Masterson didn't agree when Hutton called to cancel the job.

"I'm tired of your excuses. You need to stop her before she gets here."

"Or what? You'll tell my mommy?"

"Or recordings of your transactions will be forwarded to the FBI," Masterson snapped.

"You can't do that. You'd be implicating yourself."

"I didn't say 'our' transactions, I said 'yours.' I've kept tabs on you since you first got started in your new trade years ago. What? Did you think I was just going to trust you to vanish and not try to blackmail me?"

Silence.

"Okay. I'll take care of Palladino. But then you and I are long past due for a face-to-face meeting."

"Fine. As long as she doesn't make that court hearing." Masterson hung up.

The sun was coming up the next morning when I finally got a chance to see David again. Hermes hit just north of Colleton Landing, but inside the plant, we barely noticed. Everyone was too busy cleaning up the mess Paul's sabotage had wrecked.

Everyone except me, that was. I had plenty of time to think about the damage I'd done-had I been too greedy, seeing Grandel's job as an easy way out for my family? Too ready to quit because I wanted to go home? What should I have done differently?

Comfort came, of all places, from Yancey. He'd gotten left behind in the evacuation and had spent the night in one of the offices filming a self-documentary of surviving a possible nuclear disaster.

Once the crisis was over, he'd found me sitting on the stairs. I'd been pronounced "clean" of any contamination, but felt anything but.

"Wrong place, wrong time," he said, sinking down beside me and offering me a Snapple left over from the refugees. "You can't blame yourself for that, AJ."

Easy to say. That's the drawback of being a control freak-when things go wrong, you can't help but blame yourself.

"At least your client will be happy," he continued, holding his camera up for me to view his footage. "Give me an hour of editing time and I'll have a piece that will make any investor leap at the opportunity to buy into this technology."

"You mean Morris's technology." I choked a bit on Morris's name. I'd only known him for a day, but his death was still painful. I couldn't stop thinking about his smile-so innocent, all he'd wanted was to save his family. Just like me.

Yancey nodded, looking sad himself, and gave me a hug. Must have meant it, too, because he didn't even try to cop a feel.

When Ty arrived at the plant with David just after sunrise, I was treated to a barrage of questions about the near-disaster, peppered with David's account of what it had been like to ride out the storm at the sheriff's station.

I barely got two words in-just kept hugging my son, embarrassing him in front of the plant workers who had gathered to pay their respects as the emergency crews were finally able to retrieve Morris's body. Everyone stopped and bowed their heads as the metal container holding Morris-identical to the one used for the alligator a day earlier-was rolled out to a waiting van. Even the NRC guy had a tear in his eye.

"You know this would have been a real disaster in a conventional plant," he told me as he followed the container out. "Morris's design saved us all."

"He was a true hero." I shook his hand. He left, and I turned to see Yancey filming. Almost smacked him, but it wasn't worth it.

Owen Grandel didn't show up until Ty and I were transferring my stuff from the wrecked SUV into Ty's Tahoe.

Grandel had brought a gaggle of media types with him. I ducked my head and jumped into the front seat, locking the door, before he could spot me. But that didn't block out the sound of his speech from the front steps. A memorial tribute to his brother, he called it, but it really was a thinly veiled announcement of four new foreign joint venture partners investing in Grandel Reactor Technologies.

Ty loaded Nikki into the back, I checked to make sure David was secure, and we drove away before Grandel finished. The glass dome sparkled in the early morning sunlight, washed clean by the storm. As it flashed in my side view mirror I couldn't help but think of the flash of Morris's smile. That's how I wanted to remember him.

I prayed that I wasn't the only one.

THIRTY-THREE.

David was so exhausted that he slept most of the drive home. But he'd wake every now and then to the warm voices of Ty and his mom talking. About him, about his dad, about when they were kids, about their work-even arguing about Ty bringing David to South Carolina, which started out with both of them talking in that rapid-fire muffled-loud whisper adults think kids can't hear and ended with them holding hands over the center console.

He liked that. A lot.

