The car careened around a corner, and the three of them bailed out onto the sidewalk before it had even come to a full stop.

“Sir!” the driver called, and waved a cell phone in the air. William ran back to the car while Luke and Dani exchanged glances and waited to see what he would do. This had become his show.

But William only shoved the phone back at the driver and yelled, “Whoever’s in there, they have reinforcements on the way.”

Luke grabbed his father’s arm and pointed at the house behind him. It was a split level, built of red brick with white trim. A long porch ran along the front of the house, though much of it was concealed by heavy pine trees. “What about us?”

“Our reinforcements are right behind theirs!” William argued, turning his back on his son, on the house, on everything, apparently to focus on waiting until help arrived.

“They’ll get it before we do!” Luke argued, then realized he was speaking to his father’s back and turned, throwing his hands up in the air in a look of absolute disgust intermingled with frustration, not helped by his father’s stolid refusal to be moved.

“You will hold position!” William said, shooting them both a look over his shoulder. “Until the police arrive.”

Luke and Dani both turned at the sound of a crash from somewhere inside the house. He took a step forward but William called him to heel again, this time swearing and ordering him to stay put, or he’d call the FBI himself to make sure he stayed where he was put.

Of course, Luke took the bait and started in on a diatribe that sounded all too familiar after the argument in the car. Dani looked at Luke and William, and realized that with the two of them so damn distracted absolutely anything could happen, and broke every bit of intelligence training she’d ever had. She bolted to the door. It took the men almost a full minute before they figured out what she was up to, and by then she’d reached the porch. She ignored the shouts of her name and burst through the door of the house, reaching for a weapon that, in the excitement, she’d forgotten she no longer carried.

Well, shit. If that didn’t must make things lovely.

What’s more, she found the intruder immediately.

Someone in a black shirt and pants was searching frantically in the dining room, tearing apart the china cabinet, the cupboards, and everything else in the place. Linens were strewn across the floor, and two statues that might have once been birds were lying on the floor, broken.

The fact that the intruder was still searching meant neither of the two statues was the correct one.

Dani couldn’t see if the rest of the house was similarly vandalized, but she crouched down and silently slid closer to the figure, stopping behind a lounge chair with an ottoman in the living room. From there she had a clear view into the dining room, thanking her lucky stars that the house was open concept and there weren’t really walls between the various rooms so much as suggestions of walls, three pillars on each side of an opening about six feet wide in this case. Unfortunately, while it gave her that clear view, it also didn’t give her much in the way of choices for cover.

And she had no weapon. As she should have remembered before throwing herself into the room. It was a wonder she hadn’t been heard coming through the door.

On the other hand, the sudden cascade of fine china to the floor, adding to previous debris, might have explained some of why she’d gone unnoticed. She flinched as shards of china scattered like buckshot, some of it hitting the cushions of the chair in front of her.

I’m glad I ditched the shorts, she thought as she crawled to a better position, careful of where she put her hands, and wary of the debris on the floor. Behind the couch offered a little more cover, but not as good a view.

She shifted in the nick of time. A car screeched to a stop outside the window behind the shadowy figure, and Dani saw that the intruder was a woman with short blond hair and a severe expression. She also wore shoes with high heels, the most useless thing a person could wear in a moment like this. That put Dani in a better position to fight, though, as she didn’t have to balance while she fought. Which, of course, she was going to have to do. There was no way she was going to be able to look for that dratted bird so long as this insane woman was in the way. She watched as the woman turned inside the house and shifted over to the window. Careful. Her movements fluid. Practiced. She lifted the corner of the curtain only enough to see clearer, keeping well to the side, out of the range of weapons.

A pro.

Pro or not, she was going down.

When the woman turned back to the china cabinet, Dani was ready. She kicked a footstool squarely into the woman’s path, tripping her, sending her down onto the shards of what had been someone else’s company best. She caught herself on gloved hands, launching herself back up, on her feet instantly, alert and wary, as Dani rose to face her, wishing like crazy that she had a gun of some sort. A glass-strewn floor in a combat situation smacked a little too much of Die Hard for her tastes.

The woman seemed to be having the same thoughts, eyes flickering to the floor as she moved real slow. Sideways, hands out in a ready position, moving over to the carpeted area of the living room, moving not quite toward Dani, but further out of the range of glass.

She’d give her that. Dani wasn’t masochistic enough to want to play in the glass either.

They faced each other, assessing, analyzing while the sounds of sirens and yelling filtered through the windows. Whoever this was, she was familiar and even comfortable with fighting in heels, meaning the edge Dani was counting on wasn’t there. Also, thin heels could poke holes in people. Very uncomfortable holes. And somehow, in this slow circle, Dani was the one with her back to the sea of glass, meaning if she went down it was going to hurt, and hurt bad. Dammit.

