She held what looked like a garage door opener and pushed the red button. After a few seconds the door popped open.

"I need one of those!" I said as I burst through both sets of doors to find a shocked Leonie looking out the window.

"What the . . ." She opened her mouth, then shut it. "How did you . . . ?"

I closed the gap between us and crushed her to me.

"Oh, my God," I said over and over. "You're all right. You're all right."

"Dak," Leonie murmured against my shoulder. "Dak! I won't be all right if you don't stop crushing me!"

I loosened my grip but did not let go. "You're not going anywhere until you hear what I have to say."

Paris entered the room, gesturing madly and whispering, "In here! Get in here!"

I dragged Leonie into Missi's room, and Paris shut and locked both doors behind us.

"Hi! I'm Missi, Dak's cousin. You must be Leonie."

Leonie cautiously reached out and took Missi's hand.

"What the hell is going on here?" she asked.

I started to talk when Paris brought his finger to his lips. "Someone with a gun is on the elevator. He'll be here any minute," he whispered.

"How do you know that?" Leonie whispered to me, and I shushed her. I wanted to know that too, but figured Missi's Lulu could do a lot more than I thought.

Missi sighed and pulled a case out from under the bed. Inside were six semiautomatic handguns, all .45s. We snatched them up, quietly shoving magazines into them and racking the slides.

We couldn't hear anything at first. Then there was a rap on the door to Leonie's room.

I looked around and realized we were pretty much trapped. Our best defense would be to wait out whoever it was.

It seemed like hours passed before we heard the door open next door. I gripped my gun tightly. Whoever it was took this assignment seriously. Of course he'd break into her room. He had no idea we were just on the other side of the wall. Missi told us she'd used a fake name on the hotel register.

There was the usual sound of movement in the room. I heard drawers opening and closing, the shower curtain rustling. This bastard was looking everywhere.

A thought chilled me: What if he decided to stay and ambush Leonie? How long could we hold out in silence next door? If we tried to leave through the hallway, what if he decided to leave at that moment too? Damn. Damn.

So we sat. Missi quietly showed Paris more of Lulu, while Leonie and I sat together on the bed.

"Who's in my room?" she whispered.

"I don't know," I replied, wondering how much to tell her. If I was ever going to gain her trust, it was now. "I'm just glad I found you before he did." I neglected to add the word seconds seconds before before he did he did, but she got the idea.

Leonie looked at me with an expression I couldn't read. Hopefully it was, Wow, Dak! Wow, Dak!

You saved me from your own family! You do love me! But I couldn't tell. We just sat there. But I couldn't tell. We just sat there.

I came out of distraction hearing a strange noise on the other side of the adjoining door. I recognized it immediately. The uninvited guest next door was sliding his hands around the door, trying to decide whether Leonie was in here. I turned to Missi and shrugged. She frowned and picked up the phone.

"Yes, security?" she asked, using a very loud, high-pitched Southern accent. "This is Myra Hodges in six-one-one-one. I thinksomeone has broken into the room next door and I'm mighty worried. Could you send someone up immediately?"

I looked back toward the door. The sound had stopped. In fact, it sounded as if he were leaving. I ran to the door and looked through the security window as a blurred figure in a dark hooded sweatshirt ran toward the stairwell and disappeared. He was gone too fast for me to ID him.

Now, I want you to know that you should never look through those things. Most assassins love to use them to shoot you through the eyeball-which is really gross but totally effective.

"Good thinking." I gave Missi the thumbs-up as I heard security running down the hall.

Missi just waved me off modestly. "That was kid stuff."

Paris tucked his gun into the back of his jeans. "So, what now? Whoever it is could just be lying in wait in the stairwell."

"He won't be on the elevators, and he won't show up in the hallway until security is gone next door." I looked at Leonie. "We have to go. Now."

Missi winked at me. "Good luck!"

I nodded, shoved the gun into my waistband, and pulled my jacket down over it.

Leonie lifted her dress and shoved her guninto a thigh holster. I started to salivate. That was so hot.

She nodded and the three of us slipped through the door toward the elevators. It seemed like a very long time before the doors opened. Paris got on and immediately started hitting the button.

The elevator turned out to be slower than the damned train at Disney World. And it played "The Girl from Ipanema" in Muzak. I looked at Paris and saw that he was mouthing the lyrics. That was it. I'd have to plan an intervention for him once we got home.

Chapter Thirty-three.

"Over? Did you say 'over'? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell, no!"

-Bluto, Animal House Animal House

It took only a few minutes to grab a cab outside, and with no small measure of relief the three of us sighed as the taxi drove us across town to the airport.

"We're flying out of here?" Leonie frowned as I paid the driver and sent him away.

I shook my head. "No. We're renting a car here to drive to Reno. We'll fly from there."

We didn't say much at first. Paris drove, pretending to be more interested in the road than anything else. I sat in the back with Leonie because I was afraid she'd jump out at any minute.

