He shot me a look of impatience.

“It’s Maddie. She makes me uncomfortable. When she gets older like Henry and Miles maybe I can, but until then she gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

“Maddie makes you uncomfortable? She can’t even talk.”

“Exactly, and she doesn’t have teeth, and she drools and craps her pants. It’s weird.”

“I hate to break it to you, Naomi, but you started out the same way.”

“It’s not that I don’t like your kid. I just don’t like any kids.”

Trex couldn’t hide that he felt slighted.

“C’mon, don’t take it personal,” I said.

“You think my kid is creepy, and you don’t think I’d take that personal?”

I shrugged. “I guess not? I wouldn’t, because kids are creepy.”

“No one thinks kids are creepy. People think Peter is creepy.”

“At least he has teeth and doesn’t chew on his fists.”

Kitsch approached us at full speed, breathing hard before he could speak.

“What is it?” Trex asked, frowning.

“I … was down in Deep Echo.”

“Did they kick you out?” I asked with a smile.

“I’m not sure,” he said between breaths. “I could be wrong, just keep that in mind. But … while I was down there, I swear I saw Zeke.”

Trex and I traded glances.

“Kitsch, that’s impossible,” Trex said. “He doesn’t have credentials. He has no experience in security. Those guys are well-trained bad ombres.”

Kitsch shook his head, still struggling for breath. “Not security. He was wearing a”—

he touched his chest—“patch, and so were the guys with him. He’s some kind of fire team.”

I looked at Trex to give me a reason not to hope, to not be afraid. There could be dozens of frightening reasons why Zeke was down there, and worse, he’d been down there for weeks.

I took off in a sprint, not knowing or caring if Kitsch or Trex were behind me. My boots slamming on the metal grid path rang out, echoing against the curved walls. By the time I reached Deep Echo I was out of breath, but that didn’t stop me from looking in through the thick glass on each side of the blast door. I was pounding on it before security could sound their typical warning blast.

“Zeke?” I yelled. He wouldn’t have been able to hear me even if he was close by, but I was hoping he would once they told me to back off through the speaker.

“Back away, Abrams,” Gibbs barked.

I approached the display. “Is there a man in there named Zeke Lund?”

“That’s classified information, Abrams.”

I looked through the glass again. Behind the security team was a commons area, a few tables, some chairs, and non-security were ambling about.

“You have ten seconds, Abrams.”