When the fight started, it went quick. Dani almost missed the first movement, the other woman being aggressive and more willing to take changes. She raised a foot to kick, but it was feigned. When Dani went to dodge the woman’s other leg snapped out into a side kick that connected with Dani’s midriff, taking the wind out of her, though she’d been half expecting it and turned with the blow. She was slow, though, being out of shape after too many weeks at home, with very little activity. Dani could feel the point of the heel rake her stomach. Her shirt gave a little tug and a small part of Dani’s mind registered that she’d probably torn it, which pissed her off to no end, as the shirt had been brand new, and rather comfortable at that.

The woman landed on one leg as Dani fell. As she went down, Dani twisted to stay on the carpeting, knowing there were shards enough there anyway to make the landing painful. Her hand braced against the floor, finding slivers instantly as she swept her leg under her assailant’s. She contacted just behind the knee and knew she’d gotten lucky. The pain in her left hand had driven her up faster than she’d have thought possible. The woman fell backward, and Dani tried to follow with a stomp from her other foot, but her opponent was fast. By the time Dani’s boot landed it was on carpet; her foe had twisted away and flown to her feet.

They stood there for a moment, re-assessing each other. Without a word, the woman rose in the air and aimed another kick, but Dani stepped into it, letting the woman’s foot go past her. She anticipated the next kick and reached out to block it, but the woman used an elbow instead. She held it out as she descended, using the momentum of her fall to increase the amount of force in the blow. Dani took that hit full-on, having prepared for a different defense.

Dani’s shoulder took the brunt of the attack and she groaned as she hit her knees. She saw the fist rising for the final blow and hurled herself upright, catching the woman about the waist and dragging her down, Dani sitting on the woman’s legs as they fell.

The woman in black grunted as she landed. Dani’s weight prevented her from a softer landing or being able to roll with the force of it. Dani grabbed the woman’s shirt, lifted her neck into an arch and pulled back her fist, ready to finish it with a crashing blow to the woman’s temple.

“DANI!” her father screamed from the doorway. “GET OFF YOUR MOTHER THIS INSTANT!”

Dani’s blow was already in motion. She couldn’t have stopped it. She did, however, manage to alter the arc of the blow and punched the floor with a great deal of strength.

Had it not been for the thick carpet, she would have broken every finger in her hand. As it was, she howled and shook her hand. There’d been more glass hidden in the thick carpet. Of course, there had been. Three knuckles were bleeding.

“Dani?” the woman said from under her.

Dani reeled back in horror, forgetting her fingers, forgetting everything.

No. No no no no no no no.

This couldn’t be happening.

The woman—her mother—screamed in delight and sat up under her, wrapping her tightly in her arms and laughing and crying all at once. “DANI!” she sobbed. “Oh shit, I’ve missed you!”

Edwin cleared his throat from his place at the door. “Dani,” Edwin said. “Er... this is your mother.”

Dani forgot the pain in her hand. She also forgot her name, the last twenty years, and everyone she’d ever met. “Ma.... Momma?” It was an old word. One she hadn’t used in a long, long time. She looked at Edwin, too poleaxed to move. She looked to Luke, who stood behind him, and then to the woman who’d wrapped her arms around her in a hug that was suddenly too stifling. “Momma?”

The word sounded wrong on her tongue. Why was she still saying it? Why was everyone looking at her like that? Why was this woman who had FREAKING ABANDONED HER still holding her like this was the reunion of the century?

She raised her head, looking for help from the one person she could count on to put things into perspective, but Luke was staring from her to the other woman, his mouth gaping open in the most unattractive, unhelpful way in the world.

Dani shoved at the woman who, with a cry, grabbed her again, holding her close in an embrace that had a lot more muscle in it than she’d expected. And a hint of krav maga.

Luke’s mother walked through the door, pushing past the forming crowd to stand right in front of her, one hand on her hip as she looked Dani up and down. She finally nodded in a great deal of satisfaction, especially after taking in the state of the rest of the room. “This is the mother of the bride?” she asked Luke. “I like her.”

“BRIDE?” Dani’s mother shrieked, and broke free of her hug. She was still trapped under Dani’s legs, but her mother’s face glowed with happiness.

Luke’s mother leaned forward and offered her hand, so dainty she might have been meeting the Queen of England for the first time. “Hello, I’m Elaina. I’m the mother of the groom. How do you do? It’s a pleasure meeting you.”

Which was, of course, the moment the police ran in.

***

“WAIT, WAIT.” LUKE HELD up his hands. William had dealt with the police. That had turned out to be the easiest part. William owned the police. Rather, they did his bidding and were the backup he’d referred to. Luke wasn’t close enough to hear everything, but a quiet word with one of the men in a police captain’s uniform and the captain suddenly became attentive and ready to follow William’s every command. And to see that everyone else followed those commands as well.

