She was certain her mother would answer before the black cordless on the table at the side of her bed even had a chance to ring. She would be lying there in her bed, wide-awake and worrying about her youngest daughter's whereabouts. Nicole had never stayed out all night before. Even when she was living with Danielle, she usually called home every evening before bedtime so her mother could relax, knowing she was okay.

But for the first time in twelve years, Nicole was developing an insight into her mother's neuroses and overprotective worry about her daughters. The vague suspicions bouncing about since her return from Africa were slowly coming together into a pattern that began to make sense.

Dorothy Kennedy knew about the existence of the stocks and cash. She might not know where they'd been hidden for the past decade, but Nicole now realized her mother wasn't just paranoid or delusional. Her mother had feared someday someone would come looking for the things in the safe deposit box. It was why she'd always been so overprotective, constantly worried about her and Liz's safety.

But where was she now?

The phone rang until finally the robotic female voice programmed into the answering machine picked up. Nicole hung up without leaving a message and called back twice just to be sure. There was still no answer. It wasn't like her mother. Nicole hoped that she had taken a sleeping pill and fallen asleep on the couch in the den. But how likely was that if her daughter hadn't come home yet?

Kira had claimed Rhyse Taylor was on his way. Had he already been to the house? Was that why her mother wasn't picking up the phone?

She chewed at her bottom lip, tasting sugary remnants of the frosting as she pushed the keys of the phone, still amazed that after all this time she could remember the number. "I need your help," she said when a familiar feminine voice she hadn't heard in over six months answered the phone groggily.

Silence. And then, "You stood me up."

"I didn't intend to, Danielle. I just hadn't planned on being kidnapped yesterday afternoon."

"Kidnapped?" Danielle sounded instantly alert. Nicole pictured her sitting up erect in bed, her long, wheat-colored hair tousled and uncombed. Was her mother somewhere nearby, hog-tied to a chair and waiting for rescue?

"I escaped-I had to steal a car, but I don't have it anymore. It's a really long story and your phone might be tapped. Can you come get me?"

Danielle didn't seem the slightest bit put out by the fact she was calling her at three thirty in the morning, nor did she seem to be taken aback at the possibility that her phone line might be tapped, Nicole's claim of being kidnapped, or the fact that she had stolen a car in order to escape.

Danielle didn't seem to have any doubts at all about this strange call at almost four in the morning.

Instead, after another long pause, Danielle asked, "Where are you?"

Chapter Nineteen.

Nicole managed to rouse herself from bed after only four hours of a very restless sleep interrupted by bouts of paranoia and anxiety about her mother. Several times throughout her brief slumber, she found herself wide-awake, laying in wait, listening for stealthily placed footsteps on the cement outside her door or pondering the revving of a car motor in the distance. Now tired and anxious, she stared up at the ceiling's water stains, wondering if she was really there-in a muggy motel room in the middle of the boonies, yanked from her quiet existence and thrown into the center of an international conspiracy involving the murder of her own father.

With her eyes closed, she could pretend she was deep in the throes of some wild dream.

But then she'd open her eyes.

While eating the remaining chocolate cake she'd been too sleepy to finish last night, she called both her mother's landline and cell. There was no answer at either number. She called her sister, but that too went right into voicemail. It was Thursday morning. It was highly unusual for her sister to have her phone off. Liz didn't have a job. She usually woke late and spent the hours when she wasn't shopping either talking or texting.

Ted.

She should call Liz's husband. Except the only way to get his cell number would be to power up her own, and that might mean the possibility of Bogie being able to trace her location. She could call Ted at the insurance firm where he worked, but she couldn't remember the name of the company.

From the prepaid disposable, she dialed into her own cell phone's voicemail to check if she had any messages, perhaps from a hospital. There weren't any, and she wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing.

She pushed aside her apprehension the best she could. Taking a hot shower helped her mood some. After putting the same wrinkled clothing she'd worn the day before back on, she stood looking out of the room's dingy window from behind a panel of musty gold curtain, scanning the vacant parking lot and wooded perimeter. Part of her was caught up worrying about her mother, and now her sister, and another part of her was still back at the house with Kira, watching her darkly fringed lashes flutter open as the morning sun streamed its warm light onto her far-too-pretty face, sensing her confusion when she felt the cold metal encircling her wrist, imagining her sudden anger staining her high cheekbones a dull red as she read the note on the table.

A car door slammed, jolting Nicole from her reveries.

It was Danielle's blue Ford Escape.

She let the curtains fall back into place, ran nervously to the door, and pulled it open. The minty scent of toothpaste on her breath mingled with the fragrant perfume of the June morning, replacing the mildewed smells of the motel room. The storm had chased away the heat wave.

"I wasn't sure you'd come."

"You asked me for my help." Danielle stopped mid-pace, her car keys in one hand as she tossed Nicole the T-shirt she'd been carrying with the other. "And a clean shirt."

