Breaking the Rules

by Suzanne Brockmann

  And she believed what Ben’s brother Dan had told her. That if they found her—Todd and the others—then Ben, too, would die. Of course, she wanted to believe that. It was very easy to believe such an outcome when the alternative was to give herself up and face her own demise.

  “Dan,” she called softly, praying that he would hear her and wake up. “Danny!”

  But he didn’t answer, and she lay there in silence for what felt like a very long time, but was quite possibly only minutes.

  And then, finally, she heard a sound, something scraping, something rustling—was it Todd, coming back inside?—and she held her breath.

  Except then she heard a voice whisper, “Neesha? Don’t freak. It’s me, Izzy. I’m going to open up the sofa now.”

  And she started to cry, because Mr. Nelson’s men—Todd, and the others—had made it quite clear that if Izzy came back? Then Eden and Jenni and Ben were as good as dead.

  But he somehow knew what she was thinking, because as he held out his hand to pull her up and out of her hiding place, he added, “It’s okay. Todd sucks at surveillance. He’s watching the door from an empty apartment across the courtyard. I went up on the roof and spotted him sitting at the window, what a dickweed—which is good for us.”

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his back and shoulders were all scratched up and bleeding slightly, plus he had a huge scar on his chest. It should have made him look scary, but to Neesha, it made him seem impossible to kill, which was a good thing. He was self-conscious about it, though, and he quickly unzipped a bag that was over on the floor, and pulled out a T-shirt and slipped it on even as he kept reassuring her.

  “He didn’t see me come in,” he continued. “No one did. I came through this window, on the other side of the building, down from the roof.”

  She’d looked out of that window before, and it was way up high, on this second story, and she went over to it now, wiping her eyes, afraid that someone passing by would see the rope he’d used to climb down.

  But there was no rope. And he hadn’t broken the window. Everything looked normal—it was tightly shut.

  The only thing out of the ordinary was that he’d taken the screen off, and it was leaning against the wall, near the air conditioner. But from the street? No one would ever suspect he’d entered the apartment that way.

  She wasn’t quite sure how he’d done it.

  “Let’s keep that closed,” he said, talking about the blinds, and as she turned back, she saw he’d already gotten down on floor next to Dan. “Be a good girl and get me some ice—” He stopped himself and glanced up at her, his dark eyes filled with both an apology and understanding.

  “Shit,” he said. “Sorry. I bet you heard that a lot. Be a good girl … I wasn’t thinking.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “You didn’t mean it the way they did.”

  “Still.”

  “I’ll get the ice,” she told him, and went to do just that.

  The light hurt his eyes, and his head was throbbing, and it took Dan several long seconds to remember where he was—and what had happened.

  The freaky little girl—Neesha—was out of the couch and was peering at Dan over Izzy’s shoulder as the other SEAL knelt beside him.

  “You’re okay,” Izzy told him as he helped Dan sit up and put the ice where it would help the most. Jesus, he was dizzy … “That must’ve been some fight—you’re lucky they didn’t kill you.”

  It was then it came back, and he looked around wildly, but Jenni and Eden were both gone. And Dan pushed Izzy away from him, hard.

  “You can’t lie for shit, Zanella,” Dan said, “so don’t even bother. I know you told Eden to hit me—”

  “And a fine job she did of it, too, Buddha be praised. You’re not badly injured, and you had just the right-length nap.”

  “I should fucking kill you!” Danny swung for him again, but the world tilted and he had to stop and press his forehead to the floor in order not to get sick.

  “You could try,” Izzy said. “But I’d like to remind you that you wouldn’t be able to try, if Eden hadn’t hit you. You wouldn’t be able to do anything. Eden’s and my goal was to make this very conversation—to kill me or not to kill me—possible. It was to keep you undead. And I mean the good kind of undead, not the creepy vampire kind, regardless of any lovely, sparkly—”

  Danny lifted his head and substituted the floor for the bag of ice that Izzy had given him. “Jesus Christ, they have Jenni! Do you have any idea what those men are capable of?”