A circle of police stood watch on the lawn while they tried to track down the missing daughter of one Mrs. Pinal. Luke shook his head as he moved past half a dozen men talking excitedly into their radios. Whatever they were doing certainly looked like it was efficient enough, but something was bothering him, though he couldn’t quite put his finger on just what. He wandered back into the house to see what was going on in there.

The group had split up, and who knew what sort of story William had given the local authorities that kept them out of the building and out on the lawn while the house was explored from top to bottom. Not that there was much that had gone untouched. Dani’s mother had already done quite a thorough examination of things, leaving only the bathrooms, which were summarily dispatched by William himself. Edwin kept a half pace behind, maintaining a hangdog expression that quite clearly said he wanted out of this rodeo, but wasn’t liking the idea of trying to dismount from the bull.

Luke shook his head, only just refraining from saying you needed to surround yourself with clowns to accomplish that feat, because it seemed a little too apropos. Shaking his head, he returned to the living room and found himself caught in the middle of a conversation between mothers, which didn’t bode well for either him or Dani from the look of things. A retreat to the kitchen where Marcus was applying hydrogen peroxide to Dani’s scratched fingers seemed almost better by comparison once you got past all the swearing. Mostly from Marcus.

“For heaven’s sake, sit STILL. You’re worse than a cat. How do you expect me to get the splinter out?”

Luke leaned on the kitchen counter and shook his head. “One of you is going to have to tell me something. How the hell did you get out of Florida and show up here almost before we did?”

Elaina looked up and shook her head. “Oh, honey, quit being so melodramatic.” She glanced over at Dani’s mother, with one of those looks that mothers the world over share when their offspring are acting particularly idiotic. “Your father got the daughter’s phone number, gave it to his people, who did a reverse look-up, discovered her name, found out her address, and relayed it back to his people who then gave it to him.”

“You were paying attention all those years!” William’s expression was joyous as he bounded into the room, energy seeming to be somewhat restored, even if he’d come back empty-handed. Edwin trailed along behind him, a morose shadow that looked uneasily from his ex-wife to his new... love interest? Luke felt bile rise into the back of his throat, and he had to look away before he said something that he knew he was going to regret.

Please tell me I’m imagining that look.

“Of course, dear,” Elaina said, waving him off with one hand as if inconsequential. “Now be quiet. I, on the other hand, did something much more effective and much quicker.” She paused for a moment. “I asked Mrs. Pinal for an address. And voilà! Here we are!”

“I think what has the boy confused,” William said, more than a little nonplussed at this point, “is how you arrived in Houston so quickly.”

“You remember the Marstons, don’t you, dear?” She looked at Luke, whose face betrayed a complete lack of recognition. Elaina sighed in frustration, “Well, no wonder it took you so long to find the right girl. I mean, it was worth the wait.” She smiled at Dani. “But it was enough to drive me to drink, trying to set you up with girls only to have you ruin every attempt, I mean...”

“We borrowed a plane,” Edwin cut in, throwing himself down in the only chair that wasn’t spitting stuffing all over the room. Why in the hell Dani’s mother had thought there might be a ceramic bird inside a wingback chair was anybody’s guess.

Elaina looked at him briefly and said quietly, “Yes. We borrowed a plane. From the Marstons.” She looked at Luke. “She was the black-haired girl with the thick glasses. ‘Course, that’s nothing she could help...” Elaina looked to Edwin, who had taken her hand, glancing down in surprise at it, but allowing it to stay. Luke shuddered. “We borrowed their plane.”

“And who flew the plane?” William asked, then stopped himself as every eye in the place went to Marcus, who had just come out of the kitchen with Dani, and looked somewhat put off by the sudden display of attention. “Of course, I should have known.” His expression turned sour as Marcus held up a hand.

“We were on a jet. HOW THE HELL DID YOU OUTRUN AIR FORCE ONE?” Luke asked, his voice rising in frustration, as it seemed that no one was going to give him a useful answer to the thing he was asking.

Much like in boot camp.

Luke’s expression darkened. The incident with the lieutenant had started somewhat like this.

“Air Force One?” Dani’s mother echoed, and looked at her child in horror. Dani’s mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything. She held up her hands and shrugged. Luke found himself counting bandages on fingers. By the time he got to three he was pretty pissed off.

“I’m sorry, we haven’t met.” William walked to her, his hand extended.

Luke threw up his hands in disgust and made a sound of frustration.

“I told you when we landed, boy. There is a municipal airport a couple of miles from here. We landed more than two hours before they did, but we had to wait in traffic. They had a clearer shot. Except someone apparently got word out to our mystery lady, here, and she beat us all.”

“Er... that was me,” Edwin said, looking much more satisfied now that he’d been holding Elaina’s hand for several minutes and she hadn’t taken it back yet. “I called her as soon as we got the address.” He turned to Dani. “In Atlanta, I said that I would take you to her. So, I have.”