"So," I started, "are you convinced about my feelings for you yet? I'd never kill you, Leonie."

She looked away from me, out the windowfor a moment. Then she turned and looked me straight in the eyes.

"Where are we going?"

The truth was, I hadn't quite figured that out yet. Taking her home was dangerous.

Sooner or later the Council would guess I had her and come get her. Also, until I had this mess with Doc Savage cleared up, I didn't want to put her in danger. As far as National Resources went, there was no way of knowing whether someone was coming for her.

"First there's something I need to know."

Okay. I was stalling. "Does the name Doc Savage mean anything to you?"

"The Man of Bronze? I read those books when I was a kid. Why?"

My heart jumped a little when I discovered we had something more in common. "Nothing else? Nothing more . . . current?"

Leonie shook her head. "No."

"Is there anyone else involved with National Resources? Someone still alive?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Why would I tell you that? You killed the others."

She had a point.

"I didn't know you were involved, I swear."

I did a little cross-my-heart thingie.

"If you had known about me from the beginning, would you have killed the otherfour?" Her chin was set in the most adorable look of defiance.

"How can I answer that? I don't know." It wasn't much, but it was the truth. "Were they friends? Did you know them well?" I was worried about her answer.

"No. I never knew who they were. We were supposed to operate in a vacuum. There's a handler who kept tabs on us. She's the one who called when the last one before me bought it." She handed me her phone and I saw the message: Number four dead. Run and hide. Number four dead. Run and hide.

"Who's the handler?" I asked.

"There's a handler?" Paris echoed from the driver's seat. So he was listening after all.

Leonie waved me off. "Don't worry. She never did anything but negotiate the jobs and assign them. I don't know anything about her. She'll just go into hiding and never be heard from again. She's not a threat."

I relaxed at hearing that, but still wondered if this woman was Doc Savage. And if there was a handler, were there other employees? Leonie must have received assignments from the handler. Or were there others involved? Others who might at this very minute be hunting us?

"So, what happens now?" Leonie asked.

I looked out the window at the desert.

Frankly, I had no idea. Once we got to Reno maybe we should hole up for a while. At least until we could convince the Council that Leonie was no longer a threat and solve the Doc Savage problem.

"Why did you get into this business, anyway?" I asked. "It's dangerous. What were you thinking?"

She laughed. There was a hard edge to it.

"Christ, Dak. I was an English major. The only thing I had to look forward to after college was running a funeral home. I was recruited. It kind of made sense, considering the business I was in."

Grabbing her arm, I pulled up the sleeve.

No tattoo. "Why don't you have the tattoo?"

"That stupid thing? What? Are you joking?" When she saw that I wasn't, Leonie continued. "I refused to get it." She rolled her eyes. "Like I'd put Woody Woodpecker on my arm. The company backed down once they realized I didn't need a cartoon on my arm in order to kill people."

After a moment she spoke again. "I thought I'd be working for the government. You know, saving the world. It turned out they'd lied to me. I was trying to figure out how to quit when I met you."

I must've looked somewhat unconvinced, because she continued. "I'm serious. I wantedout. I guess in a weird way . . . you are helping me."

I realized I'd never spoken to anyone outside the family about the trade. And I'd never met anyone who became an assassin by choice. Still, we had something strangely in common: We both worked in family businesses that dealt with death, and we were both assassins.

"What about you?" she asked. "Why are your cousins involved?"

Paris caught my glance in the rearview mirror. He shrugged. I took that to mean he didn't care if I told her. But there was a problem-Bombays aren't allowed to tell outsiders anything about what we do. I could understand that. Imagine how many of us would be in prison via a bad breakup.

On the other hand, if we survived this I planned to make Leonie part of the family.

You weren't supposed to tell your significant other until the ink was dry on the marriage certificate. Well, this was an exception to the rule, I decided. So I launched into the history of the Bombay family. By the time we got to Reno Leonie's eyes were huge.

"That's pretty wild," she said. "I knew we had rivals, but I didn't realize how, um, bizarre they were." She squinted at the mountains in the distance. "Wow. A private island.

Cool."

"Let's stop here," Paris suggested as he pulled into a nondescript hotel parking lot.

I nodded in agreement and watched as Paris went inside to get a room. He returned in a few minutes with a key, and the three of us made it to the room.

Paris cased the room for security problems, and I looked around. We had nothing. No luggage, no personal belongings. Hell, Leonie didn't even have her purse. But we were still alive. That had to count for something.

Paris immediately called and ordered pizza delivery. Leonie sipped a Diet Coke and watched as I paced the room nervously.

"I don't know who's following us, but I do know that we have to convince the Council that Leonie's not a threat to us," I said more to myself than anyone.

"How can we do that?" Paris asked.

"I don't know. I could go to Santa Muerta and plead her case."

"You can't leave Leonie alone," Paris answered.

"Guys! I'm not exactly helpless, you know,"

Leonie interrupted. "Hello, I have a lot of kills under my belt."