Closing his eyes as the hum of the tires sang him back into slumber, he decided that sometimes grownups weren't so very smart after all. Otherwise his mom and Ty would have figured things out a long time ago.

After listening to Ty's story about his and David's journey, chasing after some phantom hit man targeting me, I'd been ready to take David and run away to a desert island where Masterson could never find us.

Eventually Ty's logic prevailed, although I was still angry at him for bringing David into all this. But he was right, there really was no one else I could have trusted David with-if Ty had taken him back to Scotia, Masterson might have found some other way to get to him.

Once we finished arguing we started talking, and my jangled nerves smoothed out. For the first time in days, I was able to relax. Something about the hypnotic monotony of the interstate. Or maybe it was the man beside me.

I tried not to think about that. About anything.

We'd just settled into a congenial silence when Ty's phone rang. Elizabeth. I answered. "It's me."

"You would not believe the night I've had," she started, her voice pitched with excitement. I stifled my laugh. "I hope you guys are on your way back, because the judge wants to talk to David in chambers at two."

"I'll tell Ty."

"Tell him the judge wants to hear from him as well-and he'd better be ready to do a bit of tap dancing. Masterson had everyone up in arms, practically accused Ty of kidnapping David."

"He's not in trouble, is he?"

"I think I smoothed most of it. But you all need to get here on time. Don't piss this judge off."

"Okay, thanks." I hung up. "Elizabeth said the judge is expecting David there at two."

Ty inched down on the accelerator. "We should just make it."

"What do we tell the judge about what happened since yesterday?"

"Couldn't we just lie?" David asked from the back seat.

"No!" Ty and I said together. I twisted in my seat to make sure David got the message loud and clear, only to find him grinning.

"Just kidding," he said.

"You're in enough trouble, young man," I lowered my voice to my most fierce mama-bear growl. "You might want to just sit back and be quiet, let the grownups think in peace."

He squinched his nose at me, knowing that I wasn't as angry as I sounded-how could I be? I was so relieved he was okay. And even more worried about what to do about Masterson and this invisible hit man he'd sent.

I mean, really, a hit man? Is this what my life had become, a Tarantino movie cliche?

"I still think we should have gone in separate cars," I told Ty.

"No. We stick together."

There was no way I was about to waltz into that courthouse with a target on my back, a hit man on the loose, and my son in the line of fire.

But I couldn't say that, not with David within hearing distance. Instead I jerked my thumb back at David, rolling my eyes at Ty until he scowled and finally got the message.

"I don't want to risk David being late for his meeting with the judge," I said, covering our real, silent conversation. "Drop me at your place and I can take your truck to the courthouse after I get cleaned up. That way no one will be able to track me."

Ty didn't like my plan. But we had no choice. Neither of us would risk David.

"You get cleaned up at my place," he suggested. "I'll drop David off and come back for you."

I knew what he was feeling-wanting to be in two places at once. I'd felt that way my entire time in South Carolina.

"No." Ty was the best person to keep David safe. "You stay with David."

He gripped the steering wheel tighter but grudgingly nodded.

"What did you tell your boss when you talked with him this morning?" I asked, glad to change the subject.

"Just that I found David hidden in my vehicle and that it was late, he was asleep-which he was at the time-and I'd make sure he got to court on time."

"Pretty much the truth, then."

"Except for the part about being five hundred miles away in the middle of a hurricane."

David popped his head forward between the seats. "Why can't we tell the judge about what I heard Mr. Masterson say on the phone? Can't you just arrest him? He's a bad man, shouldn't he go to jail?"

It occurred to me that David read way too many books that had happy endings. After everything he'd been through in his real life, he knew that good guys didn't always win. Yet somehow, he still believed that we-me and Ty-could make the world right again.

I only wished I was up to the job-I never, ever wanted David to feel powerless like he had been when he'd seen his dad killed. I wanted him to believe in a world where justice did triumph, where everyday folks like me and Ty could be heroes. Where men like Masterson got what they deserved.