Dani scowled. Luke could just see the argument brewing. This time it was his turn to give her a look, like the ones she’d been shooting him in the car the entire time he’d been having a... discussion... with his own father. She stuck her tongue out at him. He vowed to find another use for that tongue before the day was out.

“What I want to know is,” William said, taking back his hand when she didn’t take it. “how is it that you happened to be in Houston when the call came in?”

“I’m sorry.” Dani’s mother rose from the chair she’d moved to after her reunion with her daughter. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” She gave him a long look that took him in from head to toe, and made a face as if she’d found something disgusting on the bottom of her shoe. “Who the hell are you?”

“That’s the man I told you about. The Puppet Master.” Edwin had somehow ended up on the couch with Elaina. He had both her hands in his now, and looked for all the world like he was about to burst into song.

“Would you happen to be William McConnel, by any chance?” Dani’s mom smiled.

Luke froze just seeing the smile; how his father didn’t die of hypothermia on the spot was beyond him.

“I do carry the burden of that name,” William answered, ignoring the subtext with the air of a man who was well used to arctic conditions.

“Maria.” She declined to offer a last name. “And I don’t believe, sir, that you have an explanation due from me.”

“I could hold you...” William offered.

“It wouldn’t be the first time a man held me,” she said, shooting a glance at her former husband that proved she disliked every man in the room equally. “But that didn’t end up well either.” She turned to Edwin. “We talk because we share a daughter and a mission. We’ve invested our lives in gathering the information on that stick.” She turned to Luke. “I understand I have you to thank for its very existence, thank you.” Her glance was cool. Assessing. Though her tone was somewhat warmer. “I see what my daughter sees in you, though. He’s quite pretty,” she said as she turned back to Dani.

Dani smiled uncertainly. Luke wondered if she’d decided her mother was friend or foe yet. “Yes, he is.” Her eyes were wary. Hurt.

“Hey...” Luke couldn’t finish the thought, not with so many people in the room. But Dani met his eyes and words weren’t necessary.

“I’m afraid I must insist on some answers,” William said, interrupting the moment with a complete lack of awareness that there was a couple here trying to have a moment. “You seem to be ahead of us. How?” His jovial demeanor was gone as the silence in the room lengthened. “Now.”

“Mr. McConnel.” Maria clipped the words hard. “I have been ‘gone’ for twenty years. I completely missed my own daughter’s life! I agreed to infiltrate the Rhinehart family. I even agreed to find out information, but when things went bad your predecessor declared me to be expendable. My life meant nothing. I was cast adrift. And I had some very important people looking for me.”

She turned to Dani. “I am sorrier than I can say for missing your life, my daughter. I received news about you, pictures, I even got to see a copy on a video tape of your ballet recital. If I had tried to contact you, to hold you like a mother should, you would have been killed. Please understand that. I couldn’t be so selfish as to put you at risk. But I never stopped thinking about you. Not for a single day.”

“So, what did you do?” Elaina asked, having settled comfortably on the couch with Edwin’s arm around her shoulders, and looking like she needed a bowl of popcorn and a soda to make the experience complete.

Maria sat down on the chair and stared at William as she answered. “Since my own people had thrown me to the wolves I had no one to help me but Edwin, and he could do very little being under constant scrutiny. I found other resources to continue my fact-finding.”

“Wait,” Dani interrupted, and turned on Edwin, who at least had the grace to not look quite so smug as he practically spooned Luke’s mother on the couch, something Luke had been trying steadfastly to ignore for the last ten minutes.

Dani, on the other hand, wasn’t beyond interrupting someone else’s romantic moment. She launched herself at her father, grabbing his shirt and dragging him upright. Luke almost went to his rescue. Almost. He met his mother’s eyes, yet she didn’t seem perturbed in the least that her love interest had become part of the play.

“You told me that you thought she was dead. You said she showed up a few years ago.” Dani turned back to her mother, dropping Edwin, who suddenly seemed much older and smaller than he had a few days ago. Hell, he’d been shrinking steadily ever since William had shown up.

“How in the world did you get updates on me, if Daddy thought...”

Dani froze. The question she was asking caught in her throat. Every eye in the room slowly turned to Marcus for the second time since this whole strange conference had begun.

“Yes,” Marcus said, and his sigh could be heard clearly even from where Luke sat all the way across the room. “It was me.”

Chapter Eleven

“Again,” William said slowly, “a man with unexpected depth.” William looked at Marcus, as though truly seeing him for the first time.

Dani didn’t even want to ask, but needed to know the answer all the same. “How long?” she asked, closing her eyes for a moment, and bracing herself for the answer.

“How long have I known she was alive? Sixteen years and seven months. How long have I worked for your father? Sixteen years and six months. How long have I been passing your life and memories to her?” He leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms and thought a moment before answering. “I suppose, sixteen years and four months.”

