run for the street. There could be more of them, more like Ilya. How could she know the car she flagged down wasn’t one of them? How could she know if she beat her fists on the door of a house, one of them wouldn’t answer?

She had to run, get away as far and as fast as she could. She had to hide.

If there was a fence, she climbed it. If there was a hedge, she pushed and fought her way through. When the ground scraped and tore at her bare feet, she choked back the cries of pain. She hid from the moonlight, scrabbling like a mole for the dark places.

A dog barked madly as she raced across someone’s yard.

Don’t let them hear, don’t let them come.

Don’t look back.

Something tore into her side. For a terrifying moment as she pitched forward, she thought she’d been shot. But she lay on the ground, drawing her knees in, the harsh whoops of her breath scoring her throat.

A cramp, just a cramp. But with it came a powerful surge of nausea. Pushing to her hands and knees, she gagged, wept, gagged, racked by dry heaves.

Shock, she told herself as her teeth chattered. Sweating and shivering at the same time, dizzy, nauseated, rapid pulse. She was in shock, and she needed to think.

To warm herself, she rubbed her hands rapidly over her arms as she struggled to slow her breathing. She crawled over to retrieve the purse that had flown out of her hand when she’d fallen. She’d managed to hold on to it during the flight, so she comforted herself that she had been thinking on some level.

She needed to call the police; she needed help.

“Take out the phone,” she whispered, coaching herself. “Push memory one. Tell them … tell them…”

“Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

“Help me. Can you help me?”

“What is the nature of your emergency?

“He shot them.” Tears flooded her eyes, all but drowned her voice. “He shot them, and I ran.”

“Ma’am, are you reporting a shooting?”

“He killed them. He killed Julie. I ran away.”

“I’m going to send help. Give me your location.”

“I don’t know where I am.” She covered her mouth with her hand, struggled not to break down. “I ran. I just ran. I think I’m near Lake Shore Drive. Wait. Will you wait? Don’t go.”

“I’m right here. What’s your name?”

“I’m Elizabeth. I’m Elizabeth Fitch.”

“Elizabeth, do you recognize anything? A landmark, an address?”

“I’m going to find one. I’m behind a house. A gray stone house with turrets.” She limped toward the house, shaking violently when she stepped into the glow of security lights. “It has—it has a paved driveway, and a big garage. Decks, and—and gardens.”

“Can you walk to the street?”

“I am. I can see it. There are streetlights. If I go where it’s light and they come, they’ll see me.”

“Just keep talking. Keep your phone on, Elizabeth. We’re using your signal to find you.”

“I see an address. I see the numbers.” She read them off.

“The police are on their way. Help is coming, Elizabeth. Are you hurt?”

“No. No, I ran. I was outside when they came in. I was on the terrace. They didn’t know. They didn’t see me. He shot them. He shot them. He killed Julie.”

“I’m sorry. Where did this happen?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t get the address. It was on Lake Shore Drive. We shouldn’t have gone there. We shouldn’t have gone to that house. Julie’s dead.”

“Who is Julie, Elizabeth?”

“Ju— Julie Masters. My friend Julie. A car’s coming. I have to hide.”

“It’s the patrol car. It’s help.”

“Are you sure?” Panic crushed her chest, shut off her air. “Are you sure?”

“They’re on the radio right now, approaching the address. I’m going to tell them to turn on the bubble light. You’ll see it.”

“Yes. Yes. Oh, God. I see it.” She stumbled forward, into the light. “Thank you.”

“You’re safe now, Elizabeth.”

They wanted to take her to the hospital, but when she grew only more anxious, they took her to the station. She huddled under the blanket one of the officers wrapped around her shoulders, and continued to shiver in the back of the patrol car.

They took her to a room with a table and chairs. One of the officers stayed with her while the other went to get her coffee.

“Tell me what happened.”

He’d given her his name, she remembered. Officer Blakley. He had a stern face and tired eyes, but he’d given her a blanket.

“We went to the club. Julie and I, we went to the club.”

“Julie Masters.”

“Yes.”

“What club?”

“Warehouse 12. I …” She had to tell the truth. No more lies. “I made fake IDs for us.”

His face barely registered surprise as he wrote in his little book. “How old are you?”

“Sixteen. I’ll be seventeen in September.”

“Sixteen,” he repeated, studying her, voice and eyes flat. “Where are your parents?”

“It’s just my mother. She’s out of town at a medical convention.”

“She’ll need to be notified.”

Elizabeth only shut her eyes. “Yes. She’s Dr. Susan L. Fitch. She’s registered at the Westin Peachtree Plaza hotel, in Atlanta.”

“All right. And you forged identification to gain entrance to Warehouse 12.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. You can arrest me, but you have to find the men who killed Julie.”

“You said you were in a house, not a club.”

“We met Alex at the club. We went to his house. We shouldn’t have. We’d been drinking. We shouldn’t have. I got sick, then I went outside because …” Tears slid down her cheeks again. “I went outside, and two men came in. They shot Alex, then when Julie came into the room, they shot her. I ran.”

“You don’t know where this house is?”

“I could find it. I could take you, or draw you a map. But I didn’t look at the address. It was stupid. I was stupid. Please, we can’t just leave her there.”

“Do you have this Alex’s full name?”

“I … Yes!” Thank God. “Alex, but the man who killed him called him Alexi. Alexi Gurevich.”

Blakley went very still, and his eyes sharpened. “You’re telling me that you were in Alexi Gurevich’s house, and witnessed a double murder?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes. Please.”

“Just a minute.” He rose as the second officer came in with the coffee. Blakley murmured to him. Whatever he said had his partner shooting Elizabeth a quick look before he hurried out of the room.

“Given your age,” Blakley told her, “we’re notifying Child Services. A detective will be in to speak with you.”

“But Julie. Can I take you to the house first? I left her. I just left her there.”

“We know where Gurevich lives.”

He left her alone, but within fifteen minutes someone came in and gave her a vending machine cup of chicken soup. She hadn’t thought she could eat, but at the first sip her abused stomach begged for more.

Despite the food and the coffee, reaction set in with dragging fatigue. Surrendering, Elizabeth laid her head on the table, closed her eyes.

Outside the room, Detective Sean Riley stepped up to the two-way glass beside his partner. “So that’s our wit.”

“Elizabeth Fitch, age sixteen, daughter of Dr. Susan L. Fitch, chief of surgery, Silva Memorial.” Brenda Griffith took a long drink of her Starbucks coffee. She’d been a cop for fifteen years, so calls in the middle of the night were routine. But coffee helped ease the blow. “CPS is coming in.”

“Have we verified?”

“Gurevich took one to the forehead, two behind the ear. Low-caliber, close-range. Female vic—her ID says Julie Masters—age twenty-one, but according to the wit, the age is bogus. Officers on scene report she took two head shots.”

“Fucking sixteen.” Riley, a twenty-year vet with chronic back pain and thinning brown hair, shook his head. “She’s lucky to be alive.”

“Since she is, let’s find out what she knows.” Brenda stepped out. “Let me take the lead; go soft. If half of what she said in her statement’s true, she’s had a hell of a night. Here comes CPS.”

“I’ll get the kid a Coke or something,” Riley said. “We’ll both start soft.”

Elizabeth woke with a jolt of terror, stared at the woman with the pretty face and black hair hauled back in an explosive ponytail.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. I’m Detective Griffith. This is Ms. Petrie from Child Services. My partner will be right in. He thought you might want a pop.”

“I fell asleep. How long …” She looked at her watch. “Oh, God. It’s nearly morning. Julie—”

“I’m very sorry about your friend.”

“It’s my fault. We shouldn’t have gone. I knew it was wrong. I just wanted to … I forged driver’s licenses.”

“So I hear. Can I see yours?”

“All right.” Elizabeth took the license out of her purse.

Griffith studied it, turned it over, lifted her eyebrows, glanced at Elizabeth. “You’re telling me you made this yourself?”

“Yes. I’d been experimenting on how it’s done. And Julie wanted to go to Warehouse 12, so I made them. I know it’s illegal. There’s no excuse. Am I under arrest?”

Griffith glanced at Petrie, then back to Elizabeth. “I think we’ll hold off on that. Were you acquainted with Alexi Gurevich prior to last night?”

“No. He came over to our table. We had Cosmos.” She pressed her hands to her face. “God, did it really happen? I looked the club up on the Internet before we went. I’d never been to a nightclub. I read some articles that said it was suspected that the owners were part of the Russian Mafia. But I never thought—when he came over, then Ilya—”

“Ilya? Is that Ilya Volkov?”

“Yes. We danced with them, and sat in a booth, and he kissed me. Nobody ever kissed me before. I wanted to know what it was like. He was so nice to me, and then—”

She broke off, that glint of fear back in her eyes when the door opened.

