“I’m counting on that fact.” Theresa was putting their containers and plastic silverware back in the bag they’d come in.

  “Until we can figure out where they’re homesteading, where their bunker is, we need them to feel confident in their ability to pull this off.” He was thinking aloud. But also doing what he’d just said he’d do—preparing her.

  If the Fitzgeralds were cornered, feeling desperate, the twins could get hurt.

  “So, we need to make sure that today’s situation with Tom Smith doesn’t happen again,” she said. “We don’t want them to know we’re closing in on them.”

  She was good.

  But he’d known that.

  “We’ll need to be more discreet, yes,” he agreed. “I’m not a profiler, per se, but before we go into battle, we profile our enemy as a whole. We have to be able to predict what they might do given various situations. We need to know what kind of weapons they have, for instance, how many days’ worth of supplies, or what kind of barricades, physical or otherwise, they’ll be using to stop us. I need to know these kinds of things about the Fitzgeralds. So what I suggest is that we get a room someplace in town and sit down and talk. I need you to tell me everything you can remember Mark ever telling you about his parents. And any and all details you can recall about the time you’ve known them. Things the girls have said, but also your own impressions.”

  They had to get a room. No way they were heading two hours back to Blue Larkspur when they knew the girls had been driven as far as Benson. And it wasn’t like they could scour wooded miles in the pitch-black for any telltale signs of recent occupation.

  Realizing her little girls were going to be spending at least one night with the unstable couple had to be soul-destroying, but Theresa was sitting up straight. Engaging rationally with him.

  She was there, as she’d sworn she’d be, and he admired the hell out of her.

  “There was that place kind of in the middle of town,” she reminded him. “It had rooms with windows that look out over Main Street. And parking outside each door.” So much for thinking the room idea was going to be a problem for her.

  If only he could be so sure it wouldn’t pose serious issues for him.

  He’d shared bunks and slept sleeping bag to sleeping bag in bunkers, too, with both male and female soldiers.

  He’d never, ever spent a night in a motel room with a woman he was hot for without sex being an already-agreed-upon mutual desire.

  And there were considerations so much more important at stake...

  “I just thought of something,” she blurted as he pulled back into town. The streetlights were coming on to brighten the falling dusk. “Tom Smith had a pamphlet sitting on that desk when we walked in. I remember wondering if it was part of a packet he gives to all prospective clients.”

  He’d been sizing up the man, looking for weapons and planning escape routes. Not glancing at brochures on the furniture.

  “And?”

  “It was for guns and ammunition, Ezra. That store right there.” Sitting forward, she pointed an obviously shaking finger at a small corner place attached to a long string of storefronts all under one roof.

  He drove slowly past, taking in the nearly all glass front and what looked like cases in a U shape around the long, narrow room. Several businesses down, outside an ice cream shop, he parked. “You up for a walk?” he asked, studying the street and the area around the ammunition shop on the corner intently.

  “Of course.” She’d opened her door and was out of the vehicle faster than he’d have liked. Remnants of having been shot at—of knowing she was a target as well—still tightened his nerve endings.

  He didn’t see any sign of unusual activity. The street was calm. Shoppers, but not so many that the sidewalks were crowded. A few cars. A family sitting on a bench eating ice cream.

  If Claire and Neve had been there, they’d have ordered chocolate...

  “Let’s go inside,” he said, heading up to the door of the soda fountain and sweets parlor. Pulling his phone out, he spoke with the manager who’d been working all day, spoke with anyone who’d been there for more than four hours, showed the picture he had of the twins without saying who they were or why he was asking about them.

  No one had seen them. And it wasn’t like six-year-old twins who, while not identical, looked alike would be forgettable.

  “How about these two?” Theresa asked, showing a picture of the Fitzgeralds standing by their truck, smiling. “We were supposed to meet them here, but we’re later than expected, and I’m afraid we missed them.”

  She was good. Damned good.

  Better than he was.

  Interrogation wasn’t his business.

  “Yeah, them I recognize.” A young guy with dark hair tied back in a ponytail nodded as he wiped his hands on a long white apron over jeans. “Mostly because they bought like two cases of ice cream sandwiches and paid cash for ’em, too. They wanted all we had, and I emptied out the back of the walk-in to get them. They got dry ice, too, you know, like they were going on a road trip. But they didn’t have any kids in here with them, if they were all supposed to be together or something.”

  “The kids were probably still out in the truck,” Ezra said, to cover for Theresa’s suddenly white face and tighter expression.

  “Oh, well, maybe it’s not the same people,” the kid said. “They looked an awful lot like that, but these guys were driving a van.”

  “A van?” Theresa voiced the question.

  “Yeah. I offered to help load it, but the guy was pretty definite about being able to do it himself. I figured he was one of those OCD types, you know. Everything has to be just right. The van was older, from the eighties, maybe, brown, and sweet, really. Not a scratch or dent that I could see. Tires were fairly new, too, great tread on them.”

