Ewan’s team had come up with a series of possible locations for Jordie Dev, and therefore Nina, based on information they’d been able to strip from the data stamps on Jordie’s viddy message. Ewan had also gone to a different sort of source. Katrinka Dev looked at him now with wide eyes and a thin, grim smile.

“I have no idea. I truly don’t. You have to understand, Ewan, Jordie and I have not been . . . close. Not for the past few years.” Katrinka’s hand shook so much the tea in her fancy china cup sloshed a little. She put it down without sipping and clutched her hands together, wet fingers linked tight. She looked haggard.

Ewan had considered her more of a friend than an acquaintance, but now he didn’t have much sympathy for her. “Is there anything you can do to help us? Please. I have my team working on tracing the origins and location of his message, but it was encrypted. Your son was very talented with coding, Katrinka. I believe he might have been one of the brightest kids I ever worked with. I know he could fool my team on purpose to send us on a wild-goose chase. I can’t waste that time. I need to find him.”

Katrinka looked at Al, who stood silently next to Ewan. Her hands were hooked into her belt, which was hung with weapons. She hadn’t spoken since their arrival, declining Katrinka’s offer of refreshments with only a shake of her head.

“When you find them,” Katrinka said, “please promise me you won’t hurt him.”

Ewan shook his head. “I can’t promise that.”

Al said nothing.

Katrinka’s eyes glittered with tears. “Promise you won’t kill him, then. Surely you can guarantee that.”

“I can’t promise anything.” Al spoke up, finally, her voice firm but not belligerent. “But I’ll do my best.”

“If you know where he might be . . .” Ewan repeated.

“I don’t, I swear to the Onegod, I don’t.” Katrinka shook her head, but then sighed. Her shoulders slouched. “He has an identity chip.”

She’d said the last words in a voice so low Ewan wasn’t sure he’d heard her correctly. “What?”

“He’s chipped,” Katrinka said, louder this time. Almost defiantly, she looked at Ewan. “We had him chipped in utero.”

A grim triumph filled him. “So he’s trackable.”

“You know they disabled the GPS functions on those chips years ago. Too many problems. Jordie’s hasn’t been functional since he was a young child.”

The in utero identity chips had been touted as the wave of the future, a permanent way to prevent identity theft, child abductions, and a slew of other dangers. Instead, they’d caused personality disorders, brain tumors, and a multitude of behavioral and health problems. Although it was impossible to remove the chips, the regulatory networks had all been disabled. It was illegal to discriminate against someone who’d been chipped, but it was also illegal not to disclose it.

“I had no idea,” Ewan said. “Damn it, Katrinka.”

“You wouldn’t have taken him on as an apprentice if he’d disclosed it. I know,” Katrinka added sharply before Ewan could reply. “You’re not allowed to refuse someone because of the chip. But you wouldn’t have taken him into your program, Ewan. You’d have found an excuse to pick someone else. What did you want me to do, tell him to be honest when I knew it would keep him from pursuing his dreams? I might be an excremental one, but I’m still a mother.”

Ewan burned with a thin, fruitless anger. “I wouldn’t have declined his apprenticeship. But I’d have paid closer attention when his behavior started getting erratic, Katrinka. I might have been able to help him—”

Her bitter laugh cut off his words. “There was no help for him, Ewan, and you know it. Whatever’s wrong with my son might or might not be because of that chip, which is a fact I have to live with forever, but we really can’t ever know because they’ve never been able to prove a direct link. All I know is that he seems to have gotten himself into some kind of mess that I can’t help him out of.”

“This mess isn’t only about Jordie. He’s taken it far beyond that. He’s involved with people who don’t care about him or his dreams.”

Katrinka visibly blanched. “Who?”

“We have leads that say it’s an offshoot of the League of Humanity.” Ewan’s team had not been able to confirm that, but it didn’t matter. “Whoever he’s working for, they’re going to use him up and throw him away. That’s what those people do. He’ll end up in prison—”

“If he’s lucky,” Al said in a low voice.