“Elizabeth, this is my partner, Detective Riley.”

“Got you a Coke. My daughter can’t live without a Coke in the mornings.”

“Thank you. I’m not supposed to drink …” Elizabeth let out a half-laugh. “That’s stupid, isn’t it? I drank alcohol until I was sick. I watched two people be murdered. And I don’t want to disobey my mother’s directive about soft drinks.”

She opened it, poured it into the plastic cup. “Thank you,” she said again.

“Elizabeth.” Griffith waited until she had Elizabeth’s attention again. “Did you, Julie, Gurevich and Ilya Volkov leave Warehouse 12 and go to Gurevich’s residence?”

“No. Just the three of us. Ilya had to take care of something at the club. He was going to come—and he did, but later. After.”

“Did Ilya Volkov murder Gurevich and Julie?”

“No. It was a man named Yakov Korotkii. I can describe him, or do a sketch, or work with a police artist. I remember his face. I remember it very well. I have an eidetic memory. I don’t forget. I don’t forget,” she repeated, with her voice rising, body shaking.

“Detectives,” Ms. Petrie began. “Elizabeth has been through a severe trauma. She’s had enough for the night.”

“No. No. I need to help. I need to do something.”

“We have her mother’s permission to question her,” Griffith stated.

“My mother?”

“She’s been notified. She’ll fly back in the morning.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes. “All right.”

“Elizabeth. This is important. How do you know the man who killed Gurevich and Julie was Yakov Korotkii?”

“Alex called him by his last name when they talked. Julie … she must have been in the bathroom. I fell asleep for a little while, out on the terrace. Their voices—Alex’s and the two men’s—woke me.”

“Two men.”

“The other was bigger, burlier. Korotkii called him Yegor. Korotkii said Alex had stolen from his uncle. Alex called him—the uncle—Sergei. He denied it, but he was lying. I could see he was lying. Korotkii, he was … Have you seen a cobra kill a mouse? How it watches, so patient. How it seems to enjoy those moments before the strikes as much as the strike itself? It was like that. Alex was dismissive, as if he were in charge. But he wasn’t in charge. Korotkii was in charge. And Alex became afraid when Korotkii said they knew he was cooperating with the police. That Sergei knew. He begged. Do you need to know what they said to each other?”

“We’ll get back to that.”

“The burly man pushed Alex to his knees. And then Korotkii took a gun from behind his back. He must have had a holster. I didn’t see. He shot him here.”

Elizabeth touched her fingers to her forehead.

“He put the gun against his forehead, and he shot him. It wasn’t loud at all. Then he shot him twice more. Here.

“I almost screamed. I had to put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t scream. Korotkii called Alex a … It’s a very strong Russian oath.”

“You speak Russian.”

“Not fluently. I’d never heard the expression before, but it was … self-explanatory. I only mention it because that was how quick it all happened. He called Alex, even though he was dead, a name. Then Julie came in, from the kitchen direction. There’s a powder room off the kitchen. She said, ‘Alex, I don’t feel good. We should—’ That’s all she said. Korotkii turned, and he shot her. She fell. I could see she was dead, but he shot again. And he cursed in Russian. I couldn’t hear for a minute. There were screams in my head. I couldn’t hear. Then I heard Ilya. I thought they would kill him, too. I wanted to warn him, to help him. And then …”

“Take a minute.” Riley spoke gently in what Griffith knew wasn’t his going-in-soft voice but sincere concern. “Take your time.”

“They spoke in Russian, but I could understand all—or nearly all—of it. Ilya was angry, but not so much that Alex was dead.”

She closed her eyes, took a breath, and relayed the conversation she’d heard word for word.

“That’s pretty exact,” Riley commented.

“I have an eidetic memory. I ran, because Ilya knew I’d come to the house. I knew he’d ask about me. I knew they’d kill me, too. So I ran. I didn’t pay attention to where I ran—I just ran. I left my shoes. I couldn’t run in the shoes, the heels, so I left them on the terrace. I didn’t think. I just reacted. If I’d thought, I would’ve taken them with me. They must have found the shoes. So they know I saw. They know I heard.”

“We’re going to protect you, Elizabeth. I promise you.” Griffith reached out, laid her hand over Elizabeth’s. “We’re going to keep you safe.”

Griffith stepped out of the room with Riley, clamped her hands on her head. “Jesus Christ, Riley, Jesus Christ on a pogo stick. Do you know what we’ve got?”

“We’ve got an eye witness with a memory like a computer, who speaks Russian. We’ve got motherfucking Korotkii, that slick bastard Ilya Volkov. And if God’s good, we’ll get Sergei. If she holds up, she’ll break the back of the Volkov crew.”

“She’ll hold up.” Eyes hard and bright, Griffith glanced toward the door. “We’ve got to call in the brass, Riley, get her into a safe house. We’re going to need the U.S. Marshals Service.”

“Screw that.”

“We ask, or they take. We ask, we stay in.”

“God damn it, I hate when you make sense. Let’s get it started. You know what else I noticed about the witness?”

“What’s that?”

“She looked nearly as sick about her mother coming in as she did about the rest of it.”

“I think getting grounded’s the least of her worries.”

Elizabeth let it blur. It didn’t matter where they took her. She wanted only to sleep. So she slept in the car with the two detectives and Ms. Petrie. When the car stopped, she got out without complaint, all but sleepwalking into a small, clapboard house. She accepted the T-shirt and cotton pants Detective Griffith gave her, even managed to change into them in the small bedroom with the narrow twin bed. She feared her dreams but was powerless against the exhaustion.

She lay on top of the bed, used the cop blanket to cover herself. She felt the tears slide through her lashes as she closed her eyes.

Then she felt nothing.

She woke midday, dry and hollow.

She didn’t know what would happen next. All of her life she’d known exactly what was expected of her, when it was expected. But there was no list, no schedule, to lean on now.

It shamed her to be hungry, to wish for coffee, a shower, a toothbrush. Everyday things, ordinary things. Julie would never be hungry again, or do ordinary things.

But she got up, wincing a little as her sore feet hit the floor. She hurt, she realized, all over. She should hurt, she determined. She should be in misery.

Then she remembered her mother. Her mother was coming back, might already be back. That, she decided, would be more punishment than pain and hunger.

Wanting the punishment, she cracked the door open. Listened.

She heard voices—just the rumble of them—smelled coffee. Smelled, she realized with another wince, herself. She wanted the punishment but hoped she could take a shower before it was delivered.

She stepped out, walked toward the sound of the voices.

And froze.

A stranger stood in the small white-and-yellow kitchen. A tall man, almost gangly, he poured coffee from a carafe into a thick white mug. He paused in the act of it, smiled at her.

He wore jeans, a white shirt—and a shoulder holster.

“Good morning. Or afternoon. I’m Deputy U.S. Marshal John Barrow. It’s all right, Elizabeth. We’re here to keep you safe.”

“You’re a U.S. Marshal.”

“That’s right. Later today, we’re going to take you to another safe house.”

“Is Detective Griffith here?”

“She’ll be here later. She got you some clothes, some things.” He paused for another moment when Elizabeth only stared at him. “You gave her your key, told her it was all right if she went to your house, got you some clothes, your toothbrush, that sort of thing.”

“Yes. I remember.”

“I bet you could use some coffee, some aspirin.”

“I … I’d like to take a shower, if that’s all right.”

“Sure.” He smiled again, set the carafe and mug down. He had blue eyes but not like her mother’s. His were a deeper tone, and warm.

“I’ll get your bag. I’m here with Deputy Marshal Theresa Norton. I want you to feel secure, Elizabeth—do they call you Liz?”

Tears stung the back of her eyes. “Julie called me Liz. Julie did.”

“I’m sorry about your friend. You’ve had a rough time of it, Liz. Theresa and I are going to look out for you.”

“They’ll kill me if they find me. I know that.”

Those warm blue eyes looked straight into hers. “They won’t find you. And I won’t let them hurt you.”

She wanted to believe him. He had a good face. Thin, like the rest of him, almost scholarly. “How long do I have to hide?”

“Let’s take it a day at a time for now. I’ll get your stuff.”

She stood exactly where she was until he came back, carrying her travel Pullman.

“Why don’t I fix up some food while you’re cleaning up,” he suggested. “I’m a better cook than Terry. That’s not saying much, but I won’t poison you.”

“Thank you. If it’s no trouble.”

“It’s not.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know where the shower is.”

“That way.” He pointed. “Then hang a right.”

He watched her go, then picked up his coffee, stared into it. He set it down again when his partner walked in from the outside.

