"Help me!" The wail became a scream, absorbed by the darkness. Some part of her knew no one would hear, but she couldn't stop, the scream roaring from the deep pit of fear lodged in her gut.

Suddenly a door banged open and the room flooded with light. The brightness blinded her, piercing through her brain like a knife through her eyes. She huddled against the wall, desperately trying to blink the room into focus.

Her mouth opened, but this time her scream lodged in her throat as the large, blurred outline of a man came toward her.

The blade of a knife glittered in his hand; terror clawed at her chest as it came closer. But all he did was cut the rope securing her to the wall.

He jerked at the rope. Fresh pain erupted in the wounds of her wrists. Her elbow and shoulder joints protested as he yanked her to her feet.

What was going to happen to her? Where was he taking her? That and a thousand other questions skittered across her brain. But when she opened her mouth to ask, the fear switch flipped in her brain and another scream barreled its way up her throat, past her lips, as she staggered up a short flight of stairs.

The man was impervious to her fear, not sparing her so much as a look as he dragged her screaming, struggling form down a short hallway. Her scream gave way to harsh, panting breaths, coming so fast she was afraid she was going to pa.s.s out. In her hyperfearful state, odd details penetrated her consciousness. The wood paneling on the walls, the heavy furniture in the rooms she pa.s.sed.

Through the windows she glimpsed the trunks of huge redwood trees, the kind that grew in the coastal mountains close to where she lived. They hadn't taken her far.

Small comfort that was as the man jerked hard on the rope again and sent her stumbling to her knees. She fumbled to catch herself with her hands, missed, and smacked her chin on the hardwood floor. Blood flooded her mouth as her teeth pierced the tender flesh of her inner lip.

She started crying then, tears and snot pouring down her face as she was jerked once again to her feet and dragged the last few feet down the hall. She stumbled into a room, and the man who had come for her dropped the rope and left, slamming the door behind him.

A man sat at a huge mahogany desk, observing her. His hair was dark blond mixed with gray, slicked back from his forehead. He didn't look like a psycho kidnapper. With his carefully combed hair and green polo shirt he looked like one of her dad's golf buddies. Or someone who would show up at one of the dinner parties her mother was always hosting before her parents split, someone who would ask her lame questions like where she was applying to college and what subject she liked best.

He looked...normal.

The observation wasn't at all comforting.

Deep-set, muddy green eyes raked her from head to toe, and his mouth stretched in a smile that made her legs shake and her blood chill.

"You're even prettier than your pictures."

He was the one who had first come to her in the dark. The one who wanted her cooperation. Sick dread knotted and pinched at her intestines, and she was afraid she was going to throw up, or worse. "My father," she managed to grunt out. "My father has lots of money." Her lips were numb, her tongue as thick as if she'd done five quick shots of Absolut. She licked her lips and tried again. "He'll pay you. If you don't hurt me he'll pay you-"

He held up a hand, silencing her. "I know all about your father." His voice was deep with a faint accent that sounded almost British but not quite. "And it is my hope, as it should be yours, that he will cooperate."

He rose from the desk and approached her, and Kara backpedaled until her knees. .h.i.t something, a table. He caught her before she could fall, pulling her up, pulling her close until her nose was flooded with the cloying smell of aftershave and hair gel, until she could feel his faintly sour breath on her cheek.

His hand was soft and manicured against the skin of her forearm, but his grip was bruising as he easily subdued her exhausted struggles. He extracted a handkerchief from a pocket with his other hand and wiped her face in rough swipes.

"Yes, much prettier than the pictures you post for the world to see."

Her skin crawled. "What pictures?" she asked. Maybe if she played dumb they'd think they had the wrong girl. How could he even know? Toby always blurred her face out, promised her no one would ever know it was her. Their little secret.

But she couldn't trust Toby to keep his d.i.c.k in his pants. Why should she trust him not to out her online?

The man brushed off her question, his hand trailing down her throat like a snake, coming to rest on the pendant that hung just below the hollow of her throat.

"You have a treasure," he said, closing his fingers around the small silver charm. It was a stylized V, with three tiny diamonds, one at each end, one at the point. Laurie Friedland's mother had given the charms to Kara and Laurie two years ago at homecoming.

