But Jessica answered, "I'm from Mission Viejo," through lips that barely moved.

Something clicked in her brain and fear crystallized in Kara's stomach, spreading and spreading until even her scalp felt cold. "You're from the V-Club."

EmilyJ from Fresno. JezzC from Mission Viejo.

Both girls had been members of the online community for months, posted regularly, had their pictures all over it. Kara remembered that Emily was fourteen and Jessica fifteen. Kara thought of the explicit posts, the vicious taunts she'd posted under her Kstar90 alias, and felt guilt pile onto the anxiety that already had her stomach in knots. Though it was only a matter of a few years, she felt ages older than these two girls. And ashamed at the way she'd made fun of them, goaded them, laughing because no one realized who she really was.

"Oh my G.o.d, you're that Kara," Emily said.

"You think that's part of the reason they took us? Because they want girls who promise to stay virgins?"

"It has to be," Kara said. This was so messed up. How many times had they chatted about meeting face-to-face?

And now here they were.

"I know we're supposed to be careful about what we say," Emily said, her voice cracking. "But who ever thought it would be dangerous to talk about being a virgin?"

She remembered how Toni had cautioned her to be careful about what she did on her FacePlace page. "Don't ever give any details about yourself. Never friend anyone unless you're positive who they are." Kara had rolled her eyes, thinking how she liked Toni and all, but she was way too paranoid from all the snooping around she did.

"We're a bunch of virgins, Toni. No one cares what we have to say."

Of course, Toni had no idea about her other online persona. She had no idea Kara was posting pictures of herself and talking graphically about s.e.x. No one did, except for Toby. Kara loved the rush she got every time she logged on as Kstar90, knowing that no one had any idea who she really was. As far as anyone knew, Kara was the model kid everyone wanted her to be.

She'd never expected that keeping up her image as Daddy's perfect little girl would land her and two other online friends handcuffed to beds in a shack in the middle of nowhere.

She felt Emily shaking next to her, heard the sobs she tried to hold back in her throat. That bad, dark feeling she had when she realized the men weren't hiding their faces came back. "They're going to sell us," Kara said finally. Her friends deserved to know the truth, no matter how horrifying. Emily stiffened next to her. "I heard one of the men-the head guy, I think-tell my dad about it."

Her throat got tight, and panic once again seized her lungs. At the time, she'd been able to keep a grip on her fear, convincing herself it was all bulls.h.i.t, a ploy to get her dad to cooperate and give up whatever prototype the man was talking about.

Now she was afraid they had no intention of letting her go, no matter what her dad promised.

Toni hadn't heard from Ethan since he left her apartment the previous day. She'd pulled her phone out to call him a dozen times, but each time she'd stopped short of dialing his number. She had nothing new to tell him. Though she still held the faint hope that Kara was just partying at the beach with her friends, she wasn't surprised not to hear from her. She a.s.sumed Ethan would have called her if he'd heard anything new.

In the meantime, she was still going through gigabytes of files and archived messages on Jerry's computer and had recovered his deleted files. But she hadn't found anything of particular interest, and it didn't help that she wasn't sure exactly what she should be looking for.

And a lead was the only excuse to call Ethan. No matter how much she wanted to call him, see if he was okay, see if his brother and father were okay, he'd made it clear yesterday he didn't want her sympathy. Didn't want her probing into his personal life.

For the billionth time, she wondered why the h.e.l.l she cared. It wasn't as if she was looking for a relationship with Ethan or any other man. She was blowing town as soon as possible, getting in her car and taking off for Seattle ASAP.

That was her plan, and she was sticking to it.

She wondered if Ethan spent last night alone.

She wondered what was up with the family baggage he alluded to.

The urge to do an extra-thorough background check was nearly killing her. It would be so easy. Ten minutes, fifteen tops, and she'd know everything about Ethan Taggart from his birth weight to where he'd had dinner last night.

When the urge reached the overwhelming state, she laced up her running shoes and drove to the foothills near the Stanford campus for a run. She loved running here, through the sunbaked hills dotted with twisted old oaks, up to the ma.s.sive satellite dish with its nose tipped to the sky. And right now, focusing on not pa.s.sing out from the heat as she pounded up a steep hill that led to the dish was enough to keep her brain occupied for half an hour or so.

