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  “Your mother is worried—” he said again.

  “Because I said I couldn’t come home for Christmas? Jeez!” She tossed her hands in the air, then scratched the back of her head as if she were still confused.

  “Because,” Patrick continued, “she’s left a dozen messages and you haven’t called her back. And your employer said you took vacation time.”

  “I’m thirty-two years old and my mother is sending a cop after me because I don’t answer my phone.”

  “I’m not a cop anymore.”

  “Tell her I’m fine. Thank you. Good-bye.”

  Elle seemed agitated, over and beyond her irritation that Patrick had been in her apartment.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “What’s wrong?”

  “Why do you do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Deflect. I ask questions. You don’t answer them.”

  “I have a lot going on, Patrick.” She spread her arms wide and spun in a circle. “Take a good look. Tell my mother I’m alive and well.”

  “Call her.”

  “I will.”

  “Now.”

  She scrunched up her nose. “I haven’t seen you in, like, ten years, and you break into my apartment and order me to call my mother?” She laughed, but it sounded strained.

  Patrick didn’t want to get in the middle of a family squabble, because he was getting the distinct impression that this was mostly about family, and family—even a close-knit clan like the Kincaids or the Santanas—could drive anyone crazy.

  When she realized that he was serious and that she was still holding her phone, she made a production of punching the buttons. A moment later Patrick could hear a loud “Gabrielle!” on the other end of the line.

  “Mama, I can’t believe you sent Patrick Kincaid to track me down. I am so embarrassed!”

  She didn’t look embarrassed; she looked pissed.

  “I told you, I have to work. It’s an important case, I can’t take time off.”

  Patrick raised his eyebrows, but Elle wasn’t paying attention. She listened to her mother talk, then both of them started speaking rapidly in Spanish. Patrick wasn’t as fluent in the language as his younger sister, but he’d been raised by a Cuban mother and had a basic understanding. The conversation was rapidly deteriorating as Elle explained why she had to spend Christmas preparing for a case, and why it was important, and that she couldn’t do it in San Diego because she needed access to her law office.

  And the entire time, Patrick had the strong impression that she was lying.

  “I love you, too, Mama. I’m sorry—I’ll visit as soon as I can. I know it’s not the same as Christmas—I know it’s been two years—Mama, please, I feel bad already. Yes. I promise.” She hung up. “There,” she said to Patrick. “Satisfied?”

  “I did my job,” he said. “But why did you lie to your mother?”

  “What?” She blinked rapidly. She was an awful liar.

  “Your law firm said you were on vacation.”

  “I don’t need to explain myself to you—look, Patrick, I really have to go.”

  “You just got home.”

  “Because I needed to get some things.”

  The buzzer rang and Elle briefly looked like a deer caught in headlights. She ran to her front door and pressed a button on the panel. A screen with a black-and-white image popped up. An Asian woman in jeans and a long wool coat was at the door. She rang the buzzer again.

  “Shit, what’s she doing here?” Elle backed away from the door as if it were about to attack.

  “Who is she?”

  “A social worker. Damn, now I have to wait until she leaves. This is the worst day in my life!”

  Patrick knew he was going to regret it, but he said, “Can I help?”

  “No!”

  “What does she want?”

  “Something I can’t give her.” Her cell phone rang and Elle looked at it. “She’s calling me now. Dammit!” She then glanced at Patrick and said, “Tell her we’re not here.”

  “We?”

  “She’s going to ask about Kami. Tell her Kami and I went out and you don’t know when we’ll be back. Look, I can’t lie to her, but you can!” She tossed Patrick her phone.

  Skeptical, and wholly uncomfortable with what Elle was asking him to do, he answered the phone. “Santana residence.”

  “Is Elle Santana there?”

  “I’m sorry, who’s calling?”

  “Sandy Chin, I need to come up.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not supposed to let anyone inside when Gabrielle isn’t home.”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “Sandy Chin. I’m with the San Francisco Department of Child Welfare. I need to inspect the apartment, and Ms. Santana has been avoiding me. Where’s Kami?”