“Quite odd for a hired man,” William murmured, a certain tone to his voice that put Dani’s hackles up, though she couldn’t quite say why.

“So I’m told,” Marcus answered, just as evenly, just as carefully.

“Enough.” It was Maria who interrupted the standoff, which was something of a good thing. Dani was already looking around the room for something she could use as a projectile. “If your agency had half a clue what the hell it was doing, I wouldn’t still be hiding twenty years later and ending up in a fight with my own daughter!”

“I was not aware your original assignment came from my office.” William shrugged, as though that absolved everything.

“Pontius Pilate washing his hands,” Elaina murmured.

“That is an inappropriate illustration, as it was not I who assigned her,” William muttered to Elaina, righting a chair and sitting down heavily.

“You were really good,” Dani said, maybe a little grudgingly, but having to admit that it had been a while since she’d had quite that good a workout.

Maybe not since Luke and I... Dani ducked her head, hoping no one in the room would notice she was blushing and ask why. This was something she really wasn’t about to share with anyone except maybe... She raised her head, and caught Luke’s eye. Oh yeah, he’d noticed all right, but his smile was reassuring.

Her heart skipped a beat.

“Thank you! You bested me, though, I have to admit. Is your hand all right? Nothing broken or terribly bruised?” Maria reached for her daughter, clucking over the bandages. “That glass... I tried so hard to avoid that.”

“It’s okay. I’ve had worse.” Dani looked at it critically, flexing her fingers carefully. “Where did you get your training?”

“Well, I’ve been hiding out for twenty years under assumed names and trying to collect evidence. I didn’t really have much else to do.”

Dani shook her head. “I can’t believe you fought in high heels!” She studied her own footwear rather critically. She’d been attached to her boots for a long time but, in retrospect, being stylish had its finer points.

“You did what?” Luke’s mother interrupted, sitting up suddenly. “In those?”

Maria nodded, and looked at her feet, lifting one ankle to show off the strappy black shoe. “It’s a vanity, I know, but on the other hand, the heels can actually be a formidable weapon.”

“As I well know,” Dani said ruefully.

“So sorry, my angel.”

“My heels break off all the time...” Elaina murmured, staring sadly at her own brown flats.

“These are reinforced. There’s a bit of steel that runs through the shoe and into the heel; makes it difficult through airports, though,” Maria answered.

“Ladies, please.” William held up his hand, and waved it.

Dani ignored him, leaning in closer to look at the aforementioned heel. “It looks quite normal. I wouldn’t have guessed.”

“Later dear,” Elaina said and pushed William’s arm down, as it was blocking her view. “Really? Where did you get them? I doubt they would have a pair in my size, but they do look adorable.”

Dani was trying to keep from laughing as she looked between the men. They’d tuned out at the mention of shoes and were looking either bored, confused, or annoyed. She glanced around at the room, still festooned with rubble from her mother’s searching. There was a stack of mail on the dining room table that had survived an avalanche of cutlery. Mostly bills, the occasional two-for-one offer on inedible fast food, and catalog for Cat Lovers. No sign of a cat, though. And there was also a flyer for an event in town. World’s Largest Bridal Show. It promised to be a “Texas-Sized Exhibition” of dresses and cakes and rings.

Thinking of the travesty of her almost-wedding, the way “Uncle” Benny had arranged everything, Dani allowed herself a moment to be... a bride. She picked up the flyer and examined it with a slightly wistful expression. Something caught her eye. She stole a glance at the others. They didn’t seem to be paying much attention to her, other than her mother... that’s something not easy to say. She pulled out her cell phone and tapped in a few ideas.

“What’s that you have?” William asked suddenly.

Dani huffed and showed it to him. “I didn’t get a real wedding,” she said, a slight coquettishness in her tone. She didn’t want to overplay it, but... “I’m hoping that we have time while we’re here, as it only runs today.”

William smiled indulgently and handed it back to her. “If you want to indulge yourself, child, be my guest. There really isn’t anything more you can do here, anyway.”

Dani felt triumph alongside a strong desire to belt the man. She was starting to understand Luke’s dislike toward him.

She rested her gaze on Marcus as he sat there quietly, watching the exchange. He smiled and shrugged. Dani whispered to him, “Loan me five bucks?” Marcus’ eyebrows shot up. He nodded.

“EXCUSE ME!”

The conversation regarding shoe stores and favorite designers had gotten well out of hand by the time William interrupted. Elaina and Maria turned simultaneously and stared, eyes hard and unfriendly. Dani shook her head as the door behind them opened and closed, an aide coming in and whispering something to him. He looked at the aide for a long moment and nodded, getting to his feet hastily. He turned back to the group. “The information I’ve been waiting for isn’t good. As I feared, it’s no longer just us looking for the stick. If I had to make a guess, I would say that the recent furor in Orlando tipped off someone to our goal.” He shot daggers at his ex, who simply smiled back at him as though he’d just announced the winner in a country fair cattle show.