“She’s up,” he said. “Jesus, Terry, she looked closer to twelve than twenty-one. She should never have gotten in that club.”

“You saw the ID she forged. She could make a living.” Small, tough, pretty as a daisy, Terry hit the coffeepot. “How’s she holding up?”

“By one rough strand of grit, if you ask me. Polite as your great-aunt Martha.”

“If I had a great-aunt Martha, she’d be a bitch on wheels.”

“She never asked about her mother. About Griffith, but not her own mother. That tells you something. I’m going to fix her some bacon and eggs.”

He pulled open the refrigerator, got out what he needed.

“Do you want me to contact the prosecutor? You know he wants to talk to her asap.”

“Let’s give her time to get some food in her belly. But, yeah, better if he meets with her here before we move her. And better if she has a little time before she realizes she could be living in a safe house for months.”

“Maybe years. How could somebody smart enough to be going to Harvard—at sixteen, no less—get herself mixed up with the Volkovs?”

“Sometimes being sixteen’s enough.” John laid bacon in the skillet, set it sizzling.

“I’ll make the call. Tell them two hours—give her time to get dressed, eat, settle.”

“Check on the mother’s ETA while you’re at it.”

“Will do.”

5

By the time Elizabeth came back in, wearing jeans and a blue tank with a thin froth of lace at the edges, he’d piled a plate with bacon, eggs, toast.

“Did Detective Griffith pack everything you needed?”

“Yes. I wasn’t sure what to do with the suitcase. You said we weren’t staying here.”

“Don’t worry about it. Eat while it’s hot.”

She stared at the plate. “That’s a lot of food.” Bacon? Her nutritionist would have a heart attack.

The idea of the reaction made her smile.

“You look hungry.”

“I am.” The smile stayed in place when she looked up at him. “I’m not supposed to eat bacon.”

“Why?”

“Processed meat, sodium, animal fat. It’s not on my approved list. My mother and my nutritionist have devised a very specific meal plan.”

“Is that so? Well, it’s a shame to let it go to waste.”

“It would be.” The scent drew her to the table. “And you went to the trouble to cook it for me.” She sat, picked up a slice of bacon, took a bite. Closed her eyes. “It’s good.”

“Everything’s better with bacon.” He set a tall glass of juice and three Tylenol beside her plate. “Take those, drink that. I can see the hangover.”

Now the smile fell away. “We shouldn’t have been drinking.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. Do you always do what you should do?”

“Yes. I mean, before yesterday. And if I’d done what I should have yesterday, Julie would be alive.”

“Liz, Julie’s dead because Yakov Korotkii is a murderer, because the Volkovs are very bad people. You and Julie did something stupid. She didn’t deserve to die for it. And you’re not responsible. Take the Tylenol, drink the juice. Eat.”

She obeyed more out of the habit of obedience than desire now. But, oh, the food was so good, so comforting.

“Will you tell me what happens now? I don’t know what happens now, and it’s easier to know what I’m expected to do.”

He brought his coffee to the table, sat down with her. “A lot of what happens next depends on you.”

“Because my testimony as to what happened, what I saw, what I heard, will be necessary to convict Yakov Korotkii on the murder charges, and the other man as his accomplice. And Ilya as an accessory after the fact. Also, it could implicate Sergei Volkov, though that may be hearsay, I’m not clear on that. He would be the most desired target, as it appears he’s the head, or one of the heads, of the organization.”

John leaned back in his chair. “You seem to have a solid grasp on the situation, as it stands.”

“I’ve been monitoring some criminal justice courses, and doing a lot of reading.”

“Since yesterday?”

“No.” She nearly laughed, but it caught in her throat. “Since I started college. I’m interested.”

“But you’re studying to be a doctor.”

She looked down at her plate, carefully scooped up a bite of scrambled egg. “Yes.”

He got up, opened the fridge again, took out a Coke for himself, then a second. He cocked a brow in question.

“I’m not supposed to— Yes, please. I’d like a Coke.”

He opened both, then sat as a compact woman with blond hair in a sleek ponytail stepped in. “Liz, this is Deputy Marshal Norton. Terry, Liz.”

“How’re you doing today, Liz?”

“Better, thank you.”

“Liz was just asking about the process, though she seems to have a handle on it. Terry’s contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office. You’ll have a representative from Child Services present while they talk to you, if your mother hasn’t arrived by that time. Your cooperation is voluntary, Liz, but—”

“I could be held as a material witness. It won’t be necessary. I have to cooperate, I have to testify. Will you tell me if the Volkovs are Russian Mafia?”

“What we believe and what we can prove—”

“I want to know what you believe,” Elizabeth interrupted. “I think I should know my situation. I may be a minor, legally, but I’m not a child. I have an IQ of two hundred and ten, and excellent comprehension skills. I know I behaved foolishly, but I’m not foolish. I understand if I witnessed murders carried out on orders of what would be the pakhan—the boss—I’m a target. If I testify, Korotkii or one like him will do whatever can be done to stop me. Even after I testify, and particularly if my testimony leads to convictions, I’ll be a target. In retribution.”

She paused, took a sip of Coke right from the can. Amazing.

“I was impaired last night—this morning, more accurately. From drinking, being sick, then from shock. I didn’t fully assess the situation. But I have now. If the Volkovs are simply very bad men, a loosely formed gang of thugs and criminals, it’s a difficult situation. If they are organized crime, if they are Red Mafia, it’s much more. I want to know.”

She watched the two deputies exchange a look.

“Once I’m able to access a computer,” Elizabeth added, “I’ll be able to research and find the answer for myself.”

“I bet you could,” John murmured. “We believe—hell, we know—the Volkovs are organized crime. We know they’re heavily involved in weapons and human trafficking, in computer fraud—a specialty—in protection, theft, drugs. They’re a wide-reaching organization, with considerable legitimate—or legitimate enough—interests, such as nightclubs, restaurants, strip joints and real estate. Law enforcement’s been able to peck away a bit, but the hierarchy hasn’t been touched. We know Korotkii is Sergei Volkov’s mechanic—his hit man. But we’ve never been able to pin him.”

“He liked killing Alex. He felt great contempt for Alex. With Julie … killing Julie annoyed him. Nothing more, nothing less. I’m sorry, I can’t finish the food.”

“It’s okay.”

She looked down at her hands for a moment, then back up into John’s eyes. “I won’t be able to go back to Harvard. I won’t be able to go home again. If I testify, I’ll have to go into the Witness Protection Program. Isn’t that what will happen?”

“You’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” Terry told her.

“I always think ahead. I didn’t last night, and there was a terrible price. Would I be able to go to another university, under another name?”

“We could make that work,” John said. “We take good care of our witnesses, Liz. You can look that up on the computer, too.”

“I will. They don’t know who I am. I mean to say I only told Ilya my first name. He only knew Liz—and really it’s always been Elizabeth. And I … before we went to the club, I cut and dyed my hair. I don’t look like this.”

“Like the hair,” Terry said. “It’s a good look for you.”

“I look very different. Last night with makeup, and the dress, the hair, I looked very different than I did. Maybe there’s a way to give testimony without them finding out who I am. I know it’s a slim chance, but I’d like to try to believe that. For now, anyway.”

Terry shifted as her cell phone beeped. She pulled it from the case on her belt. “Norton. Yeah. Copy that.”

She replaced the phone. “They’re bringing your mom in.”

“All right.” Rising, Elizabeth took her plate to the sink. “I’ll do the dishes.”

“I’ll give you a hand,” John said.

“No. If you don’t mind, I’d like a little time alone before my mother gets here.”

“Sure.” He laid a hand on her shoulder. “It’ll be all right, Liz.”

She only nodded and kept her hands busy, out of sight. So no one could see them tremble.

By the time the plainclothes officers brought her mother to the door, she felt she had herself under control. In the sparsely furnished living room, Elizabeth got to her feet as Susan came in. One look told her the apology she’d practiced would be far from adequate.

“For God’s sake, Elizabeth, what have you done to your hair?”

“I …” Thrown off balance, Elizabeth lifted a hand to her hair. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“Dr. Fitch, I’m Deputy Marshal Barrow, and this is Deputy Marshal Norton. We understand this is a very difficult situation. If we could sit down, we’ll explain exactly what precautions we’re taking to protect your daughter.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ve already been briefed. If you’ll excuse us, I’d like to speak to my daughter alone.”

“I’m sorry, Dr. Fitch, for her protection, it’s necessary for at least one of us to remain with Elizabeth at all times.”

Elizabeth glanced his way, wondered why he’d left her alone in the kitchen.

“Very well. Sit down, Elizabeth.” Susan remained standing. “There are no acceptable explanations, no rational reasoning, for your behavior. If the facts have been related to me accurately, you broke the law by forging documents you used to gain entrance to a nightclub with another minor. Where you consumed alcohol. Are these facts accurate?”