"We have no proof," Ty finally said the words aloud.

David flopped back into his seat. "I thought that's what you'd say. And nobody would believe a kid like me, right?"

"It's not that they wouldn't believe you," Ty continued, somehow knowing just the right thing to say. "It's that our legal system requires more evidence than only what one person says before they send someone to jail. Otherwise anyone could say anything about anyone and lie, right?"

"Yeah, I guess." David blew out his breath. "So, what do I tell the judge? He'll ask me why I ran away and if I tell him the truth about what happened, Ty will get in trouble."

I had little faith in the legal system to give us justice. And whatever happened today would decide the fate of my family. But I couldn't ask David to lie.

I squeezed Ty's arm. His muscles tensed enough to stretch the seams of his shirt sleeve. "I know how much your job means to you. But he has to tell the truth."

Ty nodded. "Of course he does." Then he did that half-joking, half-serious lop-sided grin of his. "Isn't that what I said like an hour ago? Trust me. It'll be fine."

"Yeah, Mom. You should just listen to Ty. He knows what he's doing."

Nikki made a sound of agreement-or maybe she was simply happy because David had found a good spot to scratch between her ears. But I knew when I was out-ranked and out-numbered. Even if I had a very bad feeling. Not because I didn't trust Ty and David with the fate of my family, but because there wasn't one damn thing I could do about it.

I was the one powerless. And I didn't like that at all.

Ty and David dropped his mom off at Ty's cabin up the mountain behind Ty's mother's house. Ty hadn't wanted to leave her, but she'd out-stubborned him as usual.

"The hit man is five hundred miles away-how could he know where I am?" she'd argued. "You just concentrate on getting David to the judge on time. Don't worry, I'll be right behind you."

David thought they might kiss through Ty's open driver's window, there was a strange moment where they both seemed to want to, but it passed and Ty pulled out of the drive once Mom was inside with the door locked.

As much as David wanted them to stay together, he was glad to have a few minutes alone with Ty.

On the way to the courthouse David tried his best to straighten the creases from his clothes. At least he'd be walking into the judge's chambers on his crutches instead of sitting in his wheelchair. He wanted the judge to see him as someone worth listening to, not just a little kid dependent on others.

"What's he going to ask me?"

"Probably just what it's like living with your mom, how you like it here compared to D.C., stuff like that."

"He'll ask me about D.C.?"

"He might. Why, is that a problem?" Ty glanced back in the mirror.

David swallowed. He wasn't supposed to know about their being evicted or the few nights when his mom had miraculously allowed him to spend the night at a friend's house and he'd realized the next day that she'd slept in the car. She always found a place for them. But sometimes things got a bit scary.

"Is it a lie if you tell part of the truth but not everything you know? Like what if you told what happened but not why it happened?" What if he got his mom in trouble by talking too much? Maybe he shouldn't say anything, act like he was just another dumb kid.

"David. You know the answer to that. You need to tell the truth. No matter what happens, it won't be your fault. And your mother won't ever stop loving you."

Nikki stuck her nose through the grate and licked David's ear. He giggled, feeling better. Then he turned to the other subject on his mind. "You love my mom, don't you?"

Ty made a sputtering noise that turned into a laugh. "You got me. Guilty as charged."

"So how come you two-I mean-"

"Well, when we were kids she and your dad were together. And then she was gone. And then your dad died."

"But what's stopping you from telling her now? You're not chicken, are you?" David knew he was playing dirty with that last, but damn it, he knew Ty could make his mom happy, and wouldn't that be the best thing for everyone?

Because if David had both a mother and a father, no judge could separate their family and neither could Mr. Masterson.

It was so very simple. And obvious. Why couldn't the grownups see that?

To his surprise, Ty didn't answer or make a joke of it. Instead he grew thoughtful, gave a little nod. "You know what? I think I am chicken. Sometimes when you want something so bad for so long, it's easier to let it slip away than to reach out and grab it."

David leaned forward, enjoying this change in the power balance. Here he was, giving advice to a smart guy like Ty.