Conrad opened the door on the right and gestured for me to enter in front of him.

It was a nice apartment, furnished with an interesting collection of modern and antique pieces. They almost looked like castoffs from several other apartments. I walked in and ran my hands over the wood inlay on the edge of a high boy. It reminded me a little of a china cupboard that once stood in the dining room of the house where I grew up.

"Interesting," Conrad said, dropping my bag as he brushed past me. "Not quite what I expected."

"What did you expect?"

He shrugged. "Rawn has interesting tastes. His house has a pretty modern twist to it. But this..."

"It's like remnants from his parents' house."

Conrad nodded. "Something like that."

He crossed to the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards like he was taking an inventory. I was more content to look at the rest of the furniture. I was impressed by the eighteenth century sideboard, but less impressed with the fifty dollar coffee table that looked as though it was about to fall over. The couch was nice, a modern, microfiber-covered sectional. And, of course, the sixty-inch, flat-screen television hanging on the wall.

I wondered what the apartment next door looked like.

"Hey," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Why does Rawn have a house and an apartment?"

Conrad stuck his head around the kitchen door. "He's rich. Rich guys do funny things."

"Like you? Do you have more than one home?"

"Nope...well, unless you count a vacation house as another home."

"You have a vacation house?"

"In Corpus Christi."

"Must be nice," I said, kind of under my breath, as I continued my little tour of the apartment. There wasn't much more to it. Beyond the living room was a short hallway that led to a bedroom that contained only a queen-sized bed and a low dresser. And a bathroom. I made my way back to the kitchen and settled on a barstool that was set beside the long breakfast bar to watch Conrad pull vegetables, fruit, and other items from the refrigerator.

"What are you doing?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

I wasn't sure I could eat. My stomach was still tied in knots as I tried not to think about Madison and what might be happening at my grandmother's house in that moment. But, as I watched him chop up onions and bell peppers and garlic cloves, I felt my stomach rumble. I hadn't had a chance to run over to the twenty-four hour diner near my grandmother's house that morning as I usually did. And it all smelled so good.

"Where did you learn to cook?"

Conrad chuckled, a little bit of color flooding his tan face. "You're going to think it's a pick-up line or something."

"Try me."

He set down the knife he had been holding and turned toward me. He cleared his throat. "So, I was dating this girl in college and she had a thing for Emeril Lagasse-you know, the chef?" When I nodded, he continued. "I thought it would make her happy if I signed us up for a couple of classes at the community center, basic cooking classes. This girl-she couldn't boil water. It turned out that I had an aptitude for it and she didn't. We broke up and I enrolled in a culinary school."

"Seriously?"

He inclined his head slightly.

"You learned to cook for a girl, but you didn't get the girl."

"I met Aurora a year later, so I guess it worked out."

I studied his face for a minute, doing a little bit of math in my head. "Aurora's why you moved out here."

"She is."

"You do a lot of things for the women in your life."

He chuckled again, as he turned back to his sauteing vegetables, the sound smooth and deep, like melted chocolate.

"I guess I do."

"How did you end up in New Orleans?"

A little tension came into his shoulders-I could see it in the way his thin suit jacket shifted across his back. He didn't answer right away, just kept stirring around those vegetables. Then he dumped some liquid-I thought it was chicken broth-over them, causing steam to well up and turn into something of a mushroom cloud over his head. After he added a cup of rice and some fluid, he covered the pan and finally came over to stand on the other side of the breakfast bar.

"I attended Tulane for a while," he said.

"Before or after culinary school?"

"After." He pressed his hands to the top of the counter, staring down at them as though all the secrets of the world were hidden underneath. "I studied business. One summer, Aurora came down to take a few business classes, and we met. We couldn't get enough of each other. When she returned to Portland, I followed."

"Love at first sight."

"Yeah."

He turned back to the stove, lifting the lid on his concoction, the steam rushing out in a thick cloud.

"Einstein...I mean Aurora-"

"It's okay. I know about the nickname."

It was my turn to blush. I dragged my fingers through my hair, disrupting the soft waves that had settled there.

"She's a nice lady."

"She's absentminded," Conrad said, glancing over his shoulder at me. "I know, probably better than anyone. She gets so involved in her work that it takes over everything. She even forgot she was married a few times."

He said it so casually that it almost seemed like an afterthought, but I could hear the pain that was buried deep in his voice.

"Sorry."

He shrugged. "No one's perfect."