"Thanks." Nicole caught the garment. "Let me change real quick." She receded into the motel room, leaving the door open as an invitation to come inside. Alone in the tiny bathroom, she released a tight, drawn breath.

Now what? Am I really going to jump into a car with the daughter of the man who may have killed my father? What was I thinking to call her?

All her false bravado from the previous night seemed to have disappeared with the appearance of Danielle's Escape. While removing her blouse and pulling on the borrowed Old Navy flag-emblazoned navy tee, she caught sight of her reflection in the cracked mirror over the rust-stained sink. It made her pause.

"Your best friend is often in the mirror."

What the h.e.l.l did it mean? Maybe it wasn't the words that were important. Maybe it was the significance of the Chinese stocks with a Chinese fortune. No, she shook her head, looking at her face, that conclusion doesn't feel right.

Boy, I'm looking haggard, she thought with an internal wince. The lack of food and sleep were definitely taking their toll. The only makeup she had with her was an old stick of black eyeliner-and all it had done was emphasize the thin streaks of red marring the whites of her eyeb.a.l.l.s.

She closed her eyes, gripped the sink, and took a deep, calming breath. The girl waiting for her in the other room was someone she'd lived with for four months. They'd shared shampoo, bars of soap, meals, and what Nicole had thought at the time was a pretty solid friendship. Danielle hadn't been the one responsible for the relationship coming to an end. Yes, there had been that awkward kiss in the middle of the night, but it was Nicole who ran away, who refused to answer Danielle's calls and e-mails.

And all because she'd still been ducking and hiding, not yet ready to admit to herself what Danielle had already known for a while-Nicole had been attracted to her roommate.

"Let's just cut to the chase," Nicole said, surprised at how even and calm her voice sounded as she walked out of the bathroom to face Danielle. Her fear for her mother had inspired her to be braver. "I know everything."

Danielle was still standing in the doorway, her willowy form silhouetted by the day's bright sunshine behind her, car keys tinkling together as they dangled from her fidgeting fingers. She'd had at least four inches of her long, thick pecan-colored hair trimmed off since Nicole had last seen her in December. Danielle looked ready for a picnic or some other carefree activity dressed in a white tank, blue cotton shorts, and white canvas sneakers. She looked like she hadn't a care in the world, and for a second Nicole doubted herself.

Maybe it was all just part of Kira's mind games, she thought as she looked at her former roommate.

"Good." Danielle remained motionless, but her being seemed somehow lighter and relaxed. Her features were no longer pinched. "Believe it or not, I'm relieved. We can talk about this here or in my car on the drive to the airport. My father's flight lands in two hours. I think we both need to hear what he has to say." So that much of what Kira had claimed was actually true. Rhyse Taylor was coming. She felt relief flood through her rather than fear of what his coming meant.

If Rhyse Taylor was sailing through the air thirty-six thousand feet above them, that meant he didn't have her mother captive somewhere.

"Well?" Danielle urged. "Come on, we have to hurry."

Nicole watched her suspiciously. The clock is ticking.

Time running out seemed the common thread linking all the parties involved in this strange convergence that she found herself directly in the center of.

Kira would probably be finding the Lexus soon-it wouldn't be hard to track, after all. Gladys would be questioned, and soon Sally's sausage-like fingers would be pointing the way to room 423.

"Let's go," she said, following Danielle out of the room and shutting the door behind her.

Without a word, Danielle reprogrammed the coordinates of the GPS unit suctioned to her windshield from the motel's address to those of Dulles International Airport. Before long, they were driving past Gladys's truck stop to get to the interstate. Nicole had antic.i.p.ated the parking lot would be littered with cop cars and crime-scene tape around the Lexus, but everything looked remarkably normal-no different than when she had left it only a few hours earlier. Big-rig drivers and blue-collar workers were busy injecting gas into their tanks and caffeine into their bellies. But Kira's sleek sedan wasn't where she'd left it-in fact, it was nowhere to be seen. As the Escape went down the on-ramp, Nicole nervously looked into the mirror mounted on her side of the car, almost expecting to see the front end of the Lexus accelerating toward them, but there was nothing there.

"I heard you were in Africa for the summer," Danielle finally said a few minutes later as she pulled onto the highway.

"And I heard you've been looking for something." Nicole turned slightly to study the effect of her words, but Danielle's face remained carefully blank. "Is it true, Danielle? Was our friendship-was all of it, just a lie?"

"It started out that way," Danielle confessed, not taking her hazel eyes from the road. "There's no way to say this without it sounding really bad, but I can explain-if you'll let me."

"I'm listening."

The interior of the Escape was unnaturally quiet. No radio played in the background to break the tension. Just the whirring of cars as they sped past, the drone of the air-conditioning, and the rhythmic thumping of the Ford's big Michelin tires pounding the asphalt as the vehicle traveled east.