  The kid asked if he could get them anything...on the house...but Ezra shook his head. Took Theresa’s hand. Making an excuse about hoping to catch up with their family, he got them out the door, and as soon as they were far enough down the block for the observant ice cream scooper not to see, he was on the phone with Dom. Authorities were looking for the wrong vehicle.

  “They got the warrant and are on their way to Smith’s,” Ezra told Theresa as, still holding her hand—for show, he told himself—they headed down to the ammunition shop.

  She missed a step, clasping harder at his hand as she righted herself, and looked up at him. “Oh my God! We might still get them tonight!”

  He didn’t want to get her hopes up, but he couldn’t deny that he, too, saw the plausibility of such a possibility. And needed it to come to be.

  Every second he was with Theresa, every breath of her he inhaled, he was getting in further over his head.

  * * *

  One step in front of the other. It was all she could do. Life had spiraled so far out of control, out of any comfort zone, out of all realms of anything she’d ever imagined herself doing, that Theresa couldn’t find any sense of a self she knew. So, she took the self she had and determined that that person was going to do whatever it took to find her children.

  “Act natural,” Ezra said, his tone striking a new shot of fear through her. “We’re a couple on a stroll...”

  About to get shot at? She clutched his hand harder. Whatever happened, holding his hand made it easier to bear.

  “The guy behind the counter in the gun shop is watching us. And texting.”

  He’d told Dominic that Tom Smith’s doing the same was what had alerted him to their danger at the bunker store. Was the ammunition shopkeeper going to reach for a gun as well?

  Ezra wasn’t urging her to run. Or hide. He wasn’t rushing her to face-plant on the floor of their new Jeep. She walked as casually as she could beside him. Looking toward the window of the antique shop next door to their destination. Moving close enough to Ezra that their hips were touching.

  “You okay to go in?” Ezra asked as they approached the gun shop.

  “Of course.”

  She saw the shopkeeper, a skinny guy with a mop of curly red hair falling down around his face, coming around the counter as they got close. Her heart pounded as her gaze flew to his hands, her entire system rushing into flight mode.

  The man’s hands were empty. He reached toward the door handle just before they did.

  He was going to hold the door open for them?

  She’d just started to adjust to the information when she heard a click. And saw a shade come down over the door. Followed by quickly pulled shades on the windows on either side of it.

  “He just locked the door on us,” she said, standing there nonplussed.

  “Yep.” Ezra moved them quickly toward the antique shop storefront. “Not smart to stand in front of shaded windows,” he said. “Most particularly when the room behind them is filled with arms.”

  It was as he said that last word that the blood drained from her face, and what felt like her entire body as well.

  His statement brought a picture to her mind’s eye, the glance she’d been taking in of the shop in the seconds before she’d expected to enter it—just before she’d heard the click of the turned lock.

  She made it back to the Jeep, hand in Ezra’s, and dropped down to the front passenger seat, hands shaking as she fastened the seat belt. Sweating, she shivered.

  “We’ve done what we can do for the night,” Ezra was saying as he climbed in beside her and started the vehicle. “We need to find a room.”

  She heard him. Accepted his words. They weren’t enough to bring her out of the horror she’d been catapulted into.

  “What is it? Are you hurt?” Ezra’s tone, sharp then, drew closer as he leaned across the console, his gaze running intently over her. Looking for blood, she figured. He didn’t know it had all drained away.

  “Theresa.” The tone was compelling.

  She blinked. “Mariette.” She barely got the word out. Coughed. Then said, “I was wrong.”

  “About what?” With a finger on her chin, he turned her head until she was looking into his very intent gaze. “Wrong about what?”

  His hand dropped away. She had to hold her own head straight. Felt driven to lay it on his shoulder, to turn her head in until she got lost within his strength.

  But couldn’t do that, either. She couldn’t escape, no matter where she went.

  Her girls... The danger was so much worse than she’d even imagined.

  “Mariette. That antique gun in the case in the middle of the gun shop. I saw it just before he closed the blind. Mariette. Not marionette. Claire was right.”

  He didn’t look away and his gaze didn’t weaken, either. “I’m not following you.”

  Looking at him hurt. Everything hurt. Tears filled her eyes. She knew it. Couldn’t stop them.

  “The one solo visitation. Eric and Jennifer gave the girls presents. They each got a wooden box. Pretty wooden box, Neve said. Claire said they were heavy and wouldn’t open. Neve thought that part was stupid, but insisted the box was pretty...”

  Who cared about the way the damned box looked?

  And yet her mind clung to Neve’s impression. Couldn’t let go of her baby girl’s positive take on her world. Issued a prayer from the depths of her soul that Neve would hold on to that perspective.

  “Still not following.” Ezra’s voice brought her attention back to the black moment sucking her in.

  “Jennifer told the girls they couldn’t open the boxes just yet. Not until they were someplace where they could get set up to use what was inside. Mariettes, Claire said. That was what was inside, Mariettes. Marionettes, I corrected her, thinking that the Fitzgeralds really were trying to be good grandparents, buying the girls real marionettes to play with, and keeping them for them until they had a stage set up to stand behind and put on a show. The girls said their grandparents were going to teach them how to use them. I pictured a puppet play. Was relieved...”