  “I’m sure Jenn would agree,” Izzy spoke over him “She doesn’t seem the type to be into the whole pale, cold skin thing, not to mention the creepy stalker vibe. I’m betting she’s far more Team Jacob anyway—”

  “Zanella! For the love of God!”

  “And yes, I do know what they’re capable of,” Izzy said, “so if you’ve managed to get your eyes focusing in tandem again, and I’ve finally got your full attention, with all threats to beat the crap out of me temporarily out of your system, I’m ready to give you a sit-rep. You ready to listen?”

  Dan managed a nod and a somewhat civil “Yes. Please.”

  “We got one man, guy named Todd, last name unknown, watching the front door of this apartment,” Izzy said, “with orders to shoot to kill if I show up, or if you attempt to leave without clearing your movement with the boss, the big bald guy whose handle is Jake. So whatever you do, don’t go out that door. Eden and Jenn are still in transit, but we’re tracking their movement as we speak, because your amazing, incredible sister who saved your life tonight also managed to hide your cell phone up her sleeve.”

  “Oh, thank God,” Dan said, closing his eyes. But he opened them immediately as Izzy continued.

  “She also convinced them to leave you her cell phone so that they could get in touch with you—they’ve already sent you a text, telling you to call Jenn’s phone, allegedly to set up an exchange—Jenn, Eden, and Ben for Neesha.” Izzy looked over at the girl. “We’re not going to do that. We have no intention of giving you to them.” He looked back at Dan. “Same way they have no intention of giving Jenn, Eden, and Ben back to us. They didn’t try at all to hide who they were. Todd and Jake and a dude named Nathan all called each other by name while they were in here.”

  Dan was still focused on what Izzy’d said a moment earlier. “Tracking them how?” he asked.

  “You want the good news or the bad news?” Izzy asked, but didn’t let him answer. “Bad news: Lindsey miscarried, but out of the two of them, Mark’s the emotional wreck, even though he’s pretending to be strong. They just got home from the hospital and jumped on top of this as a major distraction. They’re picking up Lopez, and the three of them are looking for the fastest way up here. And with Markie-Mark in the equation, I’m thinking they might be here in about ten minutes, via stealth bomber or maybe space shuttle. But the real good news is that he and Lindsey still have your cell phone’s GPS info in her laptop, from the last time we were war-gaming. He’s got the program up and running, so whenever you’re ready to blow this Popsicle cart, we can start following the bastards that took our family, because we now know exactly where they are—which is now thirty-five minutes ahead of us.” Izzy paused. “Unless you want to follow the rules and wait to talk to the FBI. Jenk told me Lindsey called Jules Cassidy—and I agree with her, we can trust him, he’s good people, but he’s in Boston? And I have no idea who he’s going to contact out here to work with us, or how long they’re going to take to get their asses in gear, so—”

  “I’m not waiting for anyone,” Dan said. “If we know where Jenni and Eden are …? I say, fuck the rules.”

  Izzy nodded and held out a hand to help him to his feet. “Welcome to my world.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  SATURDAY, MAY 9, 2009

  3:45 A.M.

  Eden turned and looked at Jenn in the dimness of the back of the windowless van as the vehicle slowed and turned onto a bumpier, les
s well-maintained road. They’d been traveling for a while, first on what felt like a highway, then on smaller roads, still at high speeds, and then on what may have been dirt at a much slower pace.

  This, however, was even more pitted and rough. It was possibly made of gravel—there were pings and clunks from small pieces of rock being thrown by the tires, up against the bottom and sides of the van.

  All in all, they’d been on the move for just over forty minutes.

  It didn’t take much more than that to go from the bustle of downtown Vegas out into the middle of nowhere, as this bumpy road implied.

  Eden had checked Dan’s cell phone a number of times throughout their journey, and had discovered, very early on, that both the active phone call and the GPS setting generated a glow. She’d had to work to keep it covered and shielded with her body, curling into near-fetal position, which wasn’t that odd for a kidnapping victim to do.