Ewan continued, “Or dead.”

Katrinka grabbed for her tea but spilled it on the table. She didn’t even try to get away from the spreading puddle as it dripped onto her. With shaking hands, she set the cup back in the saucer. One fingertip traced a line in the spill. “They disabled the GPS systems, but you know even better than I do how to circumvent that sort of thing. My suggestion would be to start there.”

“Can you send me his ID code?” Ewan stood, eager to get out of there. “I can get my team working on it.”

Katrinka nodded without looking at him. A silver tear slid over her cheek and joined the puddle of tea. “I’ll have to find it. Once we couldn’t use it any longer, I didn’t keep it handy. It’s probably in a file somewhere.”

“Please,” Ewan said, then added again, more softly, “please find that code.”

At last, she turned her face to his. Almost angrily, Katrinka swiped away the tears, smearing the soft lines of cosmetics below her eyes. She lifted her chin, her gaze meeting Ewan’s without so much as a blink.

“I know you have no reason to care about him, and you can’t promise me anything, but please, Ewan. Do what you can to bring him home safely.”

There was no way he could make her that assurance, but Ewan nodded. He never expected Katrinka to lurch to her feet, but Al was between them before the other woman could so much as brush her fingertips against him. Katrinka gasped out a low cry and took a step back.

Bitter laughter slipped out of her. “I was going to hug you, but I see you’ve got a new watchdog.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Ewan said without making a move toward her. He made no apologies for Al’s interference. Katrinka may well indeed have meant only to hug him, but she was also the mother of the young man who’d arranged for the kidnapping and detainment of the woman he loved.

Katrinka nodded, chastened, and turned her back on them. “Please excuse me if I expect you to show yourselves out. I’m afraid I’m feeling suddenly distressed. I need to lie down.”

“I need that ID code,” Ewan said.

Katrinka shook her head. “I’ll get it to you, I just . . . I’m feeling sick to my stomach . . .”

“Puke on the floor, then.” Al stepped up and gripped her by the upper arm to spin her. “We need that ID number now, not when you’ve finished your nap on the fainting couch. We’re not leaving here without it, so you’d better get hopping.”

Fifteen minutes later in the transpo, the ID number already sent off to Ewan’s team so they could start working on getting the GPS system working, Al let out a low burst of laughter. Ewan did not feel like laughing. At the sight of what must have been his irritated expression, Al pressed her lips together and shook her head.

“She about messed her pants when I grabbed her,” Al said. “She was totally sure I was going to put the hurt on her.”

Ewan allowed himself a grim smile as he checked his personal comm for his team’s response. “I appreciate your diligence and swift reaction.”

“Doing my job, best I can.” Al nodded and leaned back against the seat. “Kind of wish I’d been able to pop her one, though.”

“I’m sure you’ll have your chance to pop a whole bunch of people, soon enough.”

“Any word on the ID code?”

“Not yet,” Ewan said.

* * *

Nina must have slept.

They’d drugged her, put something in the food. Nina knew that as soon as she woke, mouth dry as sand, head groggy. She wore a new pair of pajamas, these adorned with small dots of red and blue, which was better than the ugly flowers. Her body ached, but with the good, solid pain of muscles that had been well-worked. Nothing else seemed to be injured, although she put swift hands beneath her hair to search for lumps, bumps, or any new scars that would indicate a fresh head injury.

She remembered that she was not supposed to be here, but she did not remember how she got there.

Someone had come to her . . . yesterday? Or sometime earlier. A woman who tried to tell her about this place being a spa. As though Nina were stupid. Had there been another person, too? Someone who didn’t try to pretend anything? She thought so, but the memory, slippery as a fish, darted away into the shadows of her mind.

