And there, in the center of the room, was Patrick.

His eyes were black. His lip was swollen and bloody.

“He’s being held off-site,” Fat Gandhi said.

Myron tried to keep his voice steady. “What did you do to him?”

Fat Gandhi snapped his fingers again. The screen went dark.

Myron stared at the blackness. “What about the other boy?”

“I think that’s enough. It is time for you to leave.”

Myron met his eye. “We have a deal now.”

“We do.”

“So I don’t want anyone touching either one of them. I want your word.”

“And you won’t get it,” Fat Gandhi said. “I’ll contact you tomorrow. Now please get out of my office.”

Chapter 7

Last time they were in London, Win had put them in his favorite suite, the Davies, at Claridge’s Hotel on Brook Street. That trip had ended poorly for all of them. This time, maybe to change it up a bit, Win chose the more boutiquey Covent Garden Hotel on Monmouth Street near Seven Dials. When Myron got to his room, he used a throwaway phone Win had given him to call Terese.

“You okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine.”

“I don’t like this.”

“I know.”

“There’s been too much of this in our past.”

“I agree.”

“We wanted to put this all behind us.”

“We did. We do.”

“I don’t do the wait-and-worry wife well.”

“Nice alliteration. The two D’s and then all those W’s.”

“Years of being a top-rated news anchor,” Terese said. “Not that I like to brag.”

“Alliteration is only one of your many skills.”

“You can’t help yourself, can you?”

“Love me for all my faults.”

“What else is there? Okay, so fill me in. And please don’t make the obvious double-entendre joke using my ‘fill me in’ opening.”

“Opening?”

“I love you, you know.”

“I love you too,” Myron said.

And then he told her everything.

When he was done, Terese said, “He likes being called Fat Gandhi?”

“Loves.”

“It’s like you and Win live in an old Humphrey Bogart film.”

“I’m too young to get that reference.”

“You wish. So you’ll be doing the ransom drop?”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“I’ve been thinking,” Myron said.

“Uh-huh.”

“About the families, I mean. The parents, mostly.”

“You mean Patrick’s and Rhys’s.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

“And,” she said, “you want my expert opinion on the matter.”

Terese had lost a child many years ago. It had nearly destroyed her.

“I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

“Wrong response,” she said. “If you tiptoe around it, it’s much worse.”

“I want to start a family with you.”

“I want that too.”

“So how do we do it?” Myron asked. “When you love something that much. How do you live with the fear that they can be hurt or killed at any time?”

“I could tell you that that’s life,” Terese said.

“You could.”

“Or I could point out, what choice do you have?”

“I hear a ‘but’ coming,” Myron said.

“You do. But I think there’s another answer, one that took me a long time to understand.”