“Christopher Palmer.”

“Nice to meet you. Do you know these men?”

The boy nodded. He wore dark gray pants with loafers and a navy blue suit jacket with a school crest on the lapel, over a white shirt with a red tie. Prep school kid, lots of money.

“I need to hear you say it,” she said.

“I know them.”

“Are you in danger?”

“From what?”

“From anything. Are you a carrier?”

Vanilla Pudding, standing with his hands splayed on top of the SUV’s roof, turned his head and spoke over his shoulder. “Don’t answer that, Christopher.” Then, to Ellie: “Look, kid’s already late for school, and we’ve got to get him there before noon. He’s got a big test today he can’t miss.”

“I’m not through with my questions.”

“All due respect, Officer, what you’re doing, LAPD—it’s harassment.”

“So, if I’m hearing you correctly, sir, you don’t want to cooperate.”

“How about you take our licenses and gun permits, our weapons, do the background checks, whatever, while you follow us to his school? We drop him off, and then we can play question and answer for as long as you want. I’ll give you the numbers for his parents, too. You can call them along the way, make sure everything’s copacetic.”

“Give me the numbers.”

The parents’ names were Cynthia and Francis Palmer. After she wrote down the numbers, she showed them to the boy. “Are these your parents’ phone numbers?”

“Yes,” he replied. “Can I sit in the car, please? It’s really hot out.”

Ellie opened the back door for him. Then she looked at Vanilla Pudding and said, “Lead the way.”

Danny took over driving duty so she could work the laptop installed in the car. As she checked the licenses and permits, she thought about the steroid-laced goons playing rent-a-cop and wondered if someone, maybe even a group of people, was watching the boy right now, shadowing his movements and working on a plan to abduct him. She doubted anything would happen on the way to school, but something might go down at the school. Last month, a group of masked men armed with assault rifles stormed their way into a fancy private high school in Van Nuys to abduct a pair of teenagers who carried the blood gene. The gunmen were killed, along with two students and six school employees. There was a lot of talk in the state about teachers arming themselves.

The bodyguards checked out. Their gun permits all checked out. Ellie called the numbers Vanilla Pudding, whose name was Trevor Daley, had given her. She got the boy’s mother on the phone, but the woman refused to answer any questions until Ellie gave her own personal information.

Ellie didn’t blame her. Families of carriers had to worry about people posing as police and federal agents. You couldn’t trust anyone these days. Anyone.

When the boy’s mother called back fifteen minutes later, she seemed more relaxed. Ellie asked the woman a series of personal questions, comparing her answers with the information listed on the computer screen. Everything seemed to be in order.