She waited now, watching the door, and sure enough it opened. A dark-haired woman came in. She wore a pair of faded, out-of-style jeans and a multicolored and oversized sweater that did not flatter her. She smiled and stood at the side of Nina’s bed, well out of arm’s reach. Nina noticed that. It was important. She sat up higher in the bed, her hands pushing at the soft mattress, her feet swimming under the blankets. She still felt logy, ill-equipped to speak.

“I’m Adami, your guest consultant. I’m here to go over the Limone Luxury Health Spa rules and guidelines, as well as walk you through your guest privileges.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.” Nina swallowed against the cottony sensation on her tongue. “Since I’m not a guest.”

Adami’s smile faltered. “Of course you are, one of our treasured guests. I’m here to show you how to operate your entertainment and sustenance ordering systems . . .”

They wanted Nina to think she’d just woken up here and to forget that she’d already met Adami. She noted this as whatever they’d put in her system dissipated, leaving her clear-headed. Her body still ached, but she’d been exercising. It was supposed to feel this way.

Why were they trying to fool her into thinking this was her first time waking up in this bed?

“I’ve already figured out how to order food. It wasn’t very good. I notice someone took away the plates while I was knocked out.”

“You weren’t . . . I mean, we have staff to clean up . . . they’re trained not to disturb you.” Adami stumbled on her explanation.

The other woman got points for thinking fast, but it wasn’t enough to convince Nina. “Thanks for the pajamas, they’re much nicer than the other ones.”

“You remember—” Adami bit off her words and coughed lightly into her fist. “ . . . Ahem, you’re welcome. I’m glad the new pajamas suit you better. We here at the Limone Luxury Health Spa want to make sure you have everything you need.”

“How about a key to get out of here?”

Adami laughed jaggedly. “Oh, my goodness. You have such a sense of humor. Of course, we here at Limone Luxury Health Spa want you to have the finest experience possible. If you’d like to get out of bed, walk around the grounds, we have—” Again, Adami cut herself off, her head tilting as though she were listening to some unheard command. “I mean, your treatment regimen is customizable. When you speak with your . . . um . . .”

“I thought you were the guest consultant. You can’t authorize me being able to get out of this room?”

Adami’s smile stretched over crooked teeth. Cosmetic dentistry was the lowest bar of any kind of cosmetic tech available. Nobody had crooked teeth anymore, unless they were making some kind of political statement. Nina frowned.

“What kind of spa hires someone who doesn’t conform to societal standards of beauty?” Nina asked before Adami had time to come up with another set of lies.

Adami looked surprised. Then angry. “What does that mean?”

“It means that I don’t believe this is a spa, I don’t think you’re my guest consultant, and I want to know what’s going on.” Nina looked down at herself, tucked up so neatly in a bed she knew wasn’t hers, but that she couldn’t recall getting into.

She’d forgotten lots of things over the past number of years. Some she knew were gone forever. Pinpricks of blankness in her brain. Some could come back to her, if she tried hard enough. The difference between the two kinds of memory loss had to do with if she’d forgotten because of natural reasons, or if she’d been reset.

This felt uncomfortably close to being reset.

“Who do you work for, really?” Nina demanded. “Where am I?”

Adami hadn’t come close enough to the bed for Nina to grab her. Still, she backed up a step. Her head tilted again, and this time her fingertips touched her temple for a second. “I told you, I work for Limone Luxury Health Spa.”

“Why am I here?”

“To recover from injuries sustained in an . . . accident.” Whoever had trained her hadn’t done a very good job. Adami stumbled over the explanation. “It’s our pleasure here at Limone Luxury Spa to provide a warm, safe environment for healing . . .”

“You forgot the health part.”

“It’s a spa!” Adami shouted. “You’re here to enjoy yourself! To recover after an accident!”

“Get out,” Nina said. “You’re giving me a headache.”

“We have many methods of offering comfort—”

Nina yanked off the blankets and started to swing her feet over the edge of the bed.

Adami fled.