“Could it be possibly that AIR FORCE ONE landed on her doorstep?” Luke said the words loudly and with more than a hint of defiance, clearly aimed at his father. “You haven’t exactly been discrete, wouldn’t you say?”

William rather pointedly ignored him. “Regardless, the local police are searching for Amanda Pinal. They’re getting a little twitchy about not getting in the house, so if you’ve all concluded the search to your satisfaction I invite you all to leave. In the meantime, Luke will join me. We need to head to the municipal airport and find out about getting a helicopter. Your services,” he turned and pointed to Marcus, “will not be required.”

“I was hoping Luke could go with me!” Dani moved in closer to Luke and took his arm. She looked at him with big eyes, and what she hoped would pass for a pout. She really wasn’t very good at this, and she wondered why in the hell they hadn’t included acting classes alongside martial arts and surveillance techniques. She took a deep breath and tried again. “There are so many decisions to make!” She even batted her eyelashes for good measure, hoping she wasn’t overselling the thing.

“Work comes first, I’m afraid.” William was sounding more and more like a pompous boor. Dani was starting to wonder how in the world Elaina had put up with him long enough to marry him. She only just kept herself from rolling her eyes, and instead pulled out all the stops on what she hoped would be an Oscar-worthy performance. So, Dani swallowed her pride and pouted, lower lip protruding and trembling just a little. She even willed her eyes to tear up a little as she walked by Luke and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t give them more than five dollars.” She paused for effect, sighed a little, and wondered how in the world actors stood it, that feeling of every eye in the place on them. She only just kept from shuddering.

Clandestine. I like work that’s clandestine. Behind the scenes.

Luke’s eyebrows shot up and he looked to Marcus.

“Luke, Edwin, stay here. I’ll make arrangements for a helicopter,” William said, lifting the ever-present phone that had to be welded to his palm by now.

“Why do I have to go?” Edwin asked. Dani shot him a look, wondering if maybe she wasn’t the only actor in the place. Her father had been a king of business, had faced down the mob, had pulled her out of a firefight only days before.

He met her glance evenly, his face betraying nothing.

Shit. This gets more and more complicated. What’s he up to?

“Because you know the code,” William snapped without looking up from his phone. “And you know the material.”

“So does she.” Elaina pointed to Maria. Dani just about screamed.

I swear, if she wasn’t Luke’s mother... I need her more than anyone here.

Calm. Be calm. You’ve got this.

“Frankly, until she tells me who she works for now, she needs to remain where I can find her.” William lifted his head and looked at Maria thoughtfully.

“No,” Dani said, speaking fast so that no one would be able to interrupt, so that no one could have so much as a second to think about what she was saying. “You said I could take her. This is my wedding we’re talking about. The real one. The one that’s supposed to matter! You will NOT...” Dani stalked toward the man, seeing his eyes widen in shock, “repeat, NOT TAKE MY WEDDING AWAY FROM ME!”

She was crying. Actually crying.

And she wasn’t acting.

Dammit.

William’s eyes widened a little, and he actually stepped back a pace. “Seeing as you feel so strongly... I mean, I don’t believe your mother is currently needed for anything either.” He darted a glance around the room at the others. “But, if she’s not where I need her, when I need her, she will miss the next twenty years of your life as well.” He shot a look at Maria, who rolled her eyes. “I’m not kidding about that.”

Take what victories you can find. Back off, now.

Dani swiped at the tears, all smiles now. “Marcus, dear,” Dani purred. “Would you mind driving us to a woman’s frou-frou gathering of wedding apparel?”

Marcus shot a glance at William. “I’d be honored. The car we rented is right outside.”

William left the house, gathering flunkies to order a helicopter and get the latest on the location of Ms. Pinal. Dani had to be careful, as he was still within earshot. She shoved the flyer into Luke’s hand and kissed his cheek, almost losing her resolve to see this through, when his arm wrapped around her, pulling her close. He smelled like heaven. Only reluctantly did she pull herself away, nodding as significantly as possible at the flyer, praying that he’d figure out what she had.

Her stomach tied itself in knots. He wasn’t good at following her train of thought. Their track record wasn’t exactly stellar.

Luke stopped Marcus as he walked by.

“Navy?” he asked. This time it sounded like a challenge.

“Royal,” Marcus said, looking pointedly at Luke’s grasp on his arm. Luke released him, and they nodded to each other.

Men.

The flyer was half crumpled in Luke’s hand, already forgotten.

Shit. We’re toast.

***

LEAVING TURNED OUT to be more of an adventure than expected. A crowd was collecting around the emergency vehicles. Children and dogs played on the sidewalks, mothers with strollers congregated to talk in worried whispers. Several had their phones out, filming the scene.