Right after they'd established the V-Club on FacePlace.

Where Kara often posted pictures of herself along with her almost daily messages.

He hadn't seen the other pictures. A faint flutter of relief started to unwind her nerves.

But her relief was short-lived as his fingers tightened on the pendant. She shrank from his reptilian gaze as it raked her up and down, lingering on her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and between her legs.

"This treasure you value so very much," the man said. "Let's hope your father values it as well."

CHAPTER 5.

D READ BUILT SLOWLY and steadily as Ethan drove to his father's house. He wasn't looking forward to hearing all about whatever crazy lead Dad was chasing this time. Tension and fatigue joined forces and started a dull throbbing at the base of his skull.

By the time he got to his father's house fifteen minutes later, the tension had erupted into a full-blown headache, pounding in his temples with the rhythm of his heartbeat. His father still lived in the house Ethan had grown up in, a sprawling ranch-style home that sat on a full acre of land in the middle of wealthy Atherton.

But unlike the showpieces that lined the oak-studded street, the Taggart house showed its age. The paint on the trim was starting to chip, and as he walked up the driveway to the front door, Ethan noticed that the asphalt had buckled and cracked in several places. When Ethan was growing up, even one of these small defects would have driven his father insane. Though he'd given up his military career to pursue one in finance, Joe Taggart had still expected everything in his life to be spit-polished to a high shine. The lawn was always neatly mowed, the hedges precisely trimmed. The house got a new coat of paint every five years without fail, and he would never have allowed the oak tree roots to spread under the driveway until it became a cracked mess.

But that was before Joe's wife had disappeared without a trace, and the father Ethan had always regarded with equal measures of love and awe had disappeared along with her.

Ethan had memories from when he was a little kid, before they moved to California. Memories of his parents laughing, his mother jumping into his father's arms and kissing him pa.s.sionately the moment Joe Taggart walked in the door. Then his father had retired from the army, which was supposed to mean more money, more stability, since they wouldn't have to move every few years. Instead, Joe's success in the investment banking world meant long hours in the office, weekends spent at work, and vacations canceled so deals could be closed.

Ethan didn't know when his mom had checked out. He didn't remember the first few years being so bad. His dad wasn't around much, but he didn't remember his mom ha.s.sling Joe about his long hours and frequent trips out of town.

But when his mother's face swam into his memory, Ethan didn't see a happy woman. Without her husband around to shower her with affection, she'd wilted like a flower in the desert, and even her three growing boys weren't enough to make up for a husband who was never around.

If Joe noticed his wife's increasing dissatisfaction with their marriage, he didn't show it. He sure as s.h.i.t didn't do anything to fix it, still working just as hard if not harder. In the end, Anne Taggart had descended into a depression-induced fog of booze, pills, and who knew what else. She'd disappeared emotionally long before she'd disappeared physically.

Joe hadn't meant to ignore her, Ethan knew. He'd been focused on his career, convinced he was doing the best for his family by making as much money as he could, as quickly as possible. He'd ignored her complaints, convinced she would thank him later for every day that she sat in her multimillion-dollar home, dressed in designer clothes from the most expensive boutiques. Unfortunately, Joe hadn't recognized the depth of her unhappiness until it was too late. Anne had already left, without a backward look, leaving no clue as to where she'd gone.

Now, though Joe still did financial consulting on the side, his top priority was finding his wife. He'd spent the past eighteen years chasing every lead, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how unreliable the source. If he'd spent only one-tenth of the time with his wife when she was around as he did searching for her now, Ethan knew she never would have left. The irony wasn't lost on Ethan. Only after she disappeared did Anne truly become the center of Joe's life.

Ethan let himself in the front door, trying to stave off the wave of sorrow he felt every time he saw the house he grew up in. The inside wasn't in any better shape than the outside. While it was kept clean by the housekeeper's twice-weekly visits, the hardwood floor was scuffed and the upholstery on the furniture was worn. His father always kept the heavy drapes closed, giving the house a dark, suffocating feel even on a bright summer day like today. Upstairs, the bedrooms were the same as they'd been since Danny, Ethan, and Derek had left home. Danny had gone to West Point, followed two years later by Derek, while Ethan had opted for Annapolis and navy flight school.

