He was just about to look for his hammer when the phone rang again. Dad, give me a break, will you?

But it wasn’t his father.

“Jack? It’s Gia. You there?”

Something in her voice… Jack snatched up the handset.

“Always here for you. What’s up?”

“I’m waiting for a cab. Just wanted to make sure you were in.”

“Something wrong?”

“I’ll tell you when I get there.”

And then a click.

Slowly, Jack replaced the handset. Definitely upset. He wondered what was wrong. Nothing with Vicky, he hoped. But she would have told him that.

Well, he’d find out soon enough. The West Village to the Upper West Side wasn’t too bad a trip this time of day. No matter what the circumstance, an unexpected visit from Gia was a treat.

He thought back on their stormy, off-again, on-again relationship. He’d been crushed and thought it was off forever when she’d found out how he earned his living—or thought she had. She’d concluded that he was some sort of hit man, which was as wrong as could be, but even after she’d learned what he really did, even after he’d used those skills to save her daughter Vicky’s life, she still didn’t approve.

But at least she’d come back to him. Jack didn’t know where he’d be without Gia and Vicky.

A short while later he heard her footsteps on the stairs leading to his third-floor apartment. Jack turned the knob that retracted the four-way bolt system, and opened the door.

The sight of Gia standing on the landing started that warm funny twitch he got deep inside every time he saw her. Her short blond hair, her perfect skin, her blue eyes—Jack felt he could stand and stare at her face for hours.

But right now her features were strained, her usual tight composure seemed to be slipping, her normally flawless complexion looked blotchy.

“Gia,” Jack said, wincing at the pain in her eyes as he pulled her inside. “What is it?”

And then she was clinging to him, loosing a torrent about Christmas toys being stolen from the AIDS kids. She was sobbing by the time she finished.

“Hey, hey,” Jack said, tightening his arms around her. “It’ll be all right.”

He knew Gia wasn’t much for emotional displays. Yeah, she was Italian, but northern Italian—the blood running in her veins was probably more Swiss than anything else. For her to be sobbing like this… she had to be hurting something fierce.

“It’s just the heartlessness of it,” she said, sniffing. “How could somebody do such a thing? And how can you be so damn calm about it!”

Uh-oh.

“I hear anger looking for a target. I know this has really cut you deep, Gia, but I’m not the bad guy here.”

“Oh, I know, I know. It’s just—you’ve never been down there. Never seen these kids. Never held them. Jack, they’ve got nothing. Not even a parent who cares, let alone a future. We were collecting those toys so they’d have a nice Christmas, a great Christmas—the last Christmas for a lot of them. And now—”