“Yes. Yes, they’re accurate.”

“You compounded this by showing yet more poor judgment by accompanying a man you’d just met to his home. Did you engage in sexual relations with this man?”

“No.”

“It’s imperative you answer truthfully, as you may have contracted an STD or become pregnant.”

“I didn’t have sex with anyone.”

Susan eyed her as coldly as she might a specimen under a microscope. “I’m unable to trust your word. You’ll submit to an examination as soon as possible. Actions have consequences, Elizabeth, as you know very well.”

“I didn’t have sex with anyone,” Elizabeth said flatly. “Julie had sex with Alex, and now she’s dead. It seems the consequence is too harsh for the action.”

“By your actions you put yourself and this other girl in serious jeopardy.”

The words were like stones, hurled at her limbs, cracking bone.

“I know. I have no excuse.”

“Because there is none. Now a girl is dead, and you’re under police protection. You may also face criminal charges—”

“Dr. Fitch,” John interrupted. “Let me assure you and Elizabeth. There will be no charges.”

“Is that for you to decide?” she snapped, then turned straight back to Elizabeth. “I’m aware that girls of your age often show poor judgment, often defy authority. I made allowances for that in our conversation before I left for Atlanta. But I expect better than this debacle from someone with your intellect, your resources, your upbringing. It’s only through the whims of providence you weren’t killed.”

“I ran away.”

“At last showing common sense. Now, get your things. I’ll arrange for one of the gynecologists on staff to examine you before we go home.”

“But … I can’t go home.”

“This is a poor time to exhibit misplaced independence.”

“Elizabeth is under the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service,” John began. “She’s the only witness to a double homicide. The man who committed those homicides is suspected of being an assassin in the Volkov bratva. That’s Russian Mafia, Dr. Fitch, if those facts weren’t related to you.”

“I’m aware of what Elizabeth reported to the police.”

Elizabeth knew that tone—the chief-of-surgery tone that demanded no nonsense, brooked no argument, accepted no discussion.

“I’m also told she wasn’t seen by this man, and her name is unknown to him and his associates. I intend to take my daughter home, where she will be properly disciplined for her unfortunate behavior.”

“You can intend anything you want, Dr. Fitch, but Liz is under the protection of the U.S. Marshals Service.”

John spoke so calmly, so matter-of-factly, Elizabeth could only stare at him.

“She’ll be moved from this location tonight, to one we feel is more secure. Your residence is not a secure location, and her safety is our priority. As I assume it would be yours.”

“I have the resources to hire private security, if necessary. I’ve contacted my lawyer. Elizabeth can’t be forced to testify on this matter.”

“They’re not forcing me. I’ve agreed to testify.”

“Your judgment continues to be poor. This is my decision.”

He’d called her Liz, Elizabeth thought. He’d called her Liz and defied Dr. Susan L. Fitch’s directive—to her face. So she would be Liz. She wouldn’t crumble like Elizabeth.

“No, it’s not.” The world did not end when she spoke the words. “I have to testify. I can’t go home.”

A flash of shock overlaid the brutally cold anger on Susan’s face. “Do you have any concept of the consequences of this? You won’t be able to participate in the summer program, or study at Harvard in the fall. You’ll both delay and impair your education, and you’ll put your life, your life, Elizabeth, into the hands of people whose true agenda is to convict this man, at whatever cost to you.”

“Julie’s dead.”

“Nothing can change that, but this decision could ruin your life, your plans, your future.”

“How can I just go home as if none of this happened? Go back to my life? And your plans, because they’ve never been mine. If their agenda is to convict the murderers, I accept that. Yours is for me to do nothing, to obey, to live the life you’ve designed for me. I can’t. I can’t do that anymore. I have to try to do what’s right. That’s the consequence, Mother. And I have to accept the consequence.”

“You’ll only compound your mistake.”

“Dr. Fitch,” John began. “The federal prosecutor is coming here to talk with Liz—”

“Elizabeth.”

“You’ll hear what he has to say. What steps will be taken. You can take a little time. I understand this is a shock. We’ll move you and your daughter to the new location, where you can take a few days to consider, to talk.”

“I have no intention of going anywhere with you, and am under no obligation to go anywhere with you. I expect you’ll come to your senses in a day or two,” she said to Elizabeth. “Once you realize the limits of your current circumstances, and the true scope of those consequences. I’ll tell Dr. Frisco you’re ill, and will catch up on the work. Think carefully, Elizabeth. There are steps taken that can never be undone.”

She waited, her mouth flattening when Elizabeth failed to respond.

“Contact me when you’re ready to come home. Deputies,” she said, and walked to the door.

John beat her to it. “One moment, Doctor.” He picked up his radio. “Barrow. Dr. Fitch is coming out. She’ll need to be escorted to her residence.”

“Copy that. We’re clear out here.”

“You don’t approve of my decision in this situation,” Susan said.

“You don’t need or want my approval, but no. Not by a long shot.”

“You’re right. I neither need nor want your approval.” She walked out without a backward glance.

When he stepped back, he saw Terry sitting on the arm of Elizabeth’s chair, a hand lightly laid on the girl’s shoulder.

“People react to fear and worry in different ways,” he began.

“She wasn’t afraid or worried, or not primarily. Primarily, she’s angry and inconvenienced. I understand that.”

“She was wrong,” Terry told her. “I know she’s your mom, but she was way off base.”

“She’s never wrong, and she’s never been a mom. Is it all right if I go to my room for a while?”

“Sure. But, Liz,” John added when she got up, “nobody’s never wrong.”

“Bitch,” Terry said under her breath when Elizabeth left the room. “Coldhearted bitch, coming in here, not one fucking hair out of place, kicking that girl at a time like this.”

“She never touched her,” John murmured. “She never put her arms around that kid, never asked how she was, never said she was glad she wasn’t hurt. Jesus Christ, if that girl’s life’s been like that, witness protection might be an upgrade.”

Elizabeth spent two hours with Mr. Pomeroy from the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She had to go through it all again, every step of the night, this time with interruptions that demanded clarifications, made her backtrack, jump forward, go back again. With him were three others, all in dark suits. One of them took notes, even though they recorded the interview.

Detectives Riley and Griffith had come, too, so the house felt very small, very crowded.

At one point, Pomeroy eased back in his chair, frowned.

“Now, Elizabeth, you admit you’d had several alcoholic drinks. How many? Three, four? More?”

“A little more than four. I couldn’t finish the last. When we got to Alex’s, I had some water. He made me another drink, but I didn’t want it. I didn’t feel well.”

“And in fact got sick. After you were sick, you fell asleep out on the terrace. How often do you drink?”

“I don’t. I mean to say I’ve had small amounts of wine, as my mother believes I should develop a sophisticated palate, but I’d never had a mixed drink before.”

“So it was your first experience with that kind of alcohol, and you consumed nearly five glasses throughout the evening, became ill, slept—or passed out—outside. Yet you claim you can identify the individuals who entered the home and shot Alexi Gurevich and Julie Masters? And at what distance?”

“About ten feet. But I can be sure. I saw them very clearly. They were in the light.”

“Wouldn’t you have been impaired after knocking back all that alcohol, after partying yourself sick?”

Shamed, she stared down at the hands she had clutched in her lap. “I’m sure my reaction time was impaired, and surely my judgment. But not my eyesight or hearing.”

Pomeroy nodded at one of the men with him. The man stepped forward, laid several photographs on the table.

“Do you recognize any of these men?” he asked her.

“Yes.” She pointed to one at the right corner of the layout. “That’s Yakov Korotkii. That’s the man who shot Alex, then Julie. His hair’s longer in the photograph.”

“Do you know this man?” Pomeroy asked her. “Had you met him before?”

“I never met him. I only saw him, and only last night, when he shot Alex and Julie.”

“All right.” Pomeroy picked up that set of photos, and the man set down another pile. “Do you recognize anyone here?”

“This man. They called him Yegor. I don’t know the rest of his name. He was with Korotkii. He restrained Alex, then pushed him down to his knees.”

“And once more.” Again, the photos were removed, others laid out.

“That’s Ilya.” Because her lips trembled, she pressed them tight. “Ilya Volkov. He came in after … after Julie and Alex were dead. Only a few minutes after. He was angry. He spoke in Russian.”

“How do you know he was angry?”

“I speak Russian, not very well. They said … this is translated. Is that all right?”

“Yes.”

She took a breath, relayed the conversation.

“Then I ran. I knew they’d start looking for me, and if they found me, they’d kill me because I’d seen. When I stopped running, I called nine-one-one.”