  Elle had leaned close to him to hear both sides of the conversation better. Sandy Chin had a much softer voice than Elle’s mother.

  “Not here, either.”

  “And you are?”

  “A friend.”

  “Ms. Santana didn’t inform us that a man was living with her.”

  “I’m just visiting.”

  “Tell Ms. Santana that I expect to hear from her by ten P.M., or Kami will be placed in custody until the hearing.” She cut off the call.

  Patrick had no idea what that conversation was about. “Elle, what just happened?”

  She glanced at her watch, then took her phone back from Patrick. “I have two hours to find Kami. I’ve been looking for her since noon.”

  “Who’s Kami?”

  “A fifteen-year-old who’s in deep trouble and will be in deeper trouble if she doesn’t show up in court Wednesday morning. Something spooked her when I went out for groceries. She wouldn’t just leave. She knows how important this is!”

  Elle ran into the kitchen, opened the freezer, and removed a can of coffee. But there was no coffee inside—only money. Roughly a thousand dollars in fives, tens, and twenties.

  “I’ve never known anyone who keeps money in her freezer.”

  “My mom,” she said. She counted out three hundred dollars, divided it between two different pockets, then put the can back. She ran upstairs and came back a minute later with a bag filled with clothes, and a heavy jacket with a hole in the elbow. “Thanks for covering with Sandy.”

  Patrick was going to regret this. He said, “Let me help.”

  She stared at him as if surprised by the offer. “Don’t you have someplace to be?”

  “My flight doesn’t leave until tomorrow.”

  “It’s nice of you, but no one is going to trust you. You look—well, I know you’re not a cop anymore, but you look like one. I know where Kami hangs out. They don’t like cops. Especially cops who dress like rich kids from a prep school.”

  Patrick glanced down at his khaki Dockers and leather loafers. Rich prep school kid? Really?

  He said, “You’ve been looking for her all day and couldn’t find her.”

  “I have to convince the right people that they can trust me.” She didn’t sound optimistic, just determined.

  “You need help. I have the time. And the training.”

  Her expression showed her inner battle as much as her fidgeting. The woman couldn’t keep still as she shifted her weight and played with a string on her jacket. Finally, she said, “Okay, fine, thanks. But just trust me out there, okay? Don’t do anything, well, coplike.”

  “I’ll try.” They walked out. He motioned to the door. “Aren’t you going to lock it?”

  “Kami has the downstairs door code, if she comes back she needs to be able to get in.” She waved her hand dismissively. “It’s not like I have anything valuable in there, except my computer.”

  They walked down to the lobby. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on with this kid?”

  “There’s nothing to tell. She’s a witness and I need to keep her safe until Wednesday morning.�
��

  Warning bells rang in his head. “A witness? Why aren’t the cops watching her?”

  “Because no one realizes that she could be in danger. They wanted to ‘protect’ her by putting her in juvenile hall, and that’s exactly where Lorenzo’s crew could get to her. I promised the judge that she’d be in court on Wednesday morning to testify—it’s required for her plea agreement—and everything was going great until this afternoon. I gave her a phone, but she’s not answering it.” Elle turned down a hallway opposite the front entrance and through a door marked FIRE EXIT. No alarms went off. “It’s disabled,” she said dismissively. “If Sandy is hanging around, I don’t want her to see me.”

  Patrick realized then that something much, much bigger was going on. “Why not call the police? They can help.”

  She spun around. “Look, you’re going to have to trust me on this. If I tell anyone she ran away, they’ll put a bench warrant out for her and she’ll not only go to jail before she testifies, but her plea deal is off. She’s fifteen. She’s been on and off the streets since she was eleven. I got her a great arrangement, and if she testifies she’ll be put in a group home that can protect her, send her to school, make sure she has a real shot at a future. And that’s why I’m not going to San Diego. Because her hearing is the day after Christmas, and she needs one person around who cares what happens to her.”

