“Yeah, but bigger than normal ones, you know?”

“Is it an Annihilator?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what these things are called. Hang on, somebody’s getting out, coming up to the window. Whoa, there’s a couple guys getting out.”

“Angie, what do they look like?”

“Look like? I don’t know. Just some guys in black jackets, that’s all.”

“Angie, don’t open the window, and lock the doors.”

“I think they just want to ask me some questions or something. What a hoot, if they think I can give them directions, what with my sense of direction—”

“Angie, don’t put down the window!”

“Yeah?” I heard Angie say to someone.

Then I heard some muffled voices. And then Angie again: “Hey, back off, man, I’m not getting out—”

“Angie!” I shouted into my cell.

“Get your fucking hands off me, ass—”

“Angie!”

Then I heard my daughter scream. And then the line went dead.

Chapter 27

27

Immediately I phoned Angie’s cell back. It rang four times, and then she answered.

“Hi, it’s Angie.”

“Angie, Jesus, what’s going—”

“I can’t take your call right now, so feel free to leave a message.”

I figured I was at least another three or four minutes away, and I was driving the Camry in ways it was not designed for. I was taking the corners so quickly the car was drifting into four-wheel skids, and at least once the back wheel slammed into a curb before I was able to regain control.

The Dairy Queen where we used to stop after ballet class was up ahead. That was Eastland, and Angie had said the apartment building where she’d stopped was a few blocks up from there. I rounded the corner, heard a noise that sounded like a hubcap breaking free of the wheel and spinning off toward the sidewalk, and floored it.

It couldn’t be the same guys. It didn’t make any sense for it to be the same guys. What would those guys in the Annihilator, the ones who destroyed Brentwood’s, the ones Lawrence and I chased through the Midtown Mall, want with Angie?

How did the lines cross? How did the dots connect?

They didn’t. They just didn’t.

Maybe it wasn’t even the same guys. Maybe it was a different bunch of guys, in a different black SUV.

But that didn’t make the situation any better. Regardless of who they were, Angie sounded like she was in a lot of trouble.

And what about Trevor? Did he have something to do with this? He shows up, and all of a sudden this crew arrives? Had he set her up? Had he led them to her?

“Be okay,” I said aloud. “Be okay, be okay, be okay.”