“That’s good. You did very well, Elizabeth. We’re going to arrest these men. It may be necessary for you to identify them again, in a lineup. They won’t be able to see you.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Your testimony will help put very dangerous men behind bars. The U.S. Attorney’s Office is very grateful.”

“You’re welcome.”

He smiled at that. “We’ll talk again. We’ll be seeing a lot of each other over the next weeks. If you need anything, Elizabeth, anything at all, one of the marshals will get it for you, or you can contact me. We want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

“Thank you.”

Tension she hadn’t been aware of melted away when he left.

As Terry had earlier, Griffith sat on the arm of her chair. “He was tough on you because it’s going to be hard. What you’re doing, what the defense team will do to discredit your testimony. It’s not going to be an easy road.”

“I know. Are you still part of the investigation?”

“It’s a joint investigation, because Riley and me pushed for it. It’s the feds’ ball, but we’re still on the court. How are you holding up?”

“I’m all right. Everyone’s been very considerate. Thank you for getting my things.”

“No problem. Do you need anything else?”

“I’d like my laptop. I should have asked you before, but I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

“You’re not going to be able to e-mail anyone, go into chat rooms, post on boards.”

“It’s not for that. I want to study, and research. If I could have my computer, some of my books …”

“I’ll check it out.”

That had to be good enough.

When night fell, they put her in a car with John and Terry. Griffith and Riley drove behind; more marshals took the lead.

As they sped along the expressway, it occurred to her that only twenty-four hours ago she’d put on her new red dress, her high, sparkling shoes.

And Julie, eyes bright, voice giddy, had sat beside her in a cab. Alive.

Everything had been so different.

Now everything was different again.

They pulled directly into the garage of a simple two-story house with a wide, deep yard. But for the car, the garage stood empty—no tools, no boxes, no debris.

The door leading to the interior boasted a deadlock.

The man who opened the door had some gray threaded through his dark brown hair. Though nearly as tall as John, he was more filled out—muscular in jeans and a polo shirt, his weapon holstered at his side.

He stepped back so they could enter the kitchen—bigger than the one they’d just left. The appliances more modern, the floor a buff-colored tile.

“Liz, this is Deputy Marshal Cosgrove.”

“Bill.” He extended a hand and an encouraging smile to Elizabeth. “Welcome home. Deputy Peski—that’s Lynda—is doing a perimeter check. We’ll be keeping you safe tonight.”

“Oh … But—”

“We’ll be back in the morning,” John told her. “But we’ll get you settled in before we go.”

“Why don’t I take you up, show you your room,” Terry suggested, and before Elizabeth could agree or protest, Terry had picked up her suitcase and started out.

“She looks younger than I figured,” Bill commented.

“She’s worn out, still a little glazed over. But the kid’s solid. She held up to two hours with Pomeroy without one fumble. A jury’s going to love her.”

“A teenage girl taking down the Volkovs.” Bill shook his head. “Go figure.”

Sergei Volkov was in his prime, a wealthy man who’d come from wretched poverty. By the age of ten he’d been an accomplished thief who’d known every corner, every rat hole, in his miserable ghetto in Moscow. He’d killed his first man at thirteen, gutting him with an American-made combat knife he’d stolen from a rival. He’d broken the arm of the rival, a wily boy of sixteen.

He still had the knife.

He’d risen through the ranks of the Moscow bratva, becoming a brigadier before his eighteenth birthday.

Ambition had driven him higher until, with his brother Mikhail, he’d taken over the bratva in a merciless, bloody coup even as the Soviet Union crumbled. It was, in Sergei’s mind, a moment of opportunity and change.

He married a woman with a lovely face and a taste for finer things. She’d given him two daughters, and he’d been amazed at how deeply he’d loved them from their first breath. He’d wept when he’d held each child for the first time, overcome with joy and wonder and pride.

But when, at last, he’d held his son, there were no tears. That joy, that wonder and pride, were too deep for tears.

His children, his love and ambition for them, pushed him to emigrate to America. There he could present them with opportunities, with a richer life.

And he’d deemed it time to expand.

He’d seen his oldest child married to a lawyer, and had held his first grandchild. And wept. He’d set up his younger daughter—his artist, his dreamer—in her own gallery.

But his son, ah, his son, his businessman with a degree from the University of Chicago, there was his legacy. His boy was smart, strong, clearheaded, cool-blooded.

All the hopes and hungers of the young boy in the Moscow ghetto had been realized in the son.

He worked now in his shade garden of his Gold Coast estate, waiting for Ilya to arrive. Sergei was a hard and handsome man with shocks of white waving through his dark hair, thick black brows over onyx eyes. He kept himself rigorously fit and satisfied his wife, his mistress and the occasional whore.

His gardens were another source of pride. He had landscapers and groundskeepers, of course, but spent hours a week when he could puttering, digging in the dirt, planting some new specimen with his own hands.

If he hadn’t become a pakhan, Sergei believed he might have lived a happy, very simple life as a gardener.

In his baggy shorts, the star tattoos on his knees grubby with earth and mulch, he continued to dig as he heard his son approach.

“Chicken shit,” Sergei said. “It’s cheap, easy to come by, and it makes the plants very happy.”

Confounded, as always, by his father’s love of dirt, Ilya shook his head. “And smells like chicken shit.”

“A small price to pay. My hostas enjoy, and see there? The lungwort will bloom soon. So many secrets in the shade and shadows.”

Sergei looked up then, squinting a bit. “So. Have you found her?”

“Not yet. We will. I have a man checking at Harvard. We’ll have her name soon, and from there, we’ll have her.”

“Women lie, Ilya.”

“I don’t think she lied about this. She studies medicine there, and is unhappy. Her mother, a surgeon, here in Chicago. I believe this is also true. We’re looking for the mother.”

Ilya crouched down. “I won’t go to prison.”

“No, you won’t go to prison. Nor will Yakov. I work on other avenues as well. But I’m not pleased one of my most valued brigadiers sits now in a cell.”

“He won’t talk.”

“This doesn’t worry me. He will say nothing, as Yegor will say nothing. The American police? Musor.” He dismissed them as garbage with a flick of the wrist. “They will never break such as these. Nor would they break you if we were not able to convince the judge on the bail. But this girl, she worries me. It worries me, Ilya, that she was there and lives. It worries me that Yakov had no knowledge she and the other were there.”

“If I hadn’t been delayed, I would have been there, and would have stopped it. Then there would be no witness.”

“Communication, this was a problem. And is also been dealt with.”

“You said to keep an eye on him, Papa, to stay close to him until he could be disciplined for stealing.”

Ilya shoved up, yanked off his sunglasses. “I would have cut off his hand myself for stealing from the family. You gave him everything, but all he thinks of is more. More money, more drugs, more women, more show. My cousin. Suki.” He snarled the word for traitor. “He spits in our faces, again and again. You were good to him, Papa.”

“The son of your mother’s cousin. How could I not do my best? Still, I had hopes.”

“You took him in, him and Yakov.”

“And Yakov has proven himself worthy of that gift time and again. Alexi?” Sergei shrugged. “Chicken shit,” he said with half a smile. “Now he’ll be fertilizer. The drugs. He was weak for them. This is why I was strict with you and your sisters. Drugs are business only. For drugs—that is the root—he steals from us, betrays us and his own blood.”

“If I’d known, I’d have been there, to watch him beg like a woman. To watch him die.”

“The information on his arrest, on the deal the bastard made with the cops, only came to us that night. He had to be dealt with quickly. I sent Yakov and Yegor to check his house, to see if he was there. So perhaps he was dealt with too quickly. Mistakes were made, as the Americans say. You’ve not been one to whore with Alexi in the past. His taste was always less refined than yours.”

“I was to stay close,” Ilya repeated. “And the girl, she was intriguing. Fresh, unspoiled. Sad. A little sad. I liked her.”

“There are plenty of others. She’s already dead. Now you’ll stay for supper. It will please your mother, and me.”

“Of course.”

6

Two weeks passed, then the start of another. Elizabeth could count on one hand the number of times she’d been allowed to leave the house. And never alone.

She was never alone.

She, who’d once longed for companionship, now found the lack of solitude more confining than the four walls of her room.

She had her laptop. They’d blocked her access to e-mail and chat boards. Out of boredom and curiosity, she hacked through the blocks. Not that she planned to contact anyone, but it gave her a sense of accomplishment.

She kept that small triumph to herself.

She had nightmares, and kept them to herself as well.

They brought her books, and music CDs. She only had to ask. Devouring the popular fiction and music her mother so strongly disapproved of should have given her a sense of freedom. Instead, it only served to highlight how much she’d missed, and how little she knew of the real world.

Her mother never came.

