Breaking the Rules

by Suzanne Brockmann

  “Eden?” Jenn called from the living room.

  “I’ll be right there,” she called back.

  “Eden,” Izzy said. “This may get far worse before it gets better. I need you to brace yourself, because if they’ve come back to grab you, it could mean that something bad has happened to Ben.”

  “Don’t say that!”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just … I need you to be strong. Even if Ben is—”

  “Don’t!” Ben wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be dead.

  “You have to be strong,” Izzy said. “For Danny and for Jenn, too. I know you can do that, sweetheart. Can you do that?”

  “Yes,” she managed.

  “Eden, someone with a key is unlocking the door,” Jenn called from the living room.

  “I’m going to find you, okay?” Izzy told her. “Whatever happens. Even if this cell-phone thing doesn’t work? I am. Going. To find you. Believe that, Eden. I need you to believe me.”

  She nodded, but realized he couldn’t see her. So instead of saying yes, she whispered, “I love you.”

  “Eden!” Jenn called from the living room.

  “I love you, too,” Izzy told her, his voice rough. “Come on, do it, sweetheart. Now. And remember what you’re going to say, before they even get inside …?”

  “I remember,” Eden said, and put Dan’s cell phone, signal on, up her sleeve.

  Please, sweet Jesus, indeed.

  “My brother is unconscious—don’t kill him—he’s the only one who knows where Neesha is,” Eden said, loudly, to the men outside, right before they broke through the chain on the door. “He’s the only one of us she trusted. And if you kill us? You’ll have nothing to trade him for the girl.”

  Whoever was out there was big, and just by pushing the door, the refrigerator moved across the floor with a scraping sound.

  Jenn put her hands up over her head, the way Eden had done. Eden—who’d moved protectively in front of Dan, and who’d shown Jenn in a quick flash as she’d rushed out of the bedroom that she’d hidden his cell phone up her sleeve—kept talking, repeating the same information over and over. “Don’t kill him—he can’t hurt you—he’s the only one—”

  The first man in was carrying the biggest gun that Jenn had ever seen, and he waved it almost wildly, pointing it from Dan to Eden to Jenn. “Down on the floor, hands on your head, move away from him! Move away from him.”

  Jenn didn’t want to move. Dan’s head was in her lap, and she didn’t want to leave him there, with his head against the worn carpeting.

  “Jenn!” Eden said sharply. “Do what they—”

  Jenn didn’t hear the rest because another man, a man who was wearing a hat despite the heat, hit her. It was only a backhanded blow, but it caught her by surprise and it pushed her, hard, away from Dan, whose head hit the floor and bounced.

  His eyes didn’t open—he was out cold. And fear slid through Jenn, because people died of head injuries, even seemingly mild ones.

  But Izzy was coming. Izzy was on his way. And Izzy had saved Dan’s life once before. He’d do it again. She held on to that thought as she lay on the floor.

  “Don’t you hit her!” Eden was saying as third man searched the apartment, looking for Izzy, or maybe Neesha.

  “There’s no one else here,” that man reported, coming out of Eden’s bedroom. “No sign of the bigger guy.”

  “The bigger guy,” Eden said, “is my bastard of a husband, and he left me. For good. Okay? He went back to the Navy base in San Diego this morning.”

  “Good to know. Shoot the fuck out of this other sailor if he so much as moves,” the bald man ordered, and now Jenn was praying that Dan would not wake up. Not too soon. “Either one of you tries anything funny”—he was talking to them now—“he’s dead. You understand?”

  Jenn nodded, and rough hands touched her, searching her—it was the man with the hat. He went through her pockets, pulling out her cell phone and the set of keys to their rental car—it was all she had on her. That didn’t stop him from searching for more, his hand lingering on her breasts and between her legs.

  But that didn’t matter. Nothing mattered more than helping Eden keep Dan’s cell phone hidden from them. As Jenn watched, Eden was searched by the bald man, who’d kept his gun securely in his right hand—as if he didn’t trust her enough to tuck it in the top of his pants, the way the man with the hat had done when he’d searched Jenn.