"No one deserves to be cheated on, either."

Conrad returned to the refrigerator, pulling a package of chicken breasts out of the freezer compartment and opening it over the built-in grill on the stovetop.

"I guess I know what brought you to Portland." He looked almost sheepish, as he glanced at me over his shoulder. "Do you like it here?"

I shrugged. "It's safe. At least..."-my thoughts moved to Madison again-"...it was."

"I really don't think that what's going on with Madison has anything to do with you, or your uncle."

I climbed off the stool and walked over to the tall windows at the back of the room. They looked down on the Columbia River, a view that would have been breathtaking under almost any other circumstances. For me, it was just a reminder of another place, another time, and the sequence of events that led to my uncle's demise and my life on the run.

It started with water rushing in under the doors, flooding rooms filled with Oriental rugs, antique high boys, and unique artwork. And it ended...it really hadn't ended yet, had it?

"Mellissa," Conrad said, the sound of my name on his lips causing a warmth to spread from the center of my chest to my scalp. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

"I'm not upset. I'm just worried about my friend."

He moved up behind me and grasped my upper arms. "Rawn is a force to be reckoned with when he sets his mind on something. He will find her."

"And if he doesn't? What if they-"

"They don't want to hurt her. If that was their goal, they wouldn't have bothered to abduct her." He forced me to turn around. "This is just about some company wanting the specs for the 3D telescope, or some other product Cepheus is in the middle of developing."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Because there have been threats against the employees of Cepheus before."

That information allowed my stiffened spine to relax a little. The knot in my stomach, too. I nodded briefly, suddenly aware of just how close Conrad was standing. And how wonderful he smelled.

And then I remembered something else he said the night we first met, that night after the star party: "Your uncle screwed me over. I should call Johnny Duprey right now and tell him where you are."

Madison "Who are you?"

I was sitting in a folding chair, one of those cheap ones that schools use for parent seating at assemblies. My hands were tied behind my back, my ankles now strapped to the legs of the chair. The gag and blindfold were gone. A tall man, different from the one who had grabbed me at the outlet mall, was leaning close to me, his spittle washing over my face every time he spoke.

"Answer me, damn it!"

"Who do you think I am?" I finally asked.

And was rewarded with a sound slap across the face.

"Madison," another voice, a disembodied one that seemed somewhat familiar, came from the darkness behind the first man. "Her name is Madison."

"Madison." The first man stared into my face for a long moment, and then he began to laugh. "Well, I'll be damned. You fucking idiots grabbed the wrong girl, but you also managed to save yourselves by grabbing a bigger fish. Do you know who this is?"

No one answered, if there was anyone else in the dark room to speak.

"This," the man drew out on a long, slow breath, "is Rawn Jackman's new assistant." He laughed again. "This, my friends, is dynamite."

He was still laughing, as he pressed the gag back into my mouth.

What did he mean, dynamite?

Chapter Four.

Mellissa I curled up on the couch and flipped through the channels on the television. Rawn had thought of everything, including all the premium channels on the cable package. I settled on The Notebook, even though I'd seen it more than a dozen times before. I loved Ryan Gosling.

I could hear Conrad speaking on the phone. He'd stepped out into the hallway for privacy, but he'd left the door open. I caught a few words here and there ("police...come in...can wait..."), but I wasn't entirely sure who he was talking to or what they were discussing. I hoped it was Rawn. And I hoped he was telling Conrad they had found Madison.

I wondered how Annie was holding up. And if Madison's parents had been informed of her abduction just yet.

After a few minutes, I turned off the television and tossed the remote onto the coffee table. I couldn't just sit here while my friend was missing. I grabbed my cellphone and headed for the door.

"Where do you think you're going?" Conrad asked as I jammed my finger against the elevator button.

"To check on Annie."

"I don't think that's a good idea."

"I can't just sit here and do nothing."

"But you can't go running off half-cocked, either." Conrad stormed up behind me and grabbed my arm just as the elevator opened. "We don't know who's out there looking for you."

"Don't we?"

His grip on my arm tightened painfully. "I didn't call Johnny."

"How do I know that? How do I know it isn't his guys that have Madison right now?"

"Because I said so."

"And I'm supposed to just take your word for it?"

"Yes."

Conrad pulled me around, slamming my back up against the wall as the elevator doors slammed shut beside us. He moved into me, thrusting his knee between my legs and pressing himself so close to me that every breath he exhaled, I breathed in.

"Why should I trust you?"