On the way home, she made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up milk, coffee, and cereal. Stalling, since she knew the second she got home she was going to Google Ethan at the very least.

She pulled into her parking s.p.a.ce, the afternoon sun hitting her like a blast furnace as she got out of the air-conditioned car. She went around to the back and saw that everything had scattered across her trunk in the course of the short drive home. She bent over to gather up her groceries and heard an engine roar to life somewhere in the parking lot.

Someone needed to get their a.s.s to the Midas m.u.f.fler shop, stat.

She shoved everything back into the bag and grabbed the plastic handle, cursing as the handle ripped, sending a carton of milk tumbling back into the corner of her trunk. She reached into the trunk, fumbling around until her hand finally closed around the cool cardboard. As she pulled it out, the rumbling engine grew louder and louder until the sound was almost deafening.

She looked up to see a beat-up sedan barreling right at her. The milk carton slid from her hand. The car was going way too fast to stop before it hit her. She flung herself to the side, landing between her car and the one in the next parking stall a split second before the sedan slammed into the back of her Honda.

She barely had time to catch her breath as the car backed up and came charging at her again. She scrambled toward her driver's side as the car hit hers at an angle, smashing her Honda into the car next to it, leaving only a small s.p.a.ce for her near the front b.u.mpers. Panic clawed at her stomach as she heard the engine revving again. Her car lurched at the impact. She was pinned down, trapped between her car, her neighbor's, and the concrete wall at the front of the carport.

She needed to move before she was crushed. The sedan's engine rumbled again as her a.s.sailant backed up, and she dived over her neighbor's car, skittering over the hood, hitting the ground running as she heard the car get up to speed. The scream of metal and steel colliding rang across the asphalt. A car door slammed, a male voice cursed, and she kept running for the stairs. Tires squealed and the loud rumble of the engine faded as the crazy hit-and-run driver fled.

In her dazed state, she only wanted to get to the relative safety of her apartment. Her hand shook as she fumbled with the key, but she finally managed to get the door open.

She knew something was wrong the second she walked through the door, but she couldn't put her finger on exactly what. As she squinted into the dimness of her apartment, her breath caught as she saw her desk. It was clean.

Every piece of computer equipment, every sc.r.a.p of paper, was gone.

In a flash, she realized the hit-and-run downstairs had been no accident. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed Ethan's number without thinking.

"This is Ethan."

The mere sound of his voice was enough to comfort her. Yet when she opened her mouth, she found her lips and tongue were so dry she could barely speak.

"h.e.l.lo? Who's there?" he snapped.

She licked her lips and tried again. "Ethan? It's Toni." Her voice quavered as her entire body began to shake.

"Are you okay? Tell me what's wrong."

"I think someone just tried to kill me."

CHAPTER 13.

E THAN BROKE NEARLY every traffic law on the books in his hurry to get to Toni. He'd been in bad s.h.i.t before, times he was sure he was toast, but he had never felt the kind of panic he was experiencing now. All his energy was focused on getting to her, making sure she was safe, and hiding her away somewhere so she couldn't be hurt again.

Once she'd described what had happened, and the fact that her computers and files were missing, he knew the hit-and-run wasn't random. Toni was getting too close to finding out something Jerry wanted to keep hidden.

Ethan pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex. Two squad cars were already on the scene. A paunchy guy was talking to a policeman, gesticulating wildly as he described how the car came out of nowhere and slammed into him as he was backing out of his s.p.a.ce.

Ethan spotted Toni across the parking lot, talking to a police officer over by her car. Ethan's gut tightened when he saw the damage to her little green Honda. The back end was completely crushed. Given the extent of the damage, he knew the guy must have been going at least forty miles an hour when he slammed into the car. If she hadn't jumped out of the way, she would have been crushed.

He winced as he saw the raw sc.r.a.pe on her leg, left bare by her running shorts. Another raw mark decorated her shoulder. Ethan's gut clenched as he took in her wounds. It could have been so much worse, but even the small evidence that someone tried to harm her made protective rage simmer through his veins.