  It meant that the bald man’s search of Eden was less thorough, although he was heavy with the inappropriate touching, too. Not that she’d expected anything less from men who worked for a crime boss who ran a child prostitution ring.

  Eden tried to distract him further by talking. “My brother Ben is missing. Do you have him? Is he safe?”

  “The kid’s a junkie,” the bald man told Eden as he pulled her phone—not Dan’s—out of the top pocket of her jeans. “Going into withdrawal … He goddamn puked on my new boots.”

  “He’s a diabetic,” Eden said sharply. “He needs insulin. Where is he? I want to see him!”

  The bald man flipped her over onto her back, holding her by her right arm—the arm that had the cell phone—and she squeaked in alarm. He shoved his gun up under her chin.

  “You have a lot of questions and demands for someone who doesn’t appear to have the power here,” he said.

  “He’s just a kid,” Eden said. “A sick kid. He doesn’t know where Neesha is. He doesn’t.”

  “And you don’t, either,” the man said, clearly not believing her. “Only this one knows.” He gestured with his head toward Dan. “Mr. Conveniently Unconscious.”

  “I knocked him out,” Eden said, “because I knew you’d come in shooting, and he is the only one who knows where Neesha is. If you killed him, I’d never get Ben back—and I want my little brother back.”

  “Heartwarming,” the bald man said. “But someone’s a liar. When I told Ben that unless he talked, I was going to come and kill you? He told me that you knew where the girl was, and that I better not kill you or I’d never find her. Now you’re telling me that your other brother knows where she is. What would you think if you were me?” He moved his gun from beneath her chin, but turned and aimed it now at Dan’s head. “I’m thinking you do know, and you’re going to tell me where the girl is, in about three seconds. Three …”

  “No,” Jenn said. “Please. No—” even as Eden said, “I don’t know! I don’t!”

  “Two …”

  “Please, please, I honestly don’t know,” Eden said, her voice shaking. “But Danny does. He does. And if I were you? What I’d do is I wouldn’t kill him, because what if I’m right, and he’s the only one who knows?”

  “Shit, Jake,” the man with that hat said, holding out Jenn’s cell phone. “This bitch put in a call to 9-1-1.”

  “Shh,” the third man said. “Listen …”

  Sirens. Way in the distance.

  “The police are coming,” the man with the hat said, shifting his weight toward the door. “Let’s just kill them and go.”

  “No,” Izzy said. “No,” as he led the police car, siren wailing, on a crazy chase toward Eden’s apartment.

  “No, don’t—please, don’t!” he heard Jenn say through that still-open cell-phone connection. “I called them, but I never got through.”

  Izzy was still a good five minutes away, and he gunned the little car faster, straining to hear the conversation that was going on in Eden’s living room, more frightened than he’d ever been in his life that the next sounds he might hear would be gunshots. Three of them.

  But now Eden was talking again. Her voice came through more clearly than the others, probably because she was talking toward the phone in her sleeve, because she knew he was listening.

  “If you kill us, you’ll never find Neesha,” she said. “But if you leave us alive? We’ll get Danny to tell us where she is, and we’ll make a trade. Her for Ben.”

  It was unbelievable. Eden was trying to t
alk them into leaving, to just walk away and let all three of them go free. Izzy held his breath as he blew past the turnoff that would have taken him to the apartment complex. The last thing he needed to do was lead the police and their siren over there now.

  There was a brief silence in the apartment, but then the man the other had called Jake, the one who seemed to be in charge, said, “No.” He laughed. “No, we’ll play your little game, but by our rules. You’re coming with us. Both of you. You’re worth more to us alive than dead, anyway. Nathan, get the big girl.”

  Thank God, thank God …

  But then there was a shuffling, bumping sound, and Izzy held his breath again, well aware that if Eden dropped Dan’s cell phone out of her sleeve, they were back to being dead again.

  Instead she said sharply, “Don’t touch me there.”

  Jake laughed. “I’ll touch you wherever I want, bitch.”

  “What about Danny?” Jenn asked.

