“What are you going to do?”
Stephanie stood on the other side of the kitchen counter, watching me as I checked my gear. I’d brought everything in—the pistols and rifle and submachine gun and ammunition—and now I loaded each and every magazine, as well as each spare mag.
“What do you think I’m going to do? I’m heading out there.”
She had her arms crossed, her face still pinched with anger after all these hours. After Olivia had told us everything, part of me had wanted to head straight out to the Hacienda, while another part knew that there wasn’t any rush. Because the parties, Olivia said, started around midnight. Which meant the girls wouldn’t need to arrive until around 11:00 p.m. Which meant they wouldn’t leave the Hacienda until at least 7:00 p.m., as the drive from Vegas to LA typically took four hours.
So since there was time to kill—and since Stephanie had noticed the fatigue in my eyes—she’d convinced me to take a quick nap. And I’d tried, I honestly had, though every time I started to doze off I would think about the black site in the Philippines and all the detainees we tortured to death, only they had suddenly been replaced by the women who were right this instant being held against their will.
“I understand that, Danny. But once you get there, what are you going to do?”
I started to put the Kevlar vest on but lifting my left arm still hurt, pulling at some of the stitches. I’d been lucky that Stephanie had agreed to stitch up the wound in the first place, and I wasn’t about to test my luck and ask her to stitch it up again.
Stephanie noticed me struggling with the vest and approached, telling me to hold on.
“It’s okay, I got it,” I said, and I did, though it was still painful. Then I stared down at the weapons on the counter. “I’m going to save those women.”
“But why?”
“But why? Because they’ve been abducted.”
“No, I mean why you? Why involve yourself in this any more than you already have?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded, as though the answer should be obvious. Though I supposed it was only obvious to me.
“Because,” I said evenly, “if I don’t save them, who will?”
Stephanie was quiet for a moment, her lips tight.
“And what about the men watching those women?”
To this I said nothing. Because the truth was I didn’t know what I was going to do to the men. I hadn’t been lying when I told Ryan Fisher that from the start my intention wasn’t to kill anyone. So far, I’d killed only two people, at least directly—Ryan and the bouncer, with Allister Martin being somewhat indirect. Had the man worn his seat belt, he might not have been flung from the Escalade, and if he hadn’t been flung from the Escalade, he would probably still be breathing, though in bad shape. I would have taken him instead of Olivia, though that meant I probably wouldn’t have sought out Stephanie’s help. Somehow, even in that moment, I’d known that Stephanie would be more open to hearing Olivia’s side of things.
When it became clear I wasn’t going to answer, Stephanie said, “Why are you here, really?”
“I told you already.”
“Yes, you told me you’re undercover. But for whom?”
I kept my focus on loading the MPX’s magazine, one nine-millimeter cartridge after another. Worried that if I looked her in the eye right then, I might tell her the truth. Why I was hiding it from her, I wasn’t quite sure, only that I knew it was something I couldn’t get into right now.
“Or,” Stephanie said, her tone cautious, “are you here on your own?”
I shifted my gaze up to meet hers. I figured I was doing a good job keeping my expression neutral, but she saw something there and started nodding.
“That’s it, isn’t it? You’re here on your own. Why?”
Finished with the last magazine, I set it aside and then gripped the counter and leaned forward, surveying all the firepower. Was it enough to get me through this? Hard to say. I’d walked into worse situations with less, but every battle was different.
Stephanie turned away from me, leaning over to snatch her phone off the kitchen table.
“I’m calling the police.”
I watched her unlock the phone with her thumb, start to dial 911. She paused before she hit the button to connect, waiting to see if I would say or do anything.
“Go ahead. But you heard what Olivia told us. Some of the police are involved in this—the hotel scam for sure. But the women? Who knows how many more cops are involved. If you want to take the chance and give them a heads-up, be my guest.”
Stephanie tried to hide her frustration, but like Olivia, she didn’t have a great poker face. She dropped the phone to her side with a disgruntled sigh.
“The men who abducted these women are monsters.”
I nodded. She would get no argument from me on that point.
“But even though they’re monsters,” she said, holding my gaze, “they deserve due process. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
I nodded again.
“What am I saying, Danny?”
“I can’t make any promises. These men will be armed. They aren’t just going to let me walk in and take the women out.”
“Fair enough. What about the VIPs, then? At the very least they should be brought to justice.”
I held her gaze for another moment, flashing on one of the early days of her relationship with my brother. She’d still been new, still hadn’t felt entirely comfortable around me or our mother yet, as though worried she might screw things up by making the slightest mistake. She’d come over to the house because she and James were going out to a movie or dinner or something, but she was early and James was still in the shower and our mother wasn’t home so it was just the two of us. The TV was on, but I wasn’t paying any attention, my focus glued on a school library paperback copy of The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton, and after several minutes of complete silence, Stephanie asked what I was reading. I struggled to explain it at first, not wanting to look at her, though I wasn’t sure why. It was only later—after I’d opened up, telling her everything about Ponyboy Curtis and the greasers and the Socs while Stephanie listened intently, her dark eyes never once leaving mine—that I understood the reason. While I’d had crushes on my fair share of girls so far in my thirteen years of life—I had kissed a few, had even made out with Rebecca Goldberg on the bus back from a school trip to the Inner Harbor in Baltimore—I suddenly realized the reason I’d always been so shy around Stephanie Nguyen: I was in love with her.
“Let me see your phone.”
Stephanie glanced down at her phone, and hesitantly handed it over. I inputted nine digits and handed the phone back.
She asked, “What’s this number to?”
“My secure cell phone. If something happens, or there’s some kind of emergency, call it.”
She thumbed the phone’s screen, and three seconds later the iPhone in my pocket vibrated.
“There,” she said. “Now you have my number if something happens, or if there’s some kind of emergency.”
Stephanie was smiling, though it was forced. She still had the same grin she had when she was in high school, the grin of a girl who always knew a secret she might or might not tell you. I felt an ache in my heart remembering her and my brother together, arms around each other on the sofa on Friday nights watching movies, or how James’s face always lit up every time our mom told him Stephanie was on the phone.
Without another word, I gathered the weapons and spare magazines off the counter and started for the garage. Olivia had been in the BMW’s trunk all this time, wrists and ankles bound with a bag over her head and duct tape over her mouth.
As I reached for the doorknob, I paused and turned back to Stephanie.
“When James first asked you out, do you remember why you said yes?”
She frowned.
“Why . . . why are you asking?”
“I’m curious.”
“I honestly don’t remember. We had been friends for a while. Your brother . . . he was cute and funny, and I guess I’d always had a crush on him.”
“That’s all?”
Crossing her arms again, Stephanie said, “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Maybe I don’t understand either. But James . . . from what I remember, he was never mean to anyone. Never nasty. Never rude. He was always . . . good.”
“You’re right. He was never mean to anyone. Never fell under peer pressure to make fun of others or anything. I guess at the time I hadn’t really thought about it, because . . . that was just James. Why are you bringing this up now?”
“No reason. But what you asked before, about how these people deserve due process and don’t deserve to be killed? I promise I’ll do the best I can.”