She was remarkably composed as she talked to the officer, but as he got closer he could see the lines of strain around her mouth and the faint trembling of her fingers as she pointed to the entrance of the parking lot.

"...got louder and louder," she was saying. "By the time I looked up he was practically right on top of me."

"Did you get a look at him?"

Toni's arms crossed around her waist, hugging herself. "He was white, I'm pretty sure. Youngish. But he wore a baseball cap and sungla.s.ses, so I couldn't make anything out."

"And no license number?"

"There wasn't a license plate at all," she said, rocking back on her heels.

Ethan approached her from behind and slipped his arm around her shoulders. She jumped at the contact, but the tension in her shoulders faded by degrees as she let him pull her against his side.

He'd spent the last twenty-four hours trying not to think about her, trying to convince himself that what he felt for her was no big deal. That the urge to spill his guts and share all his deep, dark secrets with her would pa.s.s, along with the s.e.xual fascination like nothing he'd ever felt before.

Then he'd gotten her call, heard the fear in her voice, faced the possibility of losing her before he even had her. The fear, anxiety, all that bulls.h.i.t melted away in a moment of icy clarity. Some deep, primitive part of his brain recognized Toni as his. His to protect, to keep safe. And all the other stuff he was still too freaked out to think about.

A warm glow spread through his belly at the way she leaned into him, like she trusted him, like she needed him. He pulled her all the way into his embrace, loving the way she buried her face against his throat and wrapped her arms around his waist.

"You scared the s.h.i.t out of me."

Her watery chuckle was m.u.f.fled against his shirtfront. "You think you were scared? You didn't have a two-ton rust bucket barreling at you going fifty miles an hour."

After a moment she pulled away but kept one arm around him. "I was just telling them that I'm sure the guy was some drunk and got the gas pedal confused with the brake."

Ethan gave her a hard look. Toni's gaze was steady as it warned him not to contradict her.

The patrolman flipped his notepad closed and handed Toni a card. "Call us if you can think of anything else that will help us get this guy. You're lucky you weren't seriously injured or even killed."

Toni nodded, and Ethan's fear mingled with irritation at Toni's determination to play the hero. He hustled her up the stairs to her apartment. The second the door was closed he grabbed her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. "Why didn't you tell them about Jerry?"

She gave him a look that said she doubted the existence of his frontal lobe. "And what do you expect me to tell them? That I think he's covering up his daughter's disappearance when all the evidence shows that she went to the beach with some friends? Oh, and that the reason I suspect he's up to anything illegal is because I went into his house, copied his computer files without permission, and I'm illegally monitoring his home network? Yeah, that'll go over well. In the meantime, why don't you tell them how you and Derek are following him without his knowledge."

Ethan ran a hand through his hair in irritation. He grabbed Toni by the arm. "I'm taking you someplace safe and then I'm going over to Jerry's. I'm getting to the bottom of this if I have to beat it out of him."

Toni dug in her heels and pulled at his grip on her arm. "Look, Rambo, I know it kills you to sit back and do nothing, but you can't go busting in there and let him know that we're onto him."

"I would say this is a good clue Jerry already knows you're onto him," Ethan snapped.

"But he doesn't know you are. And if he does have something to do with Kara's disappearance, I don't want to take the chance of his panicking and taking off before we find her."

"Even if it means putting your own life at risk?" Ethan moved toward her until they were separated by mere inches. Hands on his hips, he loomed over her, trying to intimidate her.

Of course, it didn't work worth s.h.i.t. Toni put her hands on her own hips and stuck her chin out even farther. "I can take care of myself. Kara can't."

"That remains to be seen." He looked over at her empty desk. "So they took everything?"

She shook her head. "All they have is my backup computer, my networking equipment, and all the files I had on the desk. I had my laptop with me, and everything else is backed up on a remote server."

His hands closed into fists when he thought of someone in her apartment. "Pack a bag." He wanted nothing more than to get her out of this dark, depressing apartment with its flimsy locks and nonexistent security.

"Where are we going?" she asked, her left eyebrow quirking above the heavy frames of her gla.s.ses.