“We should have gone out the back door,” Dani murmured as they crowded off the porch into a sea of blue uniforms, who apparently had nothing better to do than wait around for them to leave so they might... what? Truly investigate? What kind of power did William have anyway? None of this was natural. None of this even vaguely looked natural.

“The tin-foil hat crowd is going to have a field day with this. Don’t look, dear. Some of them have face recognition software. Here.” Elaina rummaged in her purse and came up with a large pair of sunglasses that she plopped onto Dani’s face before Dani realized what she was doing.

“This way.” Maria seemed not to care, nodding casually at the officers and walking out, head up, shoulders back, like she owned the place. The police fell back, a veritable Red Sea parting before Moses.

“You’ve got more balls than most men I know,” Dani murmured, finding a grudging respect for the woman despite the anger that was going to take a lot longer to work through than some heist together on a Saturday afternoon. Though, so far, as a bonding activity it wasn’t bad, even if she had some new bruises to show for it.

“So, where are we really going?” Marcus asked as he got behind the wheel, unperturbed by the arriving media vans. He took the rental car around the block as slowly and reluctantly as any man heading to a bridal show would do. It took some careful navigating, and a lot of feigned indifference when someone pointed the car out to some yahoo holding a television camera.

Dani really was starting to wonder what was going to be showing up on the news that night. “I’ll tell you when we’re out of here. Just get us back to the expressway.”

Once free of the immediate police influence, Marcus gunned the engine and headed across the surface streets to the highway at a speed just shy of what would likely get him a ticket. Dani couldn’t resist looking back. Once past that street, everything just looked so utterly normal. Regular houses, with regular people who did ordinary, regular things.

When has my life ever been anything like that?

For a moment she felt a pang of something akin to loneliness, or even loss. She missed her brother and what had passed for family. She had no idea what to do with this woman next to her, who was her mother. Or the father who had so many masks she couldn’t tell which one was him anymore.

I can’t think about this anymore. I need to focus. The end is in sight. I just need to get us there.

“I don’t want us to get stopped,” Dani warned Marcus, noticing that the needle on the speedometer had been steadily creeping up since they’d gotten on the main road. “I know where the stick is, but we need to get to it before anyone else does. Especially if William is right about ‘other players’ involved now.”

“So?” Marcus pressed, asking again. “Where are we really going?”

“We really are going to the bridal show, Marcus,” Dani said, twisting her hands nervously in her lap. Usually she was so unflappable but this...this entire situation was not to her liking. “I handed the flyer to William and almost died. I banked on him having no interest in weddings and lace.”

“Trust me,” Elaina smiled, “that man wouldn’t recognize a bunting from a Kleenex. He has no concept of weddings.”

Maria turned to her, her eyes clear and assessing. They were both in the back seat; Elaina had taken the passenger seat up front with Marcus. “Frankly, my dear, considering everything Marcus told me, I am rather surprised you do. It’s quite a change from trekking through jungles while being shot at.”

“He told you about that, too?” Dani looked at the driver, who patently ignored them.

“Excuse me?” Elaina asked, turning to face them. “What am I missing?” Her face was alight with eagerness, eyes bright and interested. “Tell me everything!”

“Well,” Dani colored, “it was a long time ago...”

“Three months,” Marcus muttered, not quite under his breath.

“Don’t help,” Dani snapped. “I’m still not so sure about you. You were supposed to be my father’s guard. Why were you telling tales about me? And how in the world did you know about that anyway? I sure as hell wasn’t writing home about my escapades.”

Marcus suddenly became very interested in traffic, making a left-hand turn with exaggerated care.

“He was never your father’s guard, my angel.” Maria put a hand on her daughter’s arm. “He was assigned to be yours. A position he filled for sixteen years.”

“Why so long?” Elaina asked. “I would think that they, whoever they are, could have replaced you after five or so, to keep the assignment fresh.”

Marcus craned his neck, to regard a street sign with rapt interest. “Would you say that I turn right at the next light to get the on-ramp? I can’t tell where that sign is pointing.”

Maria laughed. “Why do you think?” She smiled. Like the rest of us, he allowed his emotions to get in the way of his job. I daresay we all fell for the men to whom we were assigned. So did he.”

“You were in love with my father, Marcus??” Dani quailed.

“That is not what I meant, angel!” Maria said hotly. “His feelings are more paternal.”

Dani blinked. Marcus was busily studying the road ahead, his foot a little heavier on the accelerator than it had been a moment before. His knuckles were white where he gripped the steering wheel.

“Were you assigned to your husband?” Maria asked Elaina.

“Only after the wedding,” Elaina said. “No, I had to leave the agency when we became a couple. I was only a researcher, never did much in fieldwork, but still, it was interesting work.”

“Analyst?” Maria asked.