And though he never went in there anymore, he knew his father kept the master bedroom exactly the same as it had been on the day their mother had disappeared. None of her clothing had been removed, none of the personal items she'd left behind in her hurry to disappear had been put away. As though any day now she was going to walk through the front door and start life right back where she'd left it.

On the front table was a pile of mail that no one had bothered to go through in what looked like weeks. Catalogs and bills were piled haphazardly, threatening to spill onto the floor. Ethan reached out to straighten it, freezing when he saw his mother's name on the address label on a catalog.

He s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and crumpled the thick paper in his fist, slamming it into a wastebasket as he stalked down the hall. He found his father and his older-by-six-minutes twin brother Derek in the dining room, looking at a map spread over the scratched surface of the cherrywood table.

"A woman matching her description was at the Champlung Hotel in Ubud," Joe said, indicating the city in Central Bali with his forefinger.

Ethan and Derek exchanged a speaking look over their father's head. Can you believe he's doing this again? Derek's look said. Another lead. Another dead end. Another chunk of change out of Dad's bank account. Ethan didn't have to utter a word to make himself understood.

Though they weren't identical, they'd always had that weird twin bond. If anyone ever asked either of them about it point-blank they would have denied it, neither of them being big believers in any kind of sixth-sense, touchy-feely c.r.a.p. Nevertheless, when Ethan's plane had gone down over Afghanistan four years ago, Derek had contacted Ethan's commanding officer to find out his brother's status before the crash had even been reported.

But it didn't take special twin juju to know what Derek was thinking as he listened to Joe.

"She was in Ubud last week, but she's heading south to Sanur," Joe said, as though her presence in Bali were a given.

Derek's shoulders were slumped, his jaw pulled into grim lines. His light brown, close-cropped hair was sticking up on top where he'd run frustrated fingers through it.

Ethan was sure he looked the same, but he did his best to hide his exasperation. He'd learned a long time ago that it did no good to try to dissuade his father when he'd caught the scent, however elusive, of their missing mother. It did no good to tell him it was a waste of time, that someone was yet again scamming him for the reward money he put up. "So you really think she's in Indonesia, Dad?" Ethan asked, not bothering to point out that the woman he remembered had had a deathly fear of bugs and had hated the humidity because of what it did to her hair. Unless she'd changed dramatically, Southeast Asia wouldn't exactly be Anne Taggart's scene.

Joe pulled a small notepad out of his breast pocket and squinted over the rims of his reading gla.s.ses. "Yes. My source said he saw a woman fitting her description just five days ago. So you can see why I have to move fast."

"Dad, the picture you have is almost twenty years old," Ethan said, struggling to keep the impatience from his tone.

In Joe's head she was still a thirty-eight-year-old California blond, whose age and years of increasingly harder drinking had just begun to catch up with her.

Who knew if she looked remotely the same, or if she was even alive?

Didn't matter to their father, though. Send him a blurry picture of an attractive blond over forty and he was off and running. Ethan had long ago stopped trying to talk him out if it.

Their older brother, Danny, had no such qualms about poking holes in their dad's c.o.c.keyed theory. "This is f.u.c.king bulls.h.i.t, Dad," he said, slamming an empty pot into the sink and filling it with water. "Like every other bulls.h.i.t lead you've followed for the past eighteen f.u.c.king years. She left us. She's not coming back. She never wanted to be found. Move on."

Joe Taggart went very still, his finger frozen to a point on the map. Very slowly he straightened up and pinned his eldest son with a steely glare. For a moment, Ethan caught a glimpse of the man his father had once been. A man who commanded the room with his very presence, a man whose word was law. A man who brooked no disrespect from anyone, especially not his own sons. "Do I have to remind you that we're talking about your mother and my wife? If I have to spend the rest of my life and every last penny of my fortune to find her-dead or alive-you bet your G.o.dd.a.m.n a.s.s I will."

Joe folded up the map and strode from the room, shoulders straight like the soldier he once was. Danny swore under his breath and turned back to the pot of sauce he was stirring for the spaghetti. Christ, Ethan thought, wondering how he'd ended up here. He should be out on a date, not having a spaghetti dinner with a heaping side of family drama.