  Patrick had a dozen questions: Was Kami a client of hers? What kind of law firm did she work for? Why would she agree to bring a client to live with her? Who was the girl testifying against? Had she left the apartment willingly? Had she been taken?

  Elle led the way to a carport in the building next to hers. “I don’t have my own spot, but my best friend is a flight attendant and she’s gone half the time and lets me park in hers.” She glanced back at Patrick as she headed for her car. “I’m going to retrace my steps, but she’s probably hiding out in the Haight.”

  “The infamous Haight Ashbury?”

  Elle rolled her eyes as she stopped next to an older blue Honda Civic. The city’s salt air hadn’t done the paint any favors. She put the bag of clothes in the backseat, which was packed with blankets, boxes of granola bars, and Gatorade bottles. “Just get in.”

  “Santana!” a voice shouted from behind them.

  Patrick turned and saw two men running toward them.

  “Get in!” She was already turning the key to the ignition before she’d closed her door.

  Patrick did. “More social workers?”

  A gunshot rang out.

  “That’s a warning, bitch!”

  Elle pulled out of the carport and sideswiped one of the guys. He shouted profanities at them and his partner fired another shot, this time at the car. It missed.

  “How did they know where I live?” Elle glanced over her shoulder, eyes wide, knuckles white on the steering wheel. She turned onto Howard from the alley and sped up.

  “Who are they?”

  “I think they work for Richie Lorenzo.”

  “Who the hell is that?” Patrick was getting testy, because he really hated being shot at—especially when he didn’t have his gun.

  “A drug dealer. Kami used to work for him. That’s what got her in trouble with the police.”

  “Is that who she’s testifying against?”

  “No,” Elle said in a tone that made Patrick feel like he’d missed several conversations. But she didn’t clarify as she turned onto another street and started winding through hills.

  “Elle, talk to me! Who is this kid testifying against? Who’s Lorenzo?”

  “He’s a twenty-three-year-old punk who uses runaways to sell his trash.”

  “And the case? The trial?”

  Elle hesitated, then said, “Kami is testifying against a prominent businessman who Lorenzo sometimes works for. The bastard has a teen center over in Dogpatch, an area desperate for revitalization, and a factory a bit south of there, near the old Candlestick Park. He hires kids from the teen center to buy their loyalty. But he’s into serious shit. No one will speak against him. Without Kami, the guy walks.” She bit her lip and glanced at Patrick. Though there were tears in her eyes, her jaw was clenched in anger. “I have to find her, Patrick. I can’t lose another kid to those bastards.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Until Lorenzo’s boys started shooting at them, Elle had planned to get rid of Patrick Kincaid. She’d considered losing him in the streets of San Francisco, an easy enough job for her considering she knew the city and he didn’t. But now? She was scared, and she didn’t like being scared. Not just for herself, but for Kami.

  Elle figured she could protect herself well enough. She put aside the threats Lorenzo had leveled at her when he found out she’d been the one who’d convinced Kami to turn against him and Christopher Lee. It infuriated Elle that Lee received accolades for his good works when he was really a criminal bastard bringing in drugs from overseas. Lorenzo provided Lee with the network of street kids to both buy and sell the poison that ended too often with prison or death. She’d been trying to nail him for over a year.

  A brief, painful memory broke Elle’s concentration. She shook her head, but not before her eyes burned with rage-filled tears she refused to shed.

  Lee was a killer. She knew—in her heart—that he’d killed Doreen, a teenage girl who had learned about his involvement with drug shipments. But Doreen had been buried as a victim of a drug overdose. No one, not even Elle, knew her last name.

  After Doreen was murdered, Elle had snapped and acted without thinking. She regretted confronting Lee without hard proof of his crimes, because at that point she’d lost any chance of turning public sentiment in her favor. Worse, she nearly lost everything she’d fought so hard to earn since she’d become an attorney. She was reprimanded by her boss, ridiculed by the press, and ostracized by her colleagues.

