No ricochet had come back at me. I was sort of sorry for that. I’d rather die by gunshot than be burned to death.

Williams dragged me out of the room and down the stairs. Kara followed, looking scared and swearing under her breath. He hauled me around the corner and into the living room, then froze.

Graham was standing in the middle of the room. His expression was only mildly annoyed, but I got the sense he was madder than he looked.

“You’re kidnapping my trainee?”

Williams didn’t say anything.

From behind us, Kara said, “Graham, we need her out there. Callie says.”

Graham cocked his head. “I don’t think so.”

He brought one hand up and looked at it. At first I thought he was checking out his fingernails. Then I realized he was holding a cell phone.

“How fortunate you just happened to call as you were leaving the house, Kara. I was able to follow along with your progress quite nicely.”

Kara blanched. She pulled her own phone out and ended the call she clearly hadn’t known was going on.

“Look —”

“Get out.” Graham sounded almost bored.

Amazingly, Williams dropped me and stalked out of the house. Kara followed, squeezing to the side, as though she wanted to stay as far away from Graham as possible.

I have to admit, it was sort of weird. They were afraid of him. Well, Kara was obviously afraid of him, and Williams was at least unwilling to challenge him. I still hadn’t seen anything particularly scary about Graham. He seemed like a middle-management type — sending people here and there, training newbies, that kind of thing. What had I missed that Kara saw?

He watched them leave. Once they were gone, he turned back to me, looking concerned.

“Elizabeth, are you all right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

I sat down on the couch and reached back to rub my shoulder where it’d hit the wall.

“Just need an ice pack or two. That’s getting to be standard with you people.”

“Not all of ‘us people’ are the same,” he said quietly, sitting down beside me. “Of course, you have no idea if that’s true or not,” he added wryly, as though he could read my mind.

He put an arm around my shoulders but must’ve felt me stiffen, because he just patted me, then let me go.

“Seriously, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I am. Thanks for the save. I’d probably be on my way to dead right now if you hadn’t shown up.”

That got a big smile.

“Did Kara really call you by accident?”

He grinned. “Yep.”

“Man. What a loser kidnapper, eh?”