"You'll stay at my place tonight. We'll figure out where to go in the morning."

She froze in the act of putting a cushion back on her couch. "I can't stay at your place."

"You can't stay here, especially once Jerry and whoever he's working with find out you're not dead."

She tossed her keys on the kitchen table. "Take me to a hotel then. You don't have to baby-sit me."

He could have taken the time to explain, to convince her that she would be safest with him, but he was out of patience. "This isn't up for debate," he said. He was hanging on to his control by a thread. Even though she was safe, his brain kept going back to what might have happened. "Pack a f.u.c.king bag and get your sweet little a.s.s out to my car."

"Or what?" Was she smiling? Was this a game to her?

"This isn't a f.u.c.king joke, Toni. You're coming with me if I have to hog-tie you and carry you out myself."

"I'd like to see you try," she muttered. Then she rolled her eyes. "Fine. Let me get cleaned up first."

She went to the bathroom and he heard the shower run. He fought the urge to burst in uninvited and examine every inch of her to make sure she was really okay. But for all her tough-girl att.i.tude, she was scared, and she didn't need him pawing her all over like a Neanderthal.

Plenty of time for that once they got back to his place.

While he waited for her to pack a bag, he called Derek and filled him in on what had happened. "I want someone on Kramer at all times. If he gets up to take a p.i.s.s, I want to know." He could kick his own nuts for not doing it sooner, but he'd thought-hoped-Toni was overreacting by connecting Kramer to Kara's disappearance. They still didn't have any hard proof, but the attempt on Toni's life was impossible to ignore.

"You going to explain to Danny why we're tailing Kramer?" Derek asked.

Ethan sighed. "Not until I absolutely have to."

He hung up the phone and moved to stand in Toni's doorway, watching her as she packed some clothes into a carry-on-size rolling suitcase. He tried not to look at the pile of lingerie on top, an explosion of lace, satin, and silk that made his mind boggle with all the possibilities. Looking at her underwear made him think of her in her underwear, followed by thoughts of getting her out of her underwear, and if he let his thoughts wander too far in that direction, they'd never make it out of here.

Fifteen minutes later he was unlocking the door to his condo. As she walked in, he was. .h.i.t with a wave of self-consciousness, wondering what she would think of his place. The quintessential bachelor pad. His living room was dominated by a huge flat-screen television and a large leather sectional sofa. Back issues of The Economist and Sports Ill.u.s.trated were strewn across the heavy teak coffee table. A woman's touch was nowhere to be found, and he wondered if that was a good thing or not.

Toni's sneakered footsteps squeaked on the hardwood floors as her gaze swept the apartment. "Nice" was her only a.s.sessment. The door clicked shut behind them, and the atmosphere around them changed. The air crackled with the knowledge that they were alone in his apartment, and she was going to spend the night. And he wasn't positive, but he was pretty d.a.m.n sure she was remembering the last time they'd spent the night together.

Pink bloomed in her cheeks as she grew antsy, bouncing a little on the b.a.l.l.s of her feet in her All Stars. She pointed to the duffel bag he held in his left hand. "You want to show me where the guest room is so I can get settled?" She started down the hallway off the living room, as though eager to put some s.p.a.ce between them.

He caught her before she'd gone more than two steps. That cave man feeling was back, the need to have her that took priority over everything else. He wanted to keep her, protect her, possess her in a way that had everything and nothing to do with s.e.x. He'd been patient back at her place, kept his hands to himself, and let her process what had happened.

But now the need to feel her, naked and aroused and alive in his arms, overpowered everything. "You're kidding, right?" He pinned her up against the wall, lining up his hips with hers and pressing close. "You know exactly where you're spending tonight, and it sure as s.h.i.t isn't my guest bed."

She swallowed hard and her tongue flicked over her plump bottom lip. He leaned in close enough to taste her breath as she spoke. "I think it's better if we keep this relationship all about business." The lack of conviction in her tone would have been funny under other circ.u.mstances.

It was business time all right, he thought as he rocked his hips against her, making sure she felt every long, thick inch of the erection that strained against the fly of his pants. "Too late. It hasn't been about business from the first time I kissed you, and you know it."