  Elle hadn’t been able to get close to Lee again after her very public verbal attack on the so-called philanthropist. She’d seethed quietly, keeping her nose clean but never ending her search for proof. When one of her pro bono clients, Kami Toland, came to her with information that pointed to Lee’s involvement in the drug trade, Elle told her to steer clear. Yet Elle feared she hadn’t been emphatic enough with Kami because of her own deep-seated need to expose Christopher Lee for the predator he was.

  Kami hadn’t listened—maybe because youth gave these kids a sense of invulnerability, or maybe because street kids faced danger on a daily basis—and she’d gone on her own quest for answers. Which landed her right back in Elle’s world when Kami was arrested for possession with intent to sell. Kami would have gone to juvie because it wasn’t her first arrest, but Elle intervened. Kami told Elle she had physical proof of Lee’s drug running, and Elle cut a deal with the prosecution.

  But Elle had to be sneaky to avoid tipping anyone off. Kami associated with Richie Lorenzo, a known drug dealer in the city. She cut the deal for Kami to reveal Lorenzo’s suppliers without naming the supplier in the paperwork, because she feared Lee’s friends in government and law enforcement would alert him to any sting operation. Kami would name Lee and reveal the proof in front of a judge in a closed hearing on Wednesday. Then she’d be sent to live in a group home in a different county, away from those who would want to hurt her. She’d be given a chance to survive the shitty life that had been handed her by her worthless parents. Elle couldn’t save Doreen, but she’d damn well save Kami.

  Now Kami was missing. Something—or someone—had scared her and she’d bolted. If Elle didn’t find her before Lorenzo or Lee, Kami would be dead. Elle was certain of that.

  And Elle couldn’t have another death on her conscience.

  She glanced at Patrick, who looked like a cop even if he wasn’t one. Tall, long, angular face—he didn’t look half Cuban, like his sisters; he took after his Irish father, with his light eyes and conservatively cut dark hair. Elle had been around enough cops in her life to know Patrick thrived in a law-and-order environment. Yet, having an ext
ra set of eyes and hands would help as she sorted out this mess.

  But Patrick Kincaid? Dear God, what had her mother done?

  She’d had the biggest crush on Patrick for years. She had begged Veronica to take her to Patrick’s baseball games in high school. He’d never noticed that Veronica spent all her time talking and socializing, while Elle was the one who had watched Patrick play. He was the first boy she’d found truly hot. He’d always had a terrific sense of humor and was so easygoing and kind, even to Veronica’s little sister. He’d gone to college, and then his nephew died and he became a cop. She went off to college and never looked back.

  Patrick had a sharper edge now, quieter but still sexy. She could much better appreciate his sex appeal. But dammit, she wasn’t a child anymore, and she’d had enough of the Kincaids.

  Her entire life she’d heard about the Kincaids ad nauseam as if they were damn saints. As her sisters had married and started their own families, they bought into her mother’s mantra. Why can’t you be more like Carina Kincaid? She’s a police detective, one of the youngest women to make detective in San Diego. And now she’s married! Or Dillon Kincaid—he’s a doctor, and now he’s married, too! Connor Kincaid, private investigator, and look at this! He married a prosecutor. A lawyer, like you, but she puts bad guys in prison. And even Jack Kincaid, big bad special forces army guy, is—yes, you guessed it—married.

  Elle tried marriage. It had been a mistake. They’d both known it was a mistake—except for the sex part. That was really good. But neither she nor Dwight had been ready for marriage, they were both stubborn and opinionated. They divorced before they ended up hating each other. Which was a good thing, because Dwight was a prosecutor and she worked with him all the time. They had drinks on occasion, sometimes had sex when they were both free, and they didn’t argue anymore. Much.

  When she told her mother they were getting divorced, you’d have thought she’d admitted to murder. Was it any wonder Elle didn’t want to go home for Christmas? She was the only Santana who wasn’t married (remarried) yet—even her baby sister, Marissa, had married her high school sweetheart and they were so sickly-sweet in love Elle needed an insulin shot whenever she spent five minutes with them.