“Is Piper okay?” Vivian worried. “Is our Lily okay?”

“We left them in perfect health and security,” Bash reassured the woman, who visibly sighed in relief. “She is mostly concerned that she is running out of resources – not financial ones, just time wise – to take care of your daughter properly. Luke and I had contacted police and FBI, but neither of them had any leads until Piper got the email and we traced you here.”

“Who is that man?” Vivian wondered.

“We don’t know exactly. He is a gang member, Panic Rex according to his tattoos. I assume you don’t have any ties to gang activity,” Luke urged.

“Outside of working in the Amazon,” Bernardo explained, “sometimes near cartel headquarters, not really. We ignored them, and they left us to our business.”

“Did you have any problems with activists?”

Vivian spoke up. “Nothing significant. Even though we did use animals in our trials, the medicine had so few side effects that none of the animals came to harm. They died natural deaths. The activists did not love us as a rule, but they tended to focus their vitriol on worse ‘offenders’”

“Whose house is this?” Bash queried, curious why it was abandoned.

“It belongs to a Rhode Island state senator, a Rick Connors. It is currently for sale, so no one is staying here. With it so far off the beaten path, we thought it would be safe.” Bernardo rubbed his chin. “Connors is an acquaintance of our boss at Pharmacan. I am not sure what made the connection about our needing a place to stay, but it was as good as we could manage in the states. We could not afford to go out of the country and leave Lily.”

“We were staying at my niece’s house, and we thought we would be back so much sooner,” Vivian continued. “But on the night we planned to return to Providence, someone showed up as we were leaving. Our niece called the police, but Bernardo and I fled in our car. We went slowly enough that the man could follow us for a while, to lead him away from our niece, but we managed to lose him once we entered the back roads of Connecticut.”

“Could you be wrong?” Luke prompted. “Could the man outside have followed you here?”

“We have been here for two days and seen nothing,” Vivian insisted. “I feel certain that this is a separate incident from the one at my niece’s house.”

From outside the window, they saw a red flash of lights.

“Let me go explain the man outside to the police,” Luke insisted.

Bernardo stood to his feet. “I will go with you,” he proclaimed. “Senator Connors told them I was here and spoke with them before we unlocked and settled in. They will feel more comfortable if they see me safe.”

As Sebastian watched the two men step out the door, he felt his phone vibrate. A message proclaimed Molly’s name, and Bash quickly swiped the phone open.

Bash, I think something is wrong with Piper, the message read.

Why do you say that? Bash responded. She’s at her sister’s.

She’s not. She was coming to see me. Our friend who works at the Prados’ company had given her an address in New Haven, near where I’m staying with my mom. The friend said it was a house owned by the Prados. I was supposed to call her fifteen minutes ago, but she hasn’t been answering me.

You have to go find her! Bash demanded.

I can’t do that, Bash. You know I can’t. I can call the police, but I don’t think they will do anything.

Bash huffed in frustration. How am I supposed to find her in the entire city of New Haven?

I know she was going somewhere near Yale, but she said the coffee shop was on the way to my house – I live straight up 95. So, it has to be somewhere in that one mile stretch between the harbor and the turnoff to my house.

As Molly texted, Bash stood to his feet. The Prados could no longer remain his top priority. So as not to spook the police, Bash measured his steps while approaching his cousin, but he could not rein in his anxiety.

“It’s Piper,” Bash informed his cousin, subconsciously noting that the police had handcuffed the intruder and were leading him away. “She’s missing, and she was supposed to check in with Molly.”

Luke blew out a breath. The entire reason he had pursued Piper was to reach the Prados. Now he stood with his prey in sight, and he didn’t need Piper anymore. To leave her in danger, though? “Okay, what are we going to do?”

“Head to New Haven,” Bash insisted. “It’s forty-five minutes. We need to leave right now.”

“What do we do with the Prados?”

“Give them Jennie’s number. They can stay near their daughter, maybe pick her up. We caught the guy coming after them. They need to take this burden off of Piper’s hands.”

Bernardo nodded. “I am very ready to see my daughter, and I feel better now that this man is in custody.”

“There may be others,” Luke admitted, “but the police will escort you to the main highway, so you should be okay once you’re on the main road.”

After Vivian took down Jennie’s address and the address of a B and B near Jennie’s house, Bash intoned with urgency, “Don’t tell anyone where you are going. I don’t want these people showing up at Jennie’s house.”

“Of course,” agreed Bernardo.