* * *

“I don’t get it, how can you not be pinpointing him? Isn’t that the point of the chip?” Ewan threw out both hands, then faced the wall comm. As it turned out, the long string of letters and numbers that Katrinka had given him in order to track Jordie had needed to go through an additional set of decoding before it could even begin to be tracked. The delay had him on edge. Pacing. “C’mon, guys, you have to give me something I can use.”

“It’s harder than we expected. The system wasn’t so hard to crack into, but the information in it hasn’t been updated in years. We can only get locations when the chip connects to the system, and since most of the receiving centers were shut down and even destroyed, well . . . we only get a piece of the picture. We’re working on some triangulations now.” Barney had been part of Ewan’s sec team for the past five years and had never let him down; he looked devastated to be doing so, now. “We’re going to get you a location, Mr. Donahue. I promise.”

“Thanks, Barney. Ping me the second you have something.” Ewan disconnected and turned to find Al staring at him with narrowed eyes. “What?”

“They’ll figure it out. We should have a plan for when they do.”

“Yeah. Of course. The plan is, we go there together, and you kick all their asses and we get her back,” Ewan said.

“What about the kid?”

Ewan shook his head. “I don’t care about Jordie Dev. If we get Nina back, he can be left behind to deal with whoever he made his deals with.”

“You don’t want to see him arrested? He’ll go to prison for sure.”

“Katrinka Dev has enough money to keep her son out of prison.” Ewan rolled his neck on his shoulders with a wince at the strain in his muscles. It had been little more than a day since Nina had walked out of here on her way to see her sister, but it seemed like years. All this wasted time was driving him insane.

“You really do love her, huh?”

He turned to face Al. “Yeah. I do.”

“Not trying to rustle your jimmies, Mr. Billions,” Al said quickly, holding up her hands in gesture of surrender. “I think it’s hyper icy to see you two crazy kids cooing over each other. But it makes you stupid, and I don’t aim to get in the way of stupid. Shiny fine? We need to actually discuss what’s going to happen when you get that kid’s location and we go there. You’ve clearly decided not to bother with the regular authorities—”

“I hired you,” Ewan bit out, “because I thought you’d be the best option.”

Again, Al held up her hands. “I get it. The police would be too slow, and there’d be the legal ramifications of involving them. Whatever. You got me, instead. So let’s make sure we are on the same page. I’m gonna need an understanding between us.”

“Shiny fine. What?” Ewan’s comm hadn’t pinged, but he looked at it anyway. Blank screen. With a muttered curse, he kept himself from throwing it at a wall.

“What I say, goes,” Al said as though she hadn’t heard him calling the comm an evil name. “If we go into a situation where I need to protect you, you have to be sure you’re listening to me. You listening?”

She was waiting for him to answer her, Ewan realized. When he looked up, Al’s pale green eyes blazed in a hard expression. “Yeah. I’m listening.”

“Good. Because if I’m taking you on, that means you’re my responsibility. I’ll do my best for you, but if there’s any signs at all that it’s going bad and you’re going to get hurt, I’ll haul you out of there so fast you’ll think you got sent back in time.”

“Do they give you guys a class in this, or what?” Ewan said with a frown, reminded too strongly of Nina’s When you’re mine, you’re mine all the way.

“They do, actually,” Al said solemnly. “ProtectCorps is really strict about training. We all had to pass a test. Leona says she has a reputation for a reason, and it ain’t because her people let clients get killed. Will you promise to listen to me?”

Ewan nodded after a hesitation, setting aside his anger and worry for a few seconds as he gave Al his attention. “Yes. Of course I will.”

“Because it seems likely that whoever this Jordie kid’s working for will have some security, probably a lot of security. It’s not going to be easy to get to her, even when you do find him. And what are you going to do if she’s not where he is?”

“I will leave it up to you to make sure he tells you where she is.”

Al grinned. “Maybe I’ll get to pop him one, huh?”

“Yeah. I’m guessing you will.”

Ewan’s comm pinged. He swiped to look at the message and the coordinates. He looked up at Al with a grim smile.

“They got him.”