He looks out into the main hall. Heels is on her knees. She’s freed her hands and is still using the butt end of the knife to hammer at the glass door. Even though she’s hitting it so hard that she’s risking stabbing herself in the chest with every backswing, it’s refusing to crack.

Parker snatches up the manicure drill and runs to the spa’s entrance. He realizes he has no idea what Heels’s name is. “Hey! Hey!” he yells until she looks up. “Try this!” Leaning down, he slides it across the floor to her. After she stops it with an outreached hand, her face lights up.

When Parker turns back, the water is still running in the hair-washing sink, but Ron is gone.

No! He spins in a circle, his breathing speeding up. Where did he go?

There! Out in the main hall, he spies Ron’s black utility belt and blue polyester shirt, now splotched with water and yellow chemicals. Even though the guard no longer has a rifle, frightened hostages are scattering in front of him. Parker runs after him.

At the far end of the hall, Wolf and his brother have their hands in the air while Mole unlocks the security gate, all under the watchful eyes of Miranda and the busboy, who has somehow acquired a pistol.

Parker is about twenty feet away when Ron grabs someone from behind. It’s Amina, that girl from Culpeppers. His right arm is tight around her neck. When he raises his other hand, something catches the light. It’s a metal nail file. Because he’s behind them, Parker can’t see exactly what he does next, but it looks like he’s pressed it against Amina’s throat. At least that’s where Parker hopes it is. Against her throat, not in it. And he also hopes that Ron is thinking about the future. About how a live Amina could be used as a bargaining chip.

With shaking hands, Gauges raises the assault rifle and points it in the general direction of its original owner.

But any bullet that hits Ron will probably go through Amina first. And that’s if Gauges has good aim. If he doesn’t, he could take out any of the dozen people near Amina and Ron. Including Parker.

“No!” Parker yells. “Don’t shoot! It’s not safe.”

From behind him comes a shattering sound that’s almost musical. What the—? He turns. The glass door has finally broken. Heels snatches her hand out of the way, but it’s safety glass, a rain of blunt-edged fragments. It crinkles and pops as the glass gives way higher and higher up. Pulling her sweater sleeve over her hand, Heels starts knocking out the remaining glass from the bottom square of the door.