Luke debated for only few seconds. Sure, he could flirt with her and try to get her attached to him, but to leave her to some unforeseen difficulty? No matter what Isaac said, Luke couldn’t.

“I think we can knock about ten minutes off the drive,” Luke announced, but it didn’t make Bash feel any better. He did, however, note how upset his cousin seemed. About Piper? Bash couldn’t discern.

“Can your friends track her phone?” Bash wondered.

“Most likely,” Luke admitted. “It may take some time.” He held down a button on his phone. “Call Isaac,” he commanded.

After a few rings, a man’s voice answered. “Again?” he complained.

“I’m sorry, Isaac. I think it’s a life-or-death situation. The civilian. I need you to track a phone.”

“I can,” Isaac agreed, “but it’s going to take a couple of phone calls. You lost her?”

“Yes, but found others. But I have to manage this before I can finish the case.”

“Do you have the child?”

“Of course not. I wouldn’t bring her into this. She’s safe. The Prados are going to pick her up right now.”

“Damn it, Luke. I can’t make it there in time. You have to learn to check in with me on these things until you get a sense of the field.”

Predicting a more extensive conversation, Luke took several steps away from the cluster around the Prados, shielding his words with the cacophony of the police radio and the murmur of the police making their reports.

“What are you talking about? We found the scientists. We sent them back to their daughter. Happy ending…”

“Not happy ending. I need the scientists to get the information I’m looking for. Now they have no impetus to cooperate with us.”

Luke forced himself not to curse at his supervisor when the man so casually mentioned coercion through an implied threat to a one-year-old. “That’s what you were trying to get?”

“To be fair, Bash’s girlfriend was my first choice, but you spirited her away from me. Maybe if you find her before ‘life-or-death’ becomes just ‘death,’ I won’t need to use an infant to persuade the scientists to cooperate.”

No, you’ll just use Piper… “Well, first I have to find her. So, can you get on that?” He had doubted Isaac from the moment the man had shown up at the coffee shop, but Isaac offered a believable excuse. Luke just didn’t have enough experience with the CIA to write Isaac off completely; still, Luke would control the flow of information as much as he could to ensure Piper’s safety.

“I’ll find it for you in five minutes. If I’m closer, I’ll get to her and manage her myself.”

Guess I can’t wait for him to find her, insisted Luke silently. The more Isaac spoke about Piper, the less Luke wanted him to find her. It was as if he intended to seduce Piper and use her for his own enjoyment instead of for the purpose of a case.

From the edge of the driveway, Bash listened as best he could to his cousin. The civilian? Bash had heard the strange term from his cousin, and he wondered if it referred to Piper or to Bash himself. If it was Piper, Bash didn’t like the implications. He had not been satisfied with his last interaction with her – she had held him at arm’s length again, and she had so confused him. Whatever the situation, Bash had ceased to trust Luke, because Luke seemed more concerned about obeying Isaac without question than with protecting Piper or Lily.

Well, Bash would protect them.

His phone buzzed again in his pocket, and he wrenched it out, hoping that Molly had found Piper. He stepped away from his cousin so he could concentrate on what he was reading.

I have Piper’s login for her phone. It will tell her location!

Breathing deeply, Bash tried to stay calm. Will you send it to me so I can track her once I get there?

A few seconds later, the username and password popped up on Sebastian’s screen.

Thank you! he affirmed.

Find our girl, Molly pressed.

Whatever happened in the next half hour, Bash knew he would do just that.

“I’m not leaving her. The targets are managed, and I will retrieve them after I have the girl.” Luke was still talking when Bash finished his message to Molly, and Bash didn’t like what he heard.

I will retrieve them after I have the girl. There it was again – Luke’s intentional pursuit of Piper, apparently for a mission. Everything in Sebastian rebelled against mistrusting his cousin, but his need to protect Piper ran more deeply than he could explain. The dissonance threatened to incapacitate him. Finally, he decided that as long as he stayed with Piper whenever Luke was in her presence, Sebastian could keep an eye on things and decide if there was any danger. He wouldn’t hurt his cousin, but he wouldn’t let his cousin hurt Piper either.

+++++++++++

“You gotta get me out of here,” came the hushed, unfamiliar voice into Senator Rick Connors’s earpiece. “I’m in jail.”

“Who is this?” the senator demanded.

“Tarin Trevino. You get me out of this, or so help me God, I’ll make sure everyone knows why I’m here.”

No way was Rick Connors going to post bail for a drug runner. Instead, he called Mitch Parkington, the source of the connection.

“I need you to come get some cash,” the senator commanded into the phone.

