Jack tugged the shackled wrist for emphasis, and those imprisoned fingers scratched that imprisoned thumb, each movement obvious, deliberate, theatrical, tearing through a layer of latex. He couldn’t begin to guess at how many hours he and Jill had entertained themselves during Clare’s long absences by playing Harry Houdini vs. David Blaine, locking each other up in increasingly impossible configurations and finding more devious ways to cheat. What his captors had done by securing him to the chair was a small step above the dumb-assery they’d have committed by securing his hands behind his back. For this, he didn’t even need a key.

But performance made a point while concealing a point.

That was legerdemain.

Jack leaned forward and drew the formerly hidden sliver of molded plastic from his thumb into his mouth, and with his teeth, he released the cuff that restrained the left hand, unlocked both ankles with ambidextrous flair, and tossed both keys back the direction the first had come.

The man in the suit caught them, examined them, pocketed them.

He heaved off the wall, motioned toward the door, as if inviting a guest to go on ahead, and said, “Come. We talk.”

Jack swiveled in the chair.

He said, “I want to see my sister first.”

The suit took a step forward. “Soon. Come.”

Jack stayed seated. He knew what he knew.

He didn’t know what the suit man knew.

Didn’t know if, in spite of his best efforts to keep his sister out of this, they’d gotten to her anyway, didn’t know if they’d yet figured out that Anna was but a well-paid look-alike, but performance required he push. Because, if it had been Jill who’d been gag-stuffed and dragged out of that van, he’d have killed to get to her—and she was trained for this and could take care of herself. A traumatized and terrified near stranger in her place didn’t change his response, only the reason.

He was the one who’d put Anna here.

A different burden, but a burden all the same.

They’d use Jill against him if they had her.

They’d do the same with Anna if at any point they believed his concern for her was more than a ploy to convince them she was his sister.

That was the risk of playing liar’s bluff.

Jack said, “I’m being polite, but it’s not really a request.”

The man said, “First we eat. Then we talk. Then we see.”

Jack leaned forward, picked one of the freed cuffs up off the floor, and played the metal between thumb and finger, as if debating its suitability as a weapon. “I will see her,” he said. “And if you’ve hurt her, I’ll know, and I’ll spend whatever’s left of my life hunting you down in payback.”