“She’s okay, but if you give her a few minutes, she’ll tell you how fabulous she is. She’s used to more arrests and convictions than we get with the people we follow around.” So much for not complaining. “Sorry, but it sounds like she’s used to much simpler cases and subjects.” Joe poked her in the side where Annabel couldn’t see. “We’ll give her time and bring her up to speed about the games Casey likes to play.”

“She’ll have to be happy in the back of the van for a long time to come. The people who made her aren’t going to forget her anytime soon, and they’re out for blood.” Annabel glanced at her watch and grimaced. “Let me run, and I’ll call up the chain and see what I can find out about the situation with the kids, but I doubt we’ll come up with anything.”

“I appreciate it, ma’am, and we’ll keep you up to date.”

Joe’s phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it as she shut the video call down. “What’s wrong?” he asked to whoever he was talking to. “We’re on our way.”

“What?” she asked, and he put his finger up.

“Hang tight and we’ll be right there.” He hung up and shook his head. “We’ve got to go, then try to figure out how to work around this.”

“What, exactly?” She didn’t really want to know, but it was unavoidable.

“Wait and see.”

✥ ✥ ✥

“I don’t want to hear it’s humiliating,” Hector said to his daughter Marisol. She was sitting across from him, and he could almost feel the murderous thoughts flitting through her brain in rapid succession. Ever since their move to the city of New Orleans, Marisol had tried to break out on her own and had made decisions not approved by him. None of it had turned out well, and she hated him for pointing it out, but her real anger was aimed at Tracy Segal. It was one thing for him to tell her she was an idiot, but when Tracy did it in her subtle way, Marisol went insane.

Marisol’s problem was his growing relationship with Tracy, and how much he relied on her. Tracy was young, but she was good at finding problems in the system and, more important, finding solutions to fix those problems. And Tracy was fearless even when it would be better for her to lie because of his temper. She’d started to take responsibility away from Marisol, and Marisol didn’t like it.