“How do you think we got the down payment for this house?”

My jaw dropped open. “Did Reyes know?”

He laughed out loud. “It was his idea. He knew she’d pay big bucks for them, and he wanted us to have this house.”

I sat stunned. He did it all for his friends. And yet he would have me believe he went around hurting innocent people? I doubted that now more than ever. But what if he died? Would he really lose his humanity? Was that even possible?

I’d been hoping to gather some kind of hint as to where Reyes might be during our conversation, something that the Sanchezes were perhaps unaware they even knew, but nothing struck me as being particularly salient. I gave them a card and rose from the kitchen table. Amador rushed off to hit the showers as Bianca walked me to the door.

“So, what did he say about me?” I asked her.

She giggled and shook her head.

“No, really. Did he mention my ass?”

* * *

I entered my apartment building, my head filled with all things Reyes and my heart filled with hope. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe just knowing he was still alive was enough to raise my spirits. I’d never realized I could hear his heartbeat, but thinking back, I’d always heard it, mostly in the twilight between awake and asleep, when semi-lucid dreams skated across the surface of my consciousness. The heartbeats would lull me deeper into oblivion.

As I slid my key into the lock, I heard Mrs. Allen down the hall.

“Charley?” she said, her voice weak.

Lord of the Rings, what now? The only time Mrs. Allen spoke to me was when her poodle PP ran off and she needed a licensed PI to find him. Prince Phillip was a menace, if you asked me. I highly suspected that whoever came up with the concept of poodles in general had sold his soul to the devil. Because, really? Poodles?

I turned toward her. If nothing else, I should get a plate of homemade cookies out of the deal, as Mrs. Allen considered homemade cookies payment enough for spending hours hunting down America’s Most Menacing. Which actually worked for me.

“Hey, Mrs. Allen,” I said, starting toward her. In the very next moment, I heard an odd thump. Then a flash of pain exploded inside my head as the floor came rushing toward my face, and all I could think before darkness swallowed me whole was, No freaking way.

Chapter Fifteen

WHERE AM I GOING AND WHAT AM I DOING IN THIS HANDBASKET?

—BUMPER STICKER

A jolt knocked my head—the same head that had just been traumatized by a blunt object—against the side panel of the interior of a trunk. It startled me awake. But I quickly started losing ground, slipping back into oblivion with each beat of my heart. A rich, warm darkness threatened to overcome me, forcing me to push, to bite and claw back to awareness.

I focused on the sharp pain throbbing in my head, the fact that my hands and feet were bound, the hum of an engine, and the whir of tires on pavement beneath me. If this was Cookie’s way of finally getting me into the trunk of a car, she was getting a year’s supply of bikini wax treatments for Christmas.

“So, like, what are you doing?”

I forced my eyes open to the grinning face of a thirteen-year-old gangbanger named Angel. Thank goodness. Surely, he could get me out of this. He was leaning in through the backseat. At that moment, I would have killed a woolly mammoth to be incorporeal as well.

“I’m dying,” I croaked, my parched throat making me hoarse. “Go get help.”

“You’re not dying. Besides, do I look like Lassie?” His smart-ass smirk faltered for a split second, just long enough for me to see the concern on his face. That was bad.

“Who is it?” I asked, closing my eyes against the layers of pain throbbing in harmony against my skull.

“It’s two white men,” he said. Worry strained his voice.

“What do they look like?”

“White men,” he said with a vocal shrug. “You guys all look alike.”

I tried to release a loud sigh but couldn’t get enough air in my constricted lungs. “You’re about as helpful as a spoon in a knife fight.” I felt my shoulder holster for my gun, but it was gone. Naturally. And my shaky grip on consciousness was ebbing as well. “Go get Reyes,” I said, losing ground much faster than I could keep up.

“I can’t find him.” His voice sounded like an echo in a cavern. “I don’t know how.”

“Then let’s hope he knows how to find me.”

What seemed like moments later, the trunk lid opened, waking me for the second time, and a rush of light filled the cramped space. I suddenly felt an odd kinship to vampires as I squinted against the harsh brightness.

“She’s awake,” one of them said. He seemed surprised.

“No shit, Sherlock,” I said, receiving a sharp stab of pain at the base of my skull for my effort.

Of all the times for me to be scared, now would be a good one, but I was getting nothing. No rush of adrenaline. No fear coursing through my veins. No panic-induced sweats or stomach-turning anxiety attacks. Either they gave me something in the form of illegal drug use or I had turned into a zombie. Since I had no desire to eat their brains, I was leaning toward the narcotics rap.

“You hit me,” I said as they dragged me out of the trunk and toward what looked like an abandoned motel. With infinite rudeness, neither of them answered, and I realized then that I wasn’t talking clearly. And walking with my feet bound was proving darned near impossible, too. Luckily, I had an armed escort. It made me feel oddly important. I totally needed bodyguards of my own. The implementation of a maximum-security program would not only deter future kidnappings, but it would also boost my self-esteem, and an esteemed self is a happy self.