"I didn't have much choice," Danielle finally a.s.serted weakly. "I had to do as I was told. She wanted the stocks, and I truly believe she was willing to do anything to get her hands on them."

Nicole felt the blood drain from her face. She.

"Yeah, the stocks your father hid before his death. I know all about them, Nicole. They're issued in bearer form, which means that physical possession of the certificates is the sole evidence of ownership. You found them, didn't you?"

Nicole turned her head away to look out the pa.s.senger window in case her face betrayed her reaction to Danielle's words. After all, no one knew for certain what she'd actually discovered inside that bank vault yesterday. She tried focusing on the landscape pa.s.sing by the car windows-the hotels, the industrial parks, the occasional rooftops marking the entrance of a subdivision built close to the noise of the highway, but she didn't see any of it.

All she could see were the official-looking doc.u.ments under the manila envelope.

"It was my job to find them," Danielle's fingers tightened around the steering wheel, the knuckles turning white, "or at least a clue as to where they were hidden, before you inevitably stumbled upon them."

"Who the h.e.l.l are you?" Nicole spat the words out angrily. She felt violated. She'd trusted Danielle, thought they were friends. It had all been a lie. "Who the h.e.l.l are you working for?"

"I told you this was going to sound bad, but let me finish before you freak out, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever." Nicole felt ill, sick to her stomach. She hadn't wanted to believe Kira's stories about Danielle-but she'd been right.

Nicole had never felt so betrayed and deceived in her life.

Chapter Twenty.

"Whenever you'd invite me to spend a weekend with you at your mother's house, I would wait until you and your mom fell asleep, and then I'd spend the entire night digging through desk drawers, old letters, mail. I searched everything you owned looking for something, anything, that would tell me where your father might have hidden the stocks: books, photographs, old diaries. Please don't look at me like that," Danielle pleaded, unwilling to glance over and meet Nicole's eyes. "I'm a p.a.w.n in all of this, just like you. If I didn't cooperate, she said they were going to hurt him."

She again. Nicole wanted to ask the name of this she but couldn't bear the thought of hearing Danielle say Kira's name out loud.

"Him?" she questioned instead.

The Escape swerved slightly toward the rumble strips along the shoulder of the highway, sending vibrations reverberating through the car's metal frame. "My father. The three of us-we've all become involved in something very dangerous."

Nicole searched Danielle's features, looking for some telltale sign that she was lying, but there was sincerity in her voice and her manner looked too authentic to be contrived. She felt her heart softening.

"I was living in Miami. I wasn't really a student at your school. I enrolled in one evening cla.s.s just so I could get the lay of the land, know my way around the campus."

"But why?" Nicole asked, her mouth dry. "Why all these lies?"

"Haven't you been listening, Nicole? For credibility, to gain your trust-so I could find the d.a.m.ned stocks and save my father." She flipped on her turn signal and headed for the exit for Dulles Airport. "Last summer, I received a call on my cell. It was some woman claiming my father would be hurt if I didn't do exactly as she said. I hung up, thinking it was a prank. She called back. I just kept hanging up on her. And then one night later that week when I returned home to my apartment, a man was waiting there for me. He wasn't big, but he was scary in a street-thug sort of way. He was just sitting there on my couch watching my television." Her face had gone pale. "He didn't say a word, just handed me a piece of paper with a phone number on it and walked out my door. I've never been so scared in my life. If he could get into my locked apartment, I wasn't safe anywhere. Of course, I immediately called the number, and the woman's voice was the same as the one I'd hung up on. She never told me her name-she just said that my father had engaged in some very questionable behavior while working for the military, done things that could be considered treasonous, and if I didn't want him imprisoned for the rest of his life, I should do as I was told. At first, I was skeptical, but she knew too many things about my family-things an outsider would never know. I only wanted to protect my father-you would have done the same," she added defensively.

"Weren't you curious about what things your father may have done?" Nicole asked.

"I know my father is no saint." Danielle's gaze ricocheted back and forth from the traffic to Nicole. "But he's my father and I love him. And this woman told me you and your family probably didn't even know the stocks existed, so no harm, no foul, right? A clue to their possible whereabouts would most likely be right in plain sight and all I had to do was find it, whatever the heck it was. She promised me no one would be hurt if everything went as planned. After many sleepless nights spent snooping through your stuff, I didn't find a d.a.m.ned thing. And then, you and I weren't even talking." Remembering the cause of their conflict, that kiss over Thanksgiving break, they both briefly turned their heads from one another. "I kept thinking she would send another one of her goons after me, punish me for my failure. Remembering that greasy guy waiting for me on my couch, I didn't go back to Miami. I rented a place in Reston and I hid. It was really more like waiting than hiding. Days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. I called my father almost every day to ensure he was okay, that no one had hurt him. But it was as if I had dreamt the whole crazy experience. Nothing happened. Nicole," her voice was shaky, "I wanted to tell you the truth, to warn you, but you wouldn't return my calls or e-mails. I was just putting my life back together when I got your voicemail the other day. I realized something must have happened for you to just call me out of the blue like that, especially when I thought you were teaching in Africa. I didn't know what to do. I called my father when you didn't show up to meet with me last night. I finally broke down and told him everything. That's why he's flying up from his base in Florida."