“Intel and projections,” Elaina said, blushing modestly. “We looked for trends, spots where trouble might break out, where things might go wrong, and fed real-time data to the agents. It was a lot harder in the days before internet searches and email.”

“I bet! A great deal of my information came from that department,” Maria said, leaning forward, eyes alight with curiosity. “They were the only people who supported me. You don’t know a man named Robinton, do you?”

Dani opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, not sure how the conversation had gotten so derailed. A moment ago, they’d been talking about the bridal show, and now it was old home week at the spook circle?

“No, but it’s been a quarter century since I was there.”

Dani sat up, noticing the signs for the next exit, and frowned. Weren’t they going the wrong way?

“He was a good man. Oh, for heaven’s sake, angel, if you have something to say, just say it. Don’t drill a hole into the back of the man’s head; just speak up.”

Dani looked to her mother and then to her future mother-in-law, not sure they’d shut up long enough for her to get a word in edgewise. “Head downtown, Marcus. The Houston Convention Center, please. I think that way.” She pointed.

“Yes, miss,” Marcus said, and swerved across three lanes to the ramp that would take them off the bypass and head downtown. Horns blared. They only just missed getting flattened by a semi.

“Really?” Maria blinked. She looked to Elaina. “Well, I’m an emotional wreck after that—how about you?”

“It did get chilly in Houston,” Elaina agreed, shooting her future daughter-in-law a look.

Dani lowered her eyes. Her jaw clenched. Maria sighed, and relented. “All right, can you at least tell me why we’re going there, and what was on the flyer that nearly stopped your heart?”

“The address.” Dani spoke softly, and looked at the women rather pointedly, waiting them out. Elaina and Maria looked at each other, and mimed taking out a key, locking their lips, and throwing it away. Dani rolled her eyes.

“The convention center?” Elaina asked, apparently forgetting she’d only just promised her silence. “That should be a standard address; it’s hard to misplace a building big enough to house a convention.”

“No, not the FROM,” Dani said, giving her a look. “The TO. It was sent to the same address as the house we broke into—”

“I broke into,” Maria clarified.

“...and we entered,” Elaina reminded her. Maria nodded, conceding the point.

“But the name was wrong. It was addressed to Great Cakes. I looked it up on my phone and there is a Great Cakes in Houston.” She pulled out her cell phone to show them. The webpage showed a confection as large as a VW, and mostly created out of sugar and air. The text over the image read: “Great Cakes—We Bake for All Occasions and Occasionally.”

“Ew.” Maria handed the phone back to her daughter, and shook her head. “Tell me you’re not seriously considering that.”

“Okay, they’re not marketers. They’re bakers. Anyway, since the address was to her house and she’s not home, I assume she would be there.”

“That doesn’t get us closer to the stick, my angel.”

“Don’t you see?” Dani was warming to the topic. When the expressions of the other women maintained a double look of absolute mystification, she grew more candid. “Mrs. Pinal overnighted the statue to her daughter!”

“Ohhh.” Marcus met her eyes in the rearview mirror. “Oh, very clever indeed.” He looked so much like a proud parent, Dani found herself unable to continue to talk for a moment past the sudden lump in her throat.

I can’t think about that right now.

Maria hit Marcus’ shoulder. Hard. “Well, go on for the sake of the rest of us who don’t share your rising intellect!”

Marcus glanced at Dani and filled in the details. “The reason Mrs. Pinal spent the time and money to overnight a statue, a small, lightweight little statue, is because her daughter couldn’t wait to get it in the regular mail. She needed it today.”

“When Uncle... when Benny arranged for my faux wedding, he had the cakemaker do ‘whatever’. It was ghastly, but I do remember that it had a pair of little doves shoved into the frosting.”

“Sounds lovely.”

Dani shot her mother a look, not entirely sure if that was sarcasm or not. She suspected it was.

“Well, it didn’t do much to break his fall either. He landed on top of it,” Dani said, and shook her head.

“Landed?” Elaina asked, eyes growing wider by the minute. In a moment they’d take over her entire forehead.

“Fell out of a helicopter,” Dani added, just to see if they would.

“After a perfectly thrown bottle of Champagne connected with his head,” Marcus added.

Maria turned to her daughter. “You?”

Dani nodded. Maria sighed. “My dear angel. Bullets are for killing, Champagne is for sipping. We really must work on your charm school basics.”

Elaina turned back and faced the front. “I think I’m going to like being a part of this family,” she said to no one in particular. “It almost makes up for all those years I wasted married to Luke’s father.”

“Well, we obviously don’t need them!” Maria said, leaning forward to look out the front window. “Let’s go get that damn stick and show them what women can do! How far are we from the exit?”

“Uh, I’m hoping for a sign...”

In the awkward silence that followed, Dani started to giggle. It became infectious, and soon all four of them were smiling.

Maria hit his arm again and shook her head. “Men!”