  “Todd’s gonna keep an eye on him,” Jake said. “He’s going to watch the place, make sure Danny doesn’t do anything besides answer his phone when we call him, and then go get the girl so we can make the trade. So let’s hope you were telling the truth about your bastard of a husband, I believe is how you referred to him.” He must’ve been talking to Eden now. “He shows up? Todd’ll be watching your front door, and he’ll shoot them both dead, and then he’ll call me, and I’ll kill you, too.”

  “I told you the truth,” Eden lied. “He left. He was so mad at me when I wrecked his car—trying to ram you and Todd?”

  The woman was brilliant. She’d just told Izzy exactly who he had to look for—and possibly take out—before going into her apartment to revive Dan.

  She was still talking. “I believe the words he said when he left were the fucking I’m getting is no longer worth the fucking I’m getting.”

  Ah, Eed, no, don’t bring sex into it. These guys were animals, and it never, ever paid to put the idea of sex into an animal’s brain.

  Unless … Damn, it was possible Eden was giving them that message on purpose. Here’s what I’ll do to protect my family. Anyone interested in making a trade …?

  The thought of it made Izzy sick. But he knew why she was doing it—for the same reason she’d given her sister’s husband what he’d wanted in trade for Ben’s insulin, after New Orleans flooded. Because there were things worth dying for, and face it, sex wasn’t one of them.

  Back in the apartment, Eden wasn’t done talking. “You better leave my cell phone here for Danny. He forgot his charger, and his battery’s dead. I mean, unless you want to wait to contact him until he can get to the Sprint store tomorrow.”

  Without a doubt, Eden was on top of everything. Somehow she knew not to say that Dan had lost his phone—that would have seemed too coincidental and would have sent up a signal that something was off. But a forgotten charger when visiting from out of town? That had happened to everyone.

  There was talking that Izzy couldn’t quite make out, then Eden said, “That one. Leave it where he can find it.”

  There was more random noise—movement—and some more conversation that Izzy couldn’t hear, something about insulin, and then …

  “Quiet, both of you,” Izzy heard Jake command Eden and Jenn. “You make any noise at all as we get out to the van? And Todd will kill Danny.”

  “Make it fast, Jake,” someone said—had to be Todd—clearly unhappy about being left behind.

  Although dude had absolutely no clue about the raging shitstorm of unhappiness that was barreling toward him.

  No doubt about it, Izzy was going to leave his boot print on the son of a bitch’s face.

  But first he had to make sure he had both his cell phone and Greg’s. Because he had to ditch this car. Once he did, he could lose the pursuing police officers far more easily—whoops, there were two cars behind him now.

  Yeah, he was going to have to do this on foot. He reached over and erased the GPS device’s memory, and took a hard turn into a neighborhood that was more middle class than the poverty-stricken street where Greg and Ivette lived. He could see from the map on the GPS that this entire development was less square little blocks and more winding, looping roads. For someone with his skill and training, it was an E&E playground. Most of the houses had fences around them, but nothing that he couldn’t get over easily.

  Thirty seconds after leaving the car, he’d have successfully escaped and evaded, and he’d be in the clear and on his way back to Eden’s.

  He found a cul-de-sac on the map, and as he turned the corner he did a quick visual. There were no other cars on the street, no people around. There was going to be some property damage, but it couldn’t be helped. He’d pay for it—he’d be happy to—if he were still alive after this goatfuck was over.

  He kept the car in gear as he steered to the left, then opened the door and rolled out onto—shit!—not a plush lawn like the yard before it, but desert-style zero-scaping. Little stones and bigger stones and yes, that was a cactus he’d just gotten intimate with. But he kept his mouth shut, internalizing his disbelief and pain—needles in his ass could wait while Eden could not—and kept moving silently in the darkness as the car kept on its path, with both police cars in hot pursuit.

  He was over a fence and into a backyard, and over the next fence into the neighbor’s yard, too, before he heard the crash and scraping of the rental car hitting someone’s palm tree.

  He heard the shouting of the police officers as they realized that he was no longer in the rental car.

  And then, like the good Navy SEAL that he was, he became one with the night, and he vanished.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  SATURDAY, 9 MAY 2009

  0258

  Izzy couldn’t kill Todd.