Every morning John and Terry relieved the night shift, and every evening Bill and Lynda relieved them. Sometimes they made food; breakfast seemed to be John’s specialty. For the most part, they brought it in. Pizza or burgers, chicken or Chinese. Out of guilt—and partially out of defense—Elizabeth began to experiment in the kitchen. Recipes were just formulas, as far as she could see. The kitchen a kind of laboratory.

And in experimenting, she found an affinity. She liked the chopping and stirring, the scents, the textures.

“What’s on the menu?”

From her seat at the table, Elizabeth glanced up as John walked in. “I thought I might try this stir-fry chicken.”

“Sounds good.” He got himself coffee. “My wife does stir-fry to trick the kids into eating vegetables.”

She knew he and his wife, Maddie, had two children. A seven-year-old boy, Maxfield, named for the painter Maxfield Parrish, and Emily—for Emily Brontë—age five.

He’d shown her pictures, the ones from his wallet, and told her funny little stories about them.

To personalize himself; she understood that. And it had, but it also forced her to realize there were no funny little stories about her as a child.

“Do they worry about you? Being in law enforcement?”

“Max and Em? They’re too young to worry. They know I chase bad guys, and that’s about as far as it goes right now. Maddie?” He sat with his coffee. “Yeah, some. It’s part of the package. And it can be tough on her, the long hours, the time away from home.”

“You said she was a court reporter.”

“Yeah, until Max came along. Best day of my life, that day in court. Even though I could barely remember my own name with her sitting there. Most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I don’t know how I got lucky enough to talk her into going out with me, much less marrying me.”

“You’re a very solid man,” Elizabeth began. “Physically attractive. You’re kind and have a broad worldview, varied interests. And the fact that you’re in a position of authority, carry a weapon, can be attractive to a woman on a visceral level.”

His eyes laughed at her over his coffee. “You’re like nobody else, Liz.”

“I wish I were.”

“Don’t. You’re a stand-up girl, scary smart, brave, compassionate—and you have varied interests as well. I can’t keep up with the variety. Science, law enforcement, health and nutrition, music, books, now cooking. Who knows what’s next?”

“Will you teach me to handle a gun?”

He lowered his coffee. “Where did that come from?”

“It could be one of my varied interests.”

“Liz.”

“I’m having nightmares.”

“Oh, honey.” He laid a hand over hers. “Talk to me.”

“I dream about that night. I know it’s a normal reaction, an expected one.”

“That doesn’t make it easier.”

“It doesn’t.” She stared down at the cookbook, wondered if her world would ever be as simple as ingredients and measurements again.

“And I dream about going in, to do the lineup. Only he sees me, Korotkii. I know he sees me, because he smiles. And he reaches behind his back, like he did that night. And everything slows down when he takes out the gun. Nobody reacts. He shoots me through the glass.”

“He didn’t see you, Liz.”

“I know. That’s rational and logical. But this is about fear and emotion—subconscious fears and emotions. I try not to dwell on it, try to keep busy and occupied.”

“Why don’t I contact your mother?”

“Why?”

The genuine puzzlement had him biting back an oath. “You know we have a psychologist available for you. You said you didn’t want to talk to one before, but—”

“I still don’t. What’s the point? I understand what’s happening, and why. I know it’s a process my mind has to go through. But he kills me, you see. Either at the house because in the dreams he finds me, or at the lineup because he sees right through the glass. I’m afraid he’ll find me, he’ll see me, he’ll kill me. And I feel helpless. I have no power, no weapon. I can’t defend myself. I want to be able to defend myself. I don’t want to be helpless.”

“And you think learning to shoot will help you feel more in control, less vulnerable?”

“I think it’s one answer.”

“Then I’ll teach you.” He took out his weapon, pulled out the magazine, and set it aside. “This is a Glock 19. It’s standard-issue. It holds fifteen rounds in this magazine.”

Elizabeth took it when he offered. “It’s polymer. I looked it up.”

“Of course you did.”

“It’s not as heavy as I thought it would be. But it’s not loaded, so that accounts for some of the weight.”

“We’ll keep it unloaded for now. Let’s talk about safety.”

She looked up, into his eyes. “All right.”

After some basics, he had her stand, showed her how to sight, how to grip. And Terry walked in.

“Jesus Christ, John.”

“It’s not loaded,” Elizabeth said quickly.

“I repeat, Jesus Christ.”

“Give us a minute, Liz.”

“Oh. All right.” More reluctant than she’d imagined, she gave the gun back to John. “I’ll be in my room.”

“What the hell are you thinking?” Terry demanded the minute Elizabeth left the room.

“She wants to learn how to handle a gun.”

“Well, I want George Clooney naked in my bed, but I haven’t attempted kidnapping. Yet.”

“She’s having nightmares, Terry.”

“Crap.” Terry wrenched open the refrigerator, got out a Coke. “I’m sorry, John, this all seriously sucks for that kid. But letting her handle your service weapon isn’t an answer.”

“She thinks it is. She doesn’t want to feel defenseless. Who can blame her? We can tell her all day long she’s safe, we’ll protect her, but she’s still powerless. It’s not just about what we tell her, but what she feels.”

“I know that, John, I know. I understand she’s scared, and she’s got to be bored out of her mind. We can’t change that, not really.”

“Her life’s never going to be the same, Terry, and we can’t forget that, either. We can’t forget she’s not just the witness, she’s a teenage girl. If learning proper gun safety and operation helps her, then I’m going to see she gets taught. Because the least she deserves is a decent night’s sleep.”

“Crap,” Terry repeated. “Okay, I get it. I do. But …”

“But?”

“I’m thinking.”

“Good, keep doing that. I’m going to try out the line that worked on you on the boss. I want to get clearance to take her into the range.”

“Rub a lamp while you’re at it. That may help.”

John just smiled and, taking out his phone, walked into the next room.

Terry huffed out a breath. After a moment’s consideration, she got out a second Coke, then walked upstairs to Elizabeth’s bedroom. She knocked.

“Come in.”

“Playing with guns always makes me thirsty.” Terry walked over to the bed where Elizabeth sat, handed her the Coke.

“I hope you’re not angry with John. It was my fault.”

“I’m not mad.” Terry sat beside her. “It caught me off guard, that’s all. John told me you’re having nightmares. You’re scared. I can tell you not to be, but the truth is, in your place I’d be scared, too.”

“I couldn’t do anything. In the nightmares, I can’t do anything, either, so he kills me, too. I want to learn how to take care of myself. You won’t always be there. You and John or Bill and Lynda. Or whoever they send. One day, you won’t be there, and I have to know I can take care of myself. My mother won’t go.”

“You don’t know—”

“I do know.” She said it calmly, without emotion, surprised she felt calm and emotionless. “When it comes time for you to relocate me, give me a new identity, she won’t go with me. Her life’s here, her career. I’ll be seventeen soon. I can file for emancipation if I need to. I would get it. When I turn eighteen, I’ll have some money from my trust fund. And more when I’m twenty-one. I can study, and I can work. I can cook a little now. But I can’t defend myself if something happens.”

“You’re smart enough to have done some research on the program. We haven’t lost a witness who’s followed our security guidelines.”

“I’ve followed someone else’s guidelines my entire life, so I’m used to that.”

“Oh, Liz. Hell.”

“That was passive-aggressive,” Elizabeth said with a sigh. “I’m sorry. But the point is, they’ll never stop looking for me. They believe in revenge and restitution. I know you’ll do everything you can to keep them from finding me, but I need to know, if the worst happened, if they did find me, I could fight back.”

“There are more ways to fight back than with a gun.”

“And yet you carry one.”

“Two.” Terry tapped her ankle. “Approved backup weapon. If you want to learn how to shoot, John’s your man. But there are more ways. I could teach you some self-defense. Hand to hand.”

Intrigued, Elizabeth sat back. “Actual fighting?”

“I was thinking more defensive moves, but, yeah, fighting back.”

“I’d like to learn. I’m a good student.”

“We’ll see about that.”

John came to the open door. “Five a.m. Be ready. We’ve got permission to use the range.”

“Thank you. So much.”

“Terry?”

“Five. In the morning. Hell. I’m in.”

Three times a week before the sun rose, John took her to the basement range. She grew accustomed to the feel of the gun in her hands, the shape, the weight, the recoil. He taught her to aim for body mass, to group her shots, to reload.

When she learned the trial had been delayed, she vented her frustration on the range.

On alternate days, Terry instructed her in self-defense. She learned how to use her opponent’s weight and balance to her advantage, how to break a hold, how to punch from the shoulder.

The nightmares still came, but not every night. And sometimes, in them, she won.

As the first month passed, her old life seemed less hers. She lived in the spare, two-story house with the high security fence, and slept each night with federal marshals on guard.