Mitch had hoped never to hear the senator’s voice again, and the directive seemed disturbing to say the least. “What am I going to do with the money?”

“You are going to post bail for our friend, Tarin Trevino.”

“Me?” Mitch choked. “I need not to associate with that man. I’m already risking hot water if anyone sees my phone records.”

“If you don’t,” Connors insisted, “he turns us both in. You got your hands dirty, and now you have to dig in the mud. It goes with the territory. Get him out, and then we will figure out what to do with him.”

So many things Mitch didn’t like about the senator’s words, specifically “what to do with him.” If the senator had done what he was supposed to do with him, Tarin would already be in lockup, out of credibility. Instead, if Mitch didn’t tread carefully, the gangbanger could bring both of them down.

If Mitch could have managed it, he would have found one of Tarin’s associates and given the money to him to retrieve the man from jail. Unfortunately, Mitch only knew Tarin, and wandering randomly into gang territory seemed unwise to Mitch. About thirty minutes later, Tarin had seated himself in Mitch’s Mercedes and the pair headed to Tarin’s neighborhood.

There were these two guys, and they got there before me,” Tarin explained. “They tied me up until the cops got there.

“I though this was not your department.”

Tarin held up his forearm, displaying his tattoos. “It’s not right now, but it’s not like I didn’t pop a few when I was younger. I had to work my way to this position. If that guy hadn’t offered me a month of sales for the job, I would have handed it off. But the guy wanted to minimize exposure, so he wanted me.”

“I wanted you to call it,” Mitch reminded his companion.

“Yeah, you did. Until you decided to put out your own hit.”

Mitch rubbed his hands over his face. “Do you think it’s done already?”

“Probably happening right now, if my guys are on time.”

Silence reigned in the car. From the moment he had made the decision, Mitch had fought himself not to warn the girl. He had been mad at her, but that had nothing to do with the hit. The hit was all about self-preservation. At first, Mitch had convinced himself he had to do it. Now that she was potentially being killed as Mitch sat in his car driving a drug dealer home, Mitch couldn’t live with himself. He had been an idiot. He had let himself rationalize, just like every trade he made with Tarin, just like every sale to a friend.

If he started immediately, he could make New Haven in just over an hour.

“Tell your friend, if he hasn’t done it yet to call it off.”

“No, way, man. You said this girl could ID you,” Tarin insisted.

“It’s unlikely. She would have to make a hundred connections. I was just being over cautious. Not worth a girl’s life.”

“You shoulda thought of that before you told me, man,” Tarin leveled. “You got me spooked, you also just got me out of jail. I’m not taking any chances. You and I are linked.”

“Get out of my car then. You’re close enough to your neighborhood.”

Tarin glanced out the window. “Aright. If you don’t get yourself killed, let’s do business in the future.”

Mitch didn’t answer. He had no idea what he was going to do. Once Tarin was out of the car, Mitch headed toward New Haven.

Staring at the screen, Agent Strickland pumped her fist. “We have a hit, Talbot,” she exclaimed. “Providence P.D. Mitch Parkington paid someone’s bail.

Grabbing their jackets, the partners sprinted out to their car and headed the few blocks over to the police department. Most likely, they would have their connection in less than ten minutes. Allie could almost see her husband’s face as she raced to conclude her investigation.

+++++++++++

The noise had finally faded, and Piper felt herself starting to breathe just a little. After twenty minutes of terror, she couldn’t return to calm in an instant.

When she had hidden in the churchyard, she had felt certain that her pursuers had not seen her. A few minutes later, her suspicions were confirmed when she heard them whooping and yelling in an adjacent yard. With smashing glass, they had taunted her, trying to lure her out with promises of safety, saying things they wanted to do to her, telling her she was pretty. If her mind had been processing normally, she would have been sobbing, and the crew would definitely have found her.

Instead, she heard everything as if from the end of a tunnel. Even while she recognized her danger – even as she knew that somewhere under her stoicism, there lay a screaming woman – Piper sat stone still, her breath steady. Calmer than on her calmest days. The rational part of her brain was almost more terrified by her unearthly reaction than by her circumstances. Still, she embraced it, realized that it would protect her and keep her hidden.

For several more minutes, the noises ricocheted around the empty street, moving steadily farther from Piper’s hiding place. Once the immediate danger had subsided, the terror that her instinct had subdued started to claw its way back to her consciousness. Her heart pounded in her chest, and her vision swam. She did not want to move or think or decide anything. She wanted to let her panic surface and bubble over and steal her breath and bring blessed unconsciousness.