They were pulling into the airport's hourly parking lot. Danielle lowered her window and grabbed a stamped ticket from the automated machine. "So tell me about your kidnapping. What happened? Did they hurt you?"

Nicole gave her a brief overview of her recent adventures as they walked to the main terminal. She didn't give too many details, just the relevant pieces of her story from the moment she'd landed in Nairobi to her abduction the previous afternoon, all the while trying to sort through Kira's involvement in her mind and contemplating the gruesome reality of coming face-to-face with Rhyse Taylor-who might have killed her father.

Then again, everything Kira had told her could have been lies.

Kira Anthony claimed to work for the government yet possessed outrageously expensive tastes that couldn't be satisfied on a civil servant's salary. The expensive state-of-the-art Lexus and the palatial three-story house built on prime real estate just outside of DC were well beyond the means of any government employee, even at the highest federal pay grade. Add in the hijacking in Kenya, attempts to blackmail both Danielle and her mother, and yesterday's kidnapping-and it made absolutely no sense that any federal agent, let alone agency, would go to such lengths to achieve their end. Even if they played the "suspected terrorist" card, they wouldn't have taken her to a palatial estate in the country for an interrogation. So, it stood to reason that she was the criminal architect behind all of this intrigue. Yet Nicole's heart told her otherwise. Did she dare trust her instincts despite the evidence to the contrary? She ran a finger over her bottom lip, remembering the feel of Kira's mouth upon her own. Love could make one lose every ounce of common sense, couldn't it?

Maybe.

But if Kira was the one telling the truth, then Danielle was lying-and she didn't seem like she was being untruthful. The terror in her voice had been too real.

"We have to go to the police," she said as they pa.s.sed a Starbucks. She was hungry.

"Police?" Danielle's voice was high-pitched, and she looked at Nicole as if she'd completely lost her mind. "What are you talking about? We can't involve the police!" They maneuvered past a slow-moving group of j.a.panese tourists. "This woman has access to the system. There's probably an all-points bulletin out on you right now for something far more serious than stealing a car. Go to the police and our fates are sealed."

"What do you suggest? We can't run forever. And if this woman," a cloudy image of Kira's beautiful face drifted into her mind, "tried to get to you through your father, something tells me she may try to do the same with my mother. If she hasn't already."

"He said he wasn't checking any bags," Danielle murmured absently without acknowledging Nicole's concern. "Let's wait by the shuttle." Her hazel eyes darted from a wall of electronic screens listing arrivals and departures to a security checkpoint manned by three TSA agents. "His plane landed early, so he should be here." She jumped and began waving her hand excitedly. "Dad, over here!" she shouted to a tall, clean-shaven man in his late fifties exiting one of the trains.

Rhyse Taylor had broad shoulders and a closely cropped head of gray hair. His starched khakis were perfectly creased and a large green canvas duffel was tucked under one beefy arm. Everything about the man screamed military. Nicole looked from father to daughter. The two looked nothing alike.

"You're Luke's daughter, aren't you?"

Nicole nodded, shocked by the contempt and anger in the man's manner. She'd been contemplating how she was going to rebuff his handshake. The thought of touching the hand that might have played a role in her father's murder had filled her with revulsion. Apparently there'd been no need to be concerned.

"Well, you're lucky," the colonel growled through a mouthful of bright, unnaturally white teeth, "because if anything had happened to Danielle, I would have held you personally responsible."

"Dad, please!" Danielle was visibly upset and confused by her father's outburst. "Nicole is just as much a victim in this insanity as I am."

"I'm sorry." He was instantly contrite, embarra.s.sed. He attempted to comb the short hairs on his head with a rough, calloused hand. "It's-well, terrifying to get a phone call from your only child, hear the fear in her voice and know that you're over a thousand miles away and there's little you can do to help her."

"Dad, I'm okay." Danielle affectionately squeezed her father's forearm. The crowd around them grew thicker as pa.s.sengers claimed their luggage and surrounded them on their way to the shuttles, parking lots, and busses.

"Let's find a restaurant," she added, raising her voice to be heard over the tumult. "We can grab something to eat and talk there."

The colonel agreed with a curt dip of his square head. Nicole followed behind, not knowing what to make of Rhyse Taylor. Was he her father's killer, or had that all been part of Kira's schemes and lies? She didn't know what to think anymore.