But when he thought about having dinner with a beautiful woman, the only face that came to mind had catlike hazel eyes, heavy-framed gla.s.ses, and full red lips pursed as she focused on the screen of her computer monitor. Not his usual evening companion by a long shot.

"Why do you two humor him?" Danny said from the kitchen. "We should declare her dead and put Dad out of his f.u.c.kin' misery already." A spoon clattered into the stainless steel sink as Danny hurled it down. His big muscle-bound body looked out of place in the kitchen, but Ethan knew from experience that Danny's hard-bitten exterior hid a master chef in the making. He cooked the way he did everything-aggressively, no holds barred, throwing every bit of his considerable pa.s.sion into the process.

It didn't make for a particularly neat process, and anger didn't help, Ethan reflected as he watched Danny pick up a spice jar and wrench the top off with unnecessary force. He poured some of the contents into the palm of his hand, then flung it in the direction of the pan. Most of it went in. "I'm so f.u.c.king sick of these lowlifes taking his money, and watching him waste his life chasing after a woman who didn't give a s.h.i.t about us."

"What else are we supposed to do? It's not like we can change his mind," Ethan said. As usual, Derek remained silent, letting Ethan and Danny battle it out. "Besides, if he'd just let her get a divorce like she wanted, she wouldn't have had to leave." It sounded lame even as the words left his mouth, but it's what he'd been telling himself for the past eighteen years. That his father had forced his mother's hand. If Joe hadn't ignored their marriage for so long, she wouldn't have become so depressed. And if he'd let her out when she'd wanted, she wouldn't have felt so trapped.

Danny threw down the wooden spoon, sending a spray of sauce arcing like blood across the backsplash. He threw his hands up. "Oh, here we go again, defending poor Mom, whose life was so f.u.c.king hard she had to run away from it."

Ethan didn't say anything. Rationally, he knew Danny was right. Their mother-a woman who had abandoned her husband and children without a single look back-didn't deserve his defense. But inside of him still lurked that little boy who had spent years doing everything he could to put a smile on her face. Who thought that if he had tried hard enough, the happy, fun-loving woman he remembered would reappear.

He didn't dare admit any of this to his brothers. Danny, in particular, would b.i.t.c.h-slap him into next week and tell him to stop being a whiny mama's boy.

Even so, Ethan never accepted Danny's black-and-white version of how things went down-that their mother was weak and shallow and couldn't handle real life, so she'd cut her losses and found herself a new life.

"None of this helps the situation we're dealing with right now," Derek said, always the voice of calm rationality. "Who's going with Dad to Indonesia?"

"I don't see why we have to hold his hand," Danny said, stirring spaghetti into the pot with such vigor that boiling water splashed across his wrist. "f.u.c.k," he roared and thrust his hand under cold water. Clenching his teeth against the pain he said, "He wants to go on another wild goose chase, let him go on his own."

Derek and Ethan exchanged a look. It's all bl.u.s.ter. They all knew none of them, including Danny, would send their father alone into a situation like this. It wasn't that their father was particularly stupid or nave, just that he had a huge blind spot when it came to tracking down a lead on his wife. It had led him to deal with shady, unscrupulous characters from every dark corner of the globe. Men who would rob him blind and cut his throat if someone wasn't there to watch his back.

"Not me," Ethan said, not bothering to hide his relief. "I'm on duty till we find out where Kara Kramer has gotten herself."

Derek shook his head. "I have three consultations this week, plus a seminar on corporate espionage. Danny, since you just wrapped up that corporate job in South City, I'm afraid it's got to be you."

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h! I need another trip to Southeast Asia like I need a hole in my f.u.c.kin' head," Danny said. "Ethan, why don't you let me take over the Kramer case," he said, his tone suddenly wheedling. "You speak better Bahasa than I do, anyway, and since you and Dad actually get along-"

"No way in h.e.l.l," Ethan held up his hands. He wouldn't be charmed or bullied into covering for his brother. "I'm the one who had to go to Russia with him, last year, remember?" The memory was enough to make Ethan shudder. And not just from the remembered cold, though it had been a bone-chilling twenty below in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk. No, it was the memory of how his father had nearly gotten a bullet in his head when his search for a woman matching Anne's description landed him face-to-face with a couple of Mafiya thugs in the middle of an arms deal. Fortunately, Ethan had been a lot more sober and a lot faster with his fists than the thugs and had been able to get them both out of there.