Lynda lent Elizabeth romance novels, mysteries, horror fiction out of her own collection. While summer burned through to August, Lynda cut Elizabeth’s hair again—with considerable more skill—and showed her how to retouch the roots. On long, quiet evenings, Bill taught her to play poker.

And the time dragged like eternity.

“I’d like to have some money,” she told John.

“You need a loan, kid?”

“No, but thank you. I’d like my own money. I have a savings account, and I want to withdraw some.”

“Taking you to the bank would involve unnecessary risk. If you need something, we’ll get it for you.”

“My mother could withdraw it. It’s like the gun. It’s for security.” She’d thought it through. She had time to think everything through. “When I finally testify, and I’m relocated, I think it’ll happen quickly. I’d like to have money—my own money—when it happens. I want to know I can buy what I need and not feel obligated to ask.”

“How much did you have in mind?”

“Five thousand.”

“That’s a lot of money, Liz.”

“Not really. I’m going to need a new computer, and other supplies. I want to think about tomorrow instead of today. Today just keeps being today.”

“It’s frustrating, I know, having to wait.”

“They’ll delay as long as they can, hoping to find me. Or hoping I’ll lose courage. But they can’t delay forever. I have to think about the rest of my life. Wherever that is, whoever I’ll be. I want to go back to school. I have a college fund that would have to be transferred. But there are other expenses.”

“Let me see what I can do.”

She smiled. “I like when you say that. With my mother, it’s always yes or no. She rarely, if ever, says maybe, because maybe is indecisive. You say you’ll see what you can do, which isn’t maybe, isn’t indecisive. It means you’ll take some action. You’ll try. It’s much better than no, and almost as good as yes.”

“All that.” He hesitated a moment. “You never mention your father. I know he’s not in the picture, but under the circumstances—”

“I don’t know who he is. He was a donor.”

“A donor?”

“Yes. When my mother decided to have a child, to have that experience, she screened numerous donors, weighing their qualifications. Physical attributes, medical history, family history, intellect and so on. She selected the best candidate and arranged to be inseminated.”

She paused, looked down at her hands. “I know how it sounds.”

“Do you?” he murmured.

“I exceeded her expectations, intellectually. My health’s always been excellent. I’m physically strong and sound. But she wasn’t able to bond with me. That part of the process failed. She’s always provided me with the best care, nutrition, shelter, education possible. But she couldn’t love me.”

It made him sick in the gut, in the heart. “The lack’s in her.”

“Yes, it is. And knowing her part of the process failed makes it very difficult for her to feel or show any affection. I thought, for a long time, I was to blame. But I know that’s not true. I knew when she left me. She left me because she could, because I made a choice that allowed her to walk away. I could make her proud of me, proud of what she’d accomplished in me, but I could never make her love me.”

He couldn’t help himself. He drew her against him, stroked her hair until she let out a long breath, leaned on him. “You’ll be all right, Liz.”

“I want to be.”

He met Terry’s eyes over her head, saw the sheen of tears and pity in them. It was good she’d heard, John thought. Because the kid had two people who cared about her, and would do whatever it took to make sure she was all right.

Sergei met with his brother and nephew, as well as Ilya and one of his most trusted brigadiers. Children splashed in the pool under the watchful eyes of the women while others sat at long picnic tables already spread with a bounty of food. Cold drinks nestled in wide, stainless-steel tubs of ice. On the lawn some of the older children played boccie or volleyball while their music banged out an incessant beat.

Little pleased Sergei more than a loud, crowded party with family and friends. He captained the enormous grill his oldest daughter and son-in-law had given him for his birthday, appreciating this American tradition. His gold Rolex and the crucifix hanging around his neck gleamed in the brutal summer sun, while over his cotton shirt and pants he wore a bright red bib apron that invited everyone to kiss the cook.

As the grill smoked, he turned fat burgers, all-meat franks and long skewers of vegetables brushed with his secret marinade.

“The mother goes to the hospital,” Sergei’s nephew Misha said. “She is there many hours every day, often through the night. She has dinner maybe once a week with the man she sleeps with. Four times each week, she goes to the fancy gym where she has a trainer. She goes to the beauty parlor for her hair, her fingernails. She lives her life like she has no daughter.”

Sergei merely nodded as he transferred the vegetables to a platter.

“I went through her house,” the brigadier told him. “I checked her phone. Calls to the hospital, to her boyfriend, to another doctor, to the salon for her hair. There are none to the police, to the marshals, to the FBI.”

“She must see the girl,” Mikhail insisted. He was more rounded than his brother, and his hair was going white in wide streaks. “She is the mother.” He looked over to the pool, where his own wife sat laughing with their daughter while their grandchildren played in the pool.

“I think they aren’t close.” Ilya sipped at his beer.

“A mother is a mother,” Mikhail insisted. “She would know where her daughter is.”

“We can take her,” Misha suggested. “On her way to the hospital. We can … persuade her to tell us where the girl is.”

“If the mother is a mother, she will not tell.” Sergei began arranging burgers on another platter. “She will die before. If she is not such a mother, and my information is she is not, she may not know. We take her, they move the girl, add more guards. So, we watch the mother who is not such a mother.”

“In the house,” the brigadier said, “there’s nothing of the daughter’s outside the bedroom. And there’s not much there. What is, is boxed. Like storage.”

“So you see.” Sergei nodded. “I have a different way, one that ends this and leaves nothing of us behind. Tell Yakov to be patient a little longer, Misha. The next time we have a party, it will be to celebrate his return. But now”—he lifted the platter, stacked with burgers and dogs—“we eat.”

When the summer dragged on, Elizabeth reminded herself that if she were home, she would have given in—most likely—and would be enduring the summer program at the hospital. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have done anything all that different from what she did now.

Study, read. Except now she listened to music, watched movies on DVD or television. Through summer reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she believed she’d begun to learn contemporary slang.

When she was able to go back to college, she might know more of the language, might fit in better.

To continue her quest for security, she went to the practice range. She’d learned self-defense and poker.

Nothing could bring Julie back, and playing what-if was a useless process. It made more sense to look at the advantages of her summer confinement.

She would never be a surgeon.

At some point, she’d take on a new identity, a new life, and find some way to make the best of it. She could study whatever she wanted. She had a feeling joining the FBI was no longer an option, but she didn’t ask. It might have been foolish, but not knowing a definitive answer left a sliver of hope.

She embraced the routine, grew comfortable with it.

Her birthday didn’t change routine. It just meant that today she was seventeen. She didn’t feel any different, or look any different. This year there would be no birthday dinner—prime rib with roasted vegetables followed by carrot cake—or any possibility of the car her mother had promised. Contingent on her academic achievements and deportment, of course.

It was just another day, one day closer to her court appearance and what she thought of as freedom.

As neither Terry nor John mentioned her birthday, she assumed they’d forgotten. After all, why should they remember? She gave herself the gift of a day off from studying, and decided she’d make a special dinner—not prime rib—as a personal celebration.

It rained, drenching and thunderous. She told herself it made the kitchen only homier. She considered baking a cake, but that seemed self-serving. And she hadn’t yet tried her hand at real baking. Preparing spaghetti and meatballs from scratch seemed challenging enough.

“God, that smells fabulous.” Terry paused in the center of the kitchen, inhaled deeply. “You almost make me think about learning how to make something besides mac and cheese.”

“I like doing it, especially when it’s something new. I’ve never made meatballs. They were fun.”

“We all have our own fun.”

“I can put some of the sauce and meatballs in a container for you to take home. You’d just have to add the pasta. I made a lot.”

“Well, Lynda called in sick, so you’ll have Bill and Steve Keegan. I bet they can pack it away.”

“Oh. I’m sorry Lynda’s not well.” Routine, Elizabeth thought. It always gave her a jolt when it changed on her. “Do you know Marshal Keegan?”

“Not really. John knows him a little. He’s got five years in, Liz. Don’t worry.”

“No, I won’t. It just takes me a little time to get used to new people, I guess. It doesn’t matter. I’m going to read after dinner, and probably go to bed early.”

“On your birthday?”

“Oh.” Elizabeth flushed a little. “I wasn’t sure you knew.”

“You have no secrets here.” On a laugh, Terry moved over to take another sniff of the sauce. “I get you like to read, but can’t you come up with anything more fun on your birthday?”

“Not really.”

“Then you need some help.” She gave Elizabeth a pat on the shoulder before she walked out.

Reading was fun, Elizabeth reminded herself. She checked the time, noting that the change of shift was coming up soon. The sauce could simmer until Bill and this new deputy wanted to eat, but she really had made a lot, so she’d put some in containers for John and Terry.