  Jenn had helped, putting her arms around Eden and spooning together, once she’d realized what was going on. Halfway through the trip, Eden had figured out how to dim the phone’s screen, but even then, Jenn didn’t let go of her.

  Eden knew Jenn was scared—she was, too.

  Jenn was also intensely worried about Danny—about how hard Eden had hit him, about him not waking up. She was also worried about him waking up and running out of the apartment wildly in his search for them and running directly into Todd’s deadly weapon.

  Eden was afraid of that, too.

  It was entirely possible Jenn was never going to see Dan again. It was possible that Eden, too, had seen Izzy’s beautiful smile and heard his infectious laughter for the very last time …

  I’m going to find you, he’d said, but he wouldn’t find more than her body if she were dead.

  But she couldn’t think like that. It wouldn’t help her.

  I need you to believe me, Izzy had told her. So she would. She’d believe that he was going to find her—find all of them—and then, after this nightmare was over, when she was safe in his arms? When she told him, again, I love you, he would believe her, too.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she whispered to Jenn, in part because she wanted to put voice to it. It was what she wanted to feel and maybe if she said it out loud, it would help add to her conviction.

  “I said no talking!” the man named Jake barked.

  Eden had also wanted to test to see if the two men in the front of the van could hear her if she whispered to Jenn.

  Apparently, the answer to that was a solid yes.

  She cautiously checked the phone, to make sure they still had cell signal out here, and they did. Not for the first time, she was grateful that Izzy had made her take Dan’s phone. Hers could well have had zero bars a mile outside of the city limits, depending on where they were.

  As it was, they’d lost signal a few times, no doubt when they’d passed too close to cell towers, and Eden had checked to make sure the phone was set completely on silent, which it was, with the volume turned all the way down, which it wasn’t—before she’d redialed Izzy’s number—just in case the GPS signal wasn’t enough, and she needed to be in direct contact for him to track them. It would’ve been bad for the thing to boop and beep or the phone to ring, and then have Izzy pick up with an amplified Hello?

  Not that he would have, but still.

  But now here they were, with the van’s tires crunching on more of that gravel as they made another turn and—maybe they weren’t at their final destination, because the gravel turned back into pavement, smooth beneath the tires. And they sped up, but only briefly before they slowed down even more.

  One of the two men up front spoke—it was the man with the hat who’d wanted to kill them back in the apartment. “Pull close to the building so the plane can land—”

  “Shut up,” Jake cut him off loudly enough for Eden to risk a whisper to Jenn, as he said, “Jesus, what are you? A goddamn moron?”

  “We need to ditch this,” Eden breathed, even as she wondered who was coming here via airplane. “We can’t let them find it.” When Izzy’d been giving her rapid-fire instructions, he’d warned her that wherever they were being taken, they could well have electronic detection devices in place—and it would pick up the signal from Dan’s phone if they brought it inside.

  And that would be a very bad thing. Because Jake and company would then take her and Jenn somewhere else. Somewhere that Izzy and Dan wouldn’t be able to track them. That is, if Eden and Jenni weren’t just killed right then and there.

  Izzy had also warned her against hiding the phone in whatever vehicle they were transported in. If it was found in there, there’d be no doubt as to whom it belonged.

  Jenn nodded.

  And as the man with the hat—Nathan—shot back with, “Yeah, I’m the moron. I’m not the one always thinking with my dick,” Eden whispered, “I’ll pretend to faint and toss it under the van. Do whatever you can to help.”

  “Just keep your mouth shut,” Jake said as Jenn nodded again. “This is almost over.”

  “It better be,” Nathan said.

  Except, wait, what if they moved the van? Eden didn’t have a chance to ask the question aloud, because the front door opened and the interior lights came on—further proof that they were in the middle of nowhere. Their abductors knew that there was no one around to see them.

  Eden squinted in the sudden brightness as they sat up as Jenn looked at her again, and moved down toward the back doors of the van so that she would be the first one out.