"Maybe you can talk him out of it," Derek offered.

Though they knew it was hopeless, the brothers spent most of their meal attempting to do exactly that. "Dad, why don't you let me dig a little deeper on these guys," Danny said. "Get someone to corroborate their story before we spend the time and money to fly all the way over there."

"We?" Joe said, affronted. "I don't know where you boys got the idea that I need a keeper."

The brothers' eyes met across the table. Ethan's near-debacle in Siberia had hardly been the first time their dad ended up in danger. Though none voiced it, they all were remembering the numerous occasions when they'd pulled Joe out of potentially deadly situations.

"Going alone is out of the question," Danny said. "And I don't understand the urgency."

"I don't care if you understand or not, Daniel," Joe replied, his voice gone scary-quiet, with an undercurrent of steel. It was a tone Ethan remembered all too well from childhood, the tone Joe used to remind his sons that the Taggart household was by no means a democracy. Joe Taggart was in charge, and his word was law. "I'm leaving tomorrow for Denpasar and that's final."

For several tense seconds, Danny's steel-gray stare met Joe's identical one. But even at age thirty-four, and standing six foot five and weighing over two hundred pounds, former Special Ops bada.s.s Danny couldn't stare down Joe Taggart. Danny dropped his gaze to his plate, muttering under his breath as he mopped up a blob of red sauce with a hunk of bread.

Ethan stirred his spaghetti around his plate, his appet.i.te killed by the knot in his stomach. He wished he could be anywhere but here, partaking of this sad parody of family bonding.

He knew how perfect they looked on the outside. His father, still handsome and fit at the age of sixty-three, a silver-haired, more craggy-featured version of his oldest son, Daniel. He and his brothers, strong and square-jawed with their all-American good looks. n.o.body looking at them would know they were broken inside, their lives forever altered by the selfish actions of one sad, weak woman.

Ethan took a slug of beer, wondering where the h.e.l.l that burst of self-pity had come from. Broken? They weren't broken. h.e.l.l, he and his brothers were all good-looking, had successful military careers behind them, and had built a rapidly growing business. Okay, so their mom had left them high and dry and sent their dad off the deep end, but they'd all done absolutely fine in spite of it. They'd survived as a family, remained close.

Closer, in fact, than most siblings he knew. Rather than let tragedy rip them apart, their bond had grown more fierce after their mother had disappeared. With their mother gone and their father lost to his obsession, they'd realized they needed to take care of themselves and each other, because no one else would. When they'd all found their military careers ending at roughly the same time, Danny had suggested starting their own security firm, leveraging their combined experience in military intelligence. None of them had hesitated to go into business together. There was no one Ethan trusted more than his brothers to have his back, and he knew Derek and Ethan felt the same way.

But tonight all the family togetherness threatened to smother him. Nights like tonight, his father's relentless, delusional search for their mother made him want to make a run for it.

Plus, Toni had zeroed in on their one and only lead on Kara, and he was anxious to get back to her.

For professional reasons only, of course.

As though reading his mind-which he probably was-Derek asked, "So do you have any leads on the Kramer girl?"

Everyone breathed a silent sigh, relieved at the change of subject.

"We found another online profile for Kara. Not exactly the good girl she's been showing the rest of the world." He quickly filled them in on the photos Toni had uncovered. "But the good news is she updated her other Web page again."

"You'd think she'd call her folks."

Ethan pulled a face. "Yeah, but she might love that she's making her parents squirm." He felt a twinge of guilt even as the words left his mouth, remembering the way worry had etched deep lines into Toni's face.

"You think the nude pictures have anything to do with it?" Danny said.

"Hard to tell. But they sure as h.e.l.l complicate things," Ethan said, taking a pull on his beer. "Toni's convinced she's in danger."

"But you aren't." Danny said.