  The prick had positioned himself at the window of the apartment directly across the courtyard from Eden’s place. He was just sitting there—the guy she’d tried to run over in the street—watching the place, in clear view of anyone who might be looking to take him out.

  And even though the range of Greg’s handgun wouldn’t do the necessary damage from up here on the apartment complex roof—Izzy would need a rifle for that—he could’ve quite easily worked his way around to that side of the building, without being seen. Then he could’ve dropped silently down onto the walkway and crept along bent over, down beneath the windowsill, only to pop up right in front of the motherfucker, and shoot him between the eyes at a far more acceptable range of about two feet.

  The problem with that, aside from the noise from the gunshot and the inconvenience of an impending police visit, was that Izzy had no idea how often Todd was in touch with the mothership, aka Jake-the-asshole-from-the-mall. It also served them better, having Todd here, regularly reporting in that “Danny hasn’t left the building,” and “Danny still hasn’t left the building …”

  Even though Dan would be long gone, along with Izzy, back the way Izzy had gotten in—via the living-room window that faced the street.

  Greg’s cell phone shook once, and Izzy glanced down at it—it was Mark Jenkins calling him back. Izzy had already spoken with Mark’s wife, Lindsey, and had given her the rundown and had gotten their bad news—she’d miscarried—from her.

  He answered, speaking softly, moving over to the edge of the roof that looked down on the street, where it was silent in the darkness. “Mark, man, I’m so sorry.”

  “It happens,” Jenk said. “Often, apparently, in the first trimester. I really had no idea, I mean, she’s healthy, so I thought—” He broke off. “Look, we can talk about this later. Your problem’s more immediate. Lindsey got the software working. According to the computer program, Dan’s cell phone is heading south on Interstate 15. If you left right now, and you went the speed limit, you’d be about twenty minutes behind them. They’re a few miles north of the exit for Route 161. I’ll text you with an update either way—if they take it or go past it.”

  “Thanks, bro,” Izzy said, still
watching the street, where no one and nothing was moving. He went back to the courtyard and double-checked Todd, who was still sitting there, and still looking pissed. “I’m going in to get Gillman now.”

  “Lindsey called Jules Cassidy, you know, from the FBI, and forwarded him the pictures you sent her,” Jenk reported. “He ID’d the two men as Jake Dyland and William Nathan, and trust me, you don’t want them anywhere near Eden or Jenn.”

  “Too late,” Izzy said.

  “Yeah, I know. Cassidy’s going to call you,” Jenk said. “He’s contacting the local Bureau, and he says don’t do anything until you talk to him.”

  “He’s not, like, conveniently in town for a conference …?” Izzy asked.

  “Not a chance,” Jenk said. “I think he’s in Boston.”

  “So whoever he’s talking to out here—he has no clue who they are or whether they got promoted because they kissed the right asses,” Izzy clarified.

  Jenk was unequivocal. “Correct.”

  “Fuck that,” Izzy said.

  Jenk laughed, but even that sounded grim. “I knew you were going to say that. Hey, heads-up, Linds says that Danny’s cell phone just exited the interstate. It’s now heading south on 161, toward a town called Jean with a J.”

  “Keep me posted,” Izzy said.

  “Will do,” Jenk said. “We’re picking up Lopez now, we’ll get to you ASAP, so stall if you can.”

  “I can’t,” Izzy told his friend as he prepared to go over the side of the roof.

  “Yeah,” Jenk said. “I knew that, too.”

  Neesha was trapped.

  She couldn’t get out from where Ben’s brother had hidden her, beneath the sofa, even after she heard Todd and the others leave, taking Jenn and Eden with them.

  Panic made her heart start to pound and she tried pushing up against the canvas and the metal frame, but lying with her arms at her sides, as she was, she couldn’t put her shoulders into it, and it only moved a little bit. She stopped almost immediately, because the fear that Todd might’ve stayed somewhere close by, where he could look in through the living-room window and see the sofa shaking, was stronger than any claustrophobia that she felt.