Ellie was close enough now to see the anxiety on the kid’s face. She hit the lights but not the siren. Her partner looked up from his smartphone, saw her shooting up the driveway, and rolled his eyes.

“No,” Danny said. “No, we are not doing this again.”

“Relax, Pops. I’ll take care of everything.”

Ellie parked at an angle so the SUV couldn’t escape—at least down the driveway. She couldn’t see the driver—the SUV’s windows were tinted, almost black—but if there was someone behind the wheel, he might decide to make a break for it, tear across the lawn.

Danny sighed as he unsnapped the holster of his sidearm. “You’re doing all the paperwork—and you’re picking up lunch.”

“Where?”

“Jimmy J’s taco truck.”

“The place where you got food poisoning?”

“I think it was a stomach bug.”

“Still,” she said.

“That’s the deal. What’s it going to be?”

“Your funeral,” she said, opening the door.

At five feet eight, Ellie was tall for a woman. The guy holding open the SUV’s back door stood six feet six and weighed probably close to three bills. He looked, Ellie thought, like vanilla pudding poured into a cheap suit. He had a tiny pug nose and small hands for a man so large, but there was no doubt in her mind that he could swat her away like a fly.

The driver had rolled down the windows. He knew the drill, and he rested his hands on top of the steering wheel.

“IDs and permits,” Ellie said.

Vanilla Pudding sighed. “We’ve been stopped three times by you people just this past week alone. You’re seriously screwing with our, you know, productivity.”

Ellie looked to the driver. “Sir, please cut the engine and step outside.” Then, to the group: “Put your hands on top of the car roof so I can see ’em.”

As Danny frisked them, taking their licenses, gun permits, and handguns, Ellie studied the boy from behind her sunglasses. He looked to be eleven, maybe even as old as thirteen, and had a sweaty pie-shaped face and stringy blond hair, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He kept swallowing nervously and his eyes skittered across the ground in front of him as if it contained hidden land mines.

Carrier, Ellie thought. Had to be, given all the security. If this kid had the gene, he was worth big money. The rule of thumb in the blood world was the younger the carrier, the more potent their blood, the more he or she was worth. Blood didn’t discriminate. Boy or girl, black or white, mentally challenged or potential Mensa candidate, a single child could be worth several million dollars over the course of his or her life—unless the kid was drained and dumped, the blood sold for quick cash. That seemed to be the norm these days, at least here in California, with everyone looking to make a quick buck.

“What’s your name?” Ellie asked the boy.

“Christopher.”

“Christopher what?”