  Eden pointed to herself—let her go first—as she ended the open call to Izzy, and sent a text message that she’d already prepared.

  Arrived. I love you.

  Be careful, she mouthed, and Jenn nodded briefly, but the look in her eyes was steely, and Eden knew she didn’t expect either of them to live to see the dawn.

  The doors swung open with a metallic screech, and Jake and Nathan the hat man were there, weapons drawn.

  Please God, let this work …

  “We should’ve taken her with us.”

  Izzy was driving the car that they’d hot-wired from a hotel parking lot not far from Eden’s apartment complex, because they didn’t want to risk taking Dan’s rental car on the off chance that Todd was keeping an eye on it, too.

  Izzy suspected that Dan had never before hot-wired a car for his own personal uses, and had certainly never done it for any other reason here in the States. Under other circumstances, he would’ve been ragging on the fact that Dan had popped his grand-theft-auto cherry, but seeing how they were both a little preoccupied with the task at hand, they’d been following the signal from Dan’s cell phone in relative silence.

  But now Dan was starting to second-guess the extremely correct choice they’d made in leaving Neesha behind, in Eden’s apartment.

  “We couldn’t take her with us, man,” Izzy said, telling Dan nothing he didn’t already know. But sometimes it helped to be reminded. “If something goes wrong, we’d be delivering her right into the hands of the people who want her dead.”

  And okay, that was stupid to say. If something goes wrong … Definitely not a good strategy to add to Gillman’s doubts and fears. This was a success-mandatory mission. Failure was not an option.

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong,” Izzy continued. “Because we’re not going to be dragging a kid around with us, right? You know if we took the time to get her out the window and then down from the roof? We’d still be up there, bro.”

  Dan nodded at that. “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I just …” He exhaled hard. “I’m having second thoughts about having to leave Greg’s handgun behind.”

  “We couldn’t leave Neesha there alone,” Izzy reiterated. “Not without it.” He glanced at Dan again. “You saw the power it gave her.”

  Dan nodded. He’d given the girl a crash course in firing and reloading the handgun while Izzy had scrounged in Eden’s kitchen and bathroom, gathering whatever homegrown bomb-making supplies he could find. There
wasn’t much. And the closest thing to weapons he could find—aside from that heavy-ass Buddha—was a collection of kitchen knives of various sizes and types.

  He’d tossed all of it—a roll of aluminum foil, rubbing alcohol, nail polish remover, and a bottle of Drano—into his bag with the knives.

  “But what if she falls asleep?” Dan asked, still talking about Neesha.

  “She’s not going to fall asleep,” Izzy said. “She knows what’s at stake.” Probably more than any of them …

  “If that guy Todd gets impatient,” Dan said, “and comes in to wake me up …”

  “She’ll blow a hole in him,” Izzy said, “and when he’s good and dead, she’ll call us and give us a heads-up.” They’d left her with Greg’s cell phone, too.

  They passed several more miles in silence, then Dan spoke again.

  “Ben’s probably dead.”

  Izzy glanced at him again. “That was my conclusion at first, too.” Because why else would Jake and his posse come back to Eden’s apartment? If they had someone—Ben—that they could use to offer in trade for Neesha, why did they need to come back and grab Eden and Jenn? Why not just call and threaten?

  One obvious answer was that Ben had tried to escape, and they’d shot him. Another was that they got too rough with their interrogation, and had accidentally killed the kid. And then there was all of the potential life-threatening dangers that came with Ben’s diabetes …

  “But I’ve been thinking about it,” Izzy continued, “and there are other possibilities. Maybe they wanted the women as leverage, to get Ben to talk. Or—and I think this is the one I’m going with—I heard Jake say he thought Ben was a junkie. Apparently the kid threw up on his shoes. Maybe Ben’s faking it. I mean, he was fine at the wedding, right? And his blood sugar reading when we got home was also excellent. That was just a few hours ago. What’s the likelihood of him having an incident so soon? I mean, in all honesty, I don’t know that much about the disease, so maybe it’s possible …”