  She saw the change come over Ezra, as though in slow motion. He stiffened. His eyes grew harder. His jaw tense.

  “They gave those little kids Mariettes?”

  She nodded, knocking tears over her lids and down her cheeks. “Oh my God, Ezra, they bought my babies their own guns!”

  Chapter 15

  Mariettes were small guns, but precise and designed to kill. Ezra burned from the inside out as he drove to the motel Theresa had mentioned. The inn was well lit, beautifully manicured with gardens and fresh paint, and had a lit waterfall pond feature with benches out in the spacious, freshly mowed lawn. The type of place he was pretty sure she needed to be.

  She was a natural nurturer, and beauty and peace had been horribly vacant from her day.

  He asked for two rooms, adjoining if at all possible, and was told there was only one left, period. And that due to a cancellation.

  He turned to Theresa, ready to offer to try one of the other two motels on the outskirts of town, when she said, “We’ll take it,” and slapped her credit card down on the counter.

  Ezra had intended to pay. With no mortgage and very little upon which to spend money, he’d amassed far more wealth than he needed over the eighteen years since he’d left home for the army, while Theresa was a single mother who’d struggled with massive medical bills.

  And he recognized that Theresa needed to be in control of something in a life spiraling out of control.

  He recognized it because he’d been there since he was sixteen years old.

  Five minutes after they’d registered, they were using a key card to enter a much more welcoming, homey place than he generally frequented. Bare-bones was good enough for him. He was glad that Theresa would have nicer than that.

  It did feel a bit low-life to be entering the spacious accommodations carrying box-store plastic bags as their only luggage—a firm reminder that they weren’t there on vacation.

  Or even because they’d planned a trip.

  They’d be in the room only until they had their next maneuver planned out and had gotten at least a little rest.

  Or until Dom called and gave them a more immediate assignment.

  Like picking up Claire and Neve.

  “Obviously you’ve got the bed,” he told Theresa, scouting out the room for safety and defense purposes. Only allowing himself to think about being on the job. Period. Might be a self-imposed, unofficial assignment, but he was there for only one purpose. Win the most important battle he’d ever fought. “I’ll take the sofa thing.”

  “That doesn’t make sense, Ezra,” she said, moving over to the window alcove and dropping her bags on the iron-barred mattress filled with pillows and frills. “I’m fine with the daybed. You’re a lot bigger than I am. And you’re the one who is more apt to be called upon for physical exertion.”

  He’d just determined that he needed to let her win, to call the shots, wherever he could. This wasn’t that. “I take the window,” he told her unequivocally. “You take the wall.” He nodded his head toward the bed with a wall at the head and another one right beside it.

  She gave him one glance and moved her bags. He dropped his in one of the four chairs pushed up to a round table set in the twenty feet of space between the bed and the window. Opposite a two-cushion couch and two armchairs also sharing that space. They’d passed the door into the separate, private bath as they’d entered the room.

  Feeling slightly as though he’d landed in a minefield like none other, Ezra grabbed the pad of paper and pen he’d purchased, along with his cell phone and a bottle of water, and sat down at the table. He made columns. Filled them in with what he knew. Heard movement in the room. The bathroom door closing. Silence. Water running. Door opening.

  And stared at the page that he hadn’t touched since the door had first closed.

  It had been a while since he’d spent the night with a woman. Heard her moving. Couldn’t look. Not for a minute or two, at least.

  “What can I do to help?” Her phone landed softly on the table. The chair next to him moved. And...she’d taken the band out of her hair.

  Long dark strands cascaded...everywhere. For a second there, they were all he could see. Thick dark strands, with those hints of fire in their depths.

  And then he noticed the eyes in the middle of the array. They bore...agony.

  His mind clicked into immediate gear. He asked her to start with everything she could remember Mark ever saying about his home, growing up. “I’m hoping that Dom’s going to find that referral list in his search of Smith’s place, and that we’ll have good direction in terms of finding the Fitzgerald bunker, but in case he doesn’t, we need to know where to head in the morning.” He turned his phone around, showing her a topographic map of the state. Asked her to call up Smith’s website and get his list of suggested bunker locations, to designate the most likely bunker sites. “Knowing as much as we can about the Fitzgeralds’ choices—do they prefer woods or open fields, for instance—will help us more accurately pinpoint where they might be.”

  “You think they’ve already taken my girls down into their bunker.”

  Lying only added insult to injury. “I think we want to assume the worst so that we’re prepared to fight under the worst-case scenario and win.” He looked her in the eye as he spoke, and then continued immediately. “What do you know about where Mark grew up? Were they out in the country? In a neighborhood? Anything about the surroundings might help.”

  She didn’t know much at all. “Mark had to fight hard not to be brainwashed, manipulated or influenced by them. When he left, it’s like he locked off that part of his mind. I do know that he had a dog that got in a fight with a bear once. The dog won. The bear ran off.”