Like a reverse birthday gift, she decided.

“Help’s arrived.”

Elizabeth turned from reaching high into a cupboard for lidded containers.

Terry stood grinning with a box wrapped in shiny pink paper with a big white bow trailing ribbons. Beside her, John held a small gift bag and a white bakery box.

“You … you got me gifts.”

“Of course we got you gifts. It’s your birthday. And we got cake.”

“Cake.”

John set the box down on the table, flipped up the lid. “Double-chocolate fudge with buttercream icing.”

“My pick,” Terry informed her. “Happy birthday, Liz.”

“Thank you.” The cake said the same, in fancy pink piping. It had rosebuds and pale green leaves.

“It’s not carrot cake,” she murmured.

“I have a religious objection to any pastry made from a vegetable,” Terry told her.

“It’s very good, really. But this looks much better. This looks … like a real birthday cake. It’s beautiful.”

“We’ll have to save room for it and the ice cream,” John said. “After the birthday dinner. We were going to get pizza, but you started those meatballs, so we adjusted.”

Everything went bright, as if the sun burst through the pounding rain. “You’re going to stay.”

“I repeat, it’s your birthday. No way I’m missing out on ice cream and cake. We’ll wait for the others for eats, but I think you should open your gifts now.”

“Really? It’s all right?”

“Obviously, the genius doesn’t comprehend the power of birthday. Here.” Terry pushed the box into Elizabeth’s hands. “Open mine. I’m dying to see if you like it.”

“I like it already.” And she began to carefully slit the tape.

“I knew it. She’s one of those. One of those,” Terry explained, “who takes ten minutes to open a gift instead of ripping away.”

“The paper’s so pretty. I didn’t expect anything.”

“You should,” John told her. “You should start expecting.”

“It’s the best surprise.” After folding the paper, Elizabeth lifted the lid. She lifted out the thin cardigan with ruffles flowing down the front and tiny violets scattered over the material.

“It’s beautiful. Oh, there’s a camisole with it.”

“That’s not your mother’s twin set,” Terry declared. “You can wear it with jeans, or dress it up with a skirt. It looked like you.”

No one had ever told her she looked like ruffles and violets. “I love it. I really love it. Thank you so much.”

“My turn. I had a little help picking these out. So if you don’t like them, blame my wife.”

“She helped you? That was so nice of her. You have to thank her for me.”

“Maybe you should see what it is first.”

Flustered, thrilled, Elizabeth dug into the tissue paper for the little box. The earrings were a trio of thin silver drops joined together by a tiny pearl.

“Oh, they’re wonderful. They’re beautiful.”

“I know you always wear those gold studs, but Maddie thought you might like these.”

“I do. I love them. I don’t have anything but the studs. I got my ears pierced the day before … the day before. These are my first real earrings.”

“Happy seventeen, Liz.”

“Go, try it all on,” Terry ordered. “You know you’re dying to.”

“I really am. It’s all right?”

“Birthday power. Go.”

“Thank you.” Riding on the thrill, she wrapped Terry in a hug. “So much. Thank you.” Then John. “I am happy. I’m happy seventeen.” She clutched her gifts and raced for the stairs.

“It’s a hit.” Terry let out a long sigh. “She hugged. She never hugs.”

“Never got them. I gave her mother the secure-line number—again. Told her we were going to get Liz a cake for her birthday, and we’d make arrangements to bring her in for it. She declined. Politely.”

“A polite bitch is still a bitch. I’ll be glad when this is over for her, you know? And for us. But I’m going to miss that kid.”

“So am I. I’m going to call Maddie, let her know Liz liked the earrings.” He glanced at the time. “I’ll call in, check on Cosgrove’s and Keegan’s ETA. I expected to hear they were en route by now.”

“I’ll set the table, see if I can fancy it up a bit, make it celebrational.”

She got out plates and flatware, and thought of flowers. “Hey, John?” On impulse, she moved toward the living room. “See if Cosgrove can make a stop, pick up some flowers. Let’s do it up right.”

He gave a nod of assent, continued to talk to his wife. “Yeah, she loved them. She’s upstairs putting them on. Hey, put the kids on. I probably won’t be home till they’re in bed.”

Terry walked back into the kitchen, thinking she should sample a little of that red sauce, just to make sure it passed muster. Even as she reached for a spoon, John called out.

“They’re rolling in now.”

“Copy that.” One hand on her weapon out of habit, Terry went to the garage door, waited for the signal. Three quick knocks, three slow.

“You guys are in for a treat. We’ve got—”

Bill came in fast. “We may have some trouble. Where’s John?”

“In the living room. What—”

“Bill thinks he spotted a tail,” Keegan said. “Where’s the witness?”

“She’s …” Something wrong. Something off. “Did you call it in?” she began, and pulled out her phone.

She nearly dodged the first blow, so it skated down her temple. Blood slid into her eye as she went for her weapon, shouted to John.

“Breech!”

The butt of Keegan’s gun smashed viciously across the back of her head. She went down, overturning a chair with a crash in the fall to the tiles.

Weapon drawn, John flattened against the wall in the living room. He needed to make the stairs, get to Liz.

“Don’t shoot him,” Keegan said quietly as he holstered his own gun and took Terry’s. “Remember, we don’t want any holes in him.”

Bill nodded. “I got him, John. I got the bastard. Terry’s down! She’s down! Keegan’s calling it in. Secure the wit.”

John heard Keegan’s voice over the drum of rain, rapidly relaying the situation.

And he heard the creak of a floorboard.

He came out, weapon up. He saw Bill moving on him, saw his eyes. “Drop your weapon. Drop it!”

“Terry’s down! They’re going to try for the front.”

“Lower your weapon, now!”

John saw Bill glance to the left, pivoted, elbowed back before Keegan could land a blow. As John dived to the right, Cosgrove fired. The bullet caught his side, burned like a brand. Thinking of Elizabeth, he returned fire as he raced for the stairs. Another bullet hit his leg, but he didn’t slow. He caught a glimpse of Keegan moving into position, fired on the run.

And took a third bullet in the belly.

His vision grayed, but somehow he kept moving. He caught sight of Elizabeth running out of the bedroom.

“Get inside. Get back inside!”

He lurched forward, shoving her in, locking the door before he fell to his knees.

“Oh my God.” She grabbed the shirt she’d just taken off, used it to apply pressure to his abdomen.

“It’s Cosgrove and Keegan.”

“They’re marshals.”

“Somebody got to them.” Teeth gritted, he risked a look at his belly wound, felt himself slipping. “Oh, Jesus. Maybe they’ve been dirty all along. Terry. She’s down. Maybe dead.”

“No.”

“They know I’m in here with you, that I’ll fire on anyone who tries coming in the door.” As long as he could hold a weapon. “But they know I’m hit.” He gripped her wrist with his left hand. “It’s bad, Liz.”

“You’ll be all right.” But she couldn’t stop the blood. Already her shirt was soaked through, and it just kept pouring out of him, flooding like the rain. “We’ll call for help.”

“Lost the phone. Keegan, he’s got connections—in the service, he’s connected. He’s moved up fast. Don’t know who else might be in it. Can’t know. Not safe, kid. Not safe.”

“You have to lie still. I have to stop the bleeding.” Pressure, she told herself. More pressure.

“They should have rushed me. Planning something else. Not safe. Listen. Listen.” His fingers dug into her wrist. “Gotta get out. Out the window. Climb down, jump down. But get out. You run. You hide.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“You’re going. Get your money. Can’t trust the cops, not now. More in it. Have to be. Get your money, what you need. Fast. God damn it. Move!”

She did it to keep him calm. But she wouldn’t leave him.

She stuffed the money in a bag, a few items of clothing at random, her laptop.

“There. Don’t worry,” she said. “Someone will come.”

“No, they won’t. I’m gut shot, Liz, lost too much blood. I’m not going to make it. I can’t protect you. You have to run. Get my secondary weapon—ankle holster. Take it. If one of them sees you, comes after you, use it.”

“Don’t ask me to leave you. Please, please.” She pressed her face to his. He was so cold. Too cold.

“Not asking. Telling. My job. Don’t make me a failure. Go. Go now.”

“I’ll get help.”

“Run. Don’t stop. Don’t look back. Out the window. Now.”

He waited for her to reach it. “Count to three,” he ordered as he crawled for the door. “Then go. I’ll keep them off you.”

“John.”

“Make me proud, Liz. Count.”

She counted, slid out. She gripped the gutter as rain lashed against her face. She didn’t know if it would hold her, didn’t think it mattered. Then she heard the volley of gunfire, and shimmied down like a monkey.

Get help, she told herself, and began to run.

She was less than fifty yards away when the house exploded behind her.