Breaking the Rules (66 page)

“I’ll be back,” he told the wide-eyed and now silent little girl as he grabbed the tubing and pulled it free. “We’ll get you out of here, ASAP. But first? I gotta help a friend and go kiss the shit out of my wife.”

“Here he comes,” Ben announced.

And there, indeed, was Izzy, dropping lightly from the open door of the plane onto the concrete floor of the warehouse, his cell phone to his ear.

As Eden watched, peeking around the edge of the crate, he bent down and picked up the rocket launcher, checking it—no doubt making sure it no longer was a danger.

He also swung past one of the trucks that his plane had pushed over, making sure that the back door was securely closed as he ended his phone call.

And then he was jogging toward them, with that smooth and easy gait that Eden had come to know so well.

“FBI’s ETA is approximately seven minutes,” Jenn announced,
Eden’s phone to her ear as she sat beside Danny. “They’re sending a medevac chopper.”

“I’m doing okay,” Danny reassured her as Izzy came closer and saw Eden and smiled. “This is nothing like the last time.”

“I’m sitting in a puddle of your blood,” Jenn pointed out as Eden stepped out from behind the crate.

“Yeah, but it’s slowed. Look at me. I’m fine. I’m not in shock, I’m alert—”

“You’re a terrible liar—I can
tell
you’re in serious pain—”

“Well,
yeah,
” Dan said. “I’ve been shot. It hurts—”

They kept talking—Danny obviously knew Jenni was reassured by his ability to have a conversation—but Eden didn’t hear any more of it as she threw herself forward and into Izzy’s arms.

“You okay?” he asked her.

“I’m so sorry,” she started, but he cut her off.

“Chht!” he said, making that sound that she’d made at him just a few hours earlier, like the Dog Whisperer. “Those aren’t the three words I want to hear.”

“I love you,” she told him.

He did his best Han Solo. “I know.” But then he ruined it by laughing, except it didn’t really ruin it, it made it that much better, because his laughter was pure Izzy, and as he kissed her, Eden knew that he loved her, too.

But he broke the kiss almost before it had started, carrying her with him around the side of the crate so he could take a look at Danny’s leg.

“Gimpy McBaby-Man!” he said. “Got another boo-boo?” He held out a length of plastic tubing that he’d brought from the plane as he knelt down beside Dan. “I know we’ve got some needles, in with that insulin—Ben, you still have that bag?”

“I do.” Ben tossed down the bag that he’d carried with him out of their prison cell and Izzy caught it.

“This, along with a little tape and plenty of this fine gravity that planet Earth provides … I kneel before you,” Izzy told Eden’s other
brother as he continued to check his wound, “your walking and talking bag of type O blood.”

“We’ve really got the bleeding under control,” Dan told him.

“It looks like you have,” Izzy said, not to Dan, but to Jenn, who was looking more pale than Danny. “Looks like the bullet missed the artery.”

She nodded, still not completely convinced.

So Izzy looked at her directly, squarely, and said, “We’ll keep an eye on it. If it starts bleeding again, well, we’ve got the tools we need to keep him alive until the helo gets here. Okay? I promise you, he’s going to be fine.”

And this time when she nodded, she actually smiled, too.

“I just spoke to Jenk,” Izzy told Danny. “He and Lindsey and Lopez are heading over to Eden’s apartment—to try to talk to Neesha. She’s still holed up, inside.” He looked at Eden. “She went one-on-one with Todd.”

“She
what
?”

“We left her Greg’s gun and she kicked his ass,” he told her as he wiped Dan’s blood from his hands on the front of Dan’s shirt.

“Hey!”

“Yeah, what? You’re already a mess. Anyway, it got noisy and now the police and the FBI are out in the courtyard, trying to get her to put down her weapon and come out with her hands up. She wants to wait for us to get home. Which could be a while.” Izzy reached for Eden, pulling her down onto his lap. “Ben, you’re still keeping watch, right?”

“I am,” Ben said.

“Good boy,” Izzy said as he looked into Eden’s eyes. “Because right now? I’ve got to kiss my wife.”

And that he did.

N
eesha waited.

Every so often the phone would ring, and she would answer it, hoping it was Danny or Izzy or Eden or Ben, but it was always a lady whose voice she didn’t recognize, and Neesha always said, “No, thank you,” and hung right up.

But then the phone rang, and it
was
Ben. He was all right—they were
all
all right, but they were being taken to the hospital. And he wanted Neesha to meet them over there.

He told her that a woman named Lindsey, who looked kind of like Neesha, would come to the door. Neesha should let her in, and she would take Neesha over to the hospital.

And finally, it came.

A knock on the door. A voice, calling from outside. “Neesha? My name is Lindsey. I’m a friend of Ben’s. I have a key, may I use it to unlock the door and come in?”

“Yes,” Neesha said.

And the woman came in, pushing her way around the refrigerator.

She was short, like Neesha, and she had dark hair, like Neesha, and brown eyes similar to Neesha’s. And when she smiled, Neesha was reminded of her mother’s smile.

“Hey,” she said. “I’m Lindsey.” Her hands were empty, and she
kept them out and open in front of her. She was also wearing some kind of padded vest that made her look like a baseball umpire.

One of Neesha’s visitors had liked baseball, and always tuned the TV in her room to a game.

“Did you get the pictures I sent to your phone?” she asked.

Neesha shook her head. “I didn’t know how to see them,” she said.

“May I come into the living room?” Lindsey asked. “I can show you …”

“Please close the door behind you,” Neesha said, so Lindsey did before she crossed the apartment, still with her hands out.

She sat on the couch, next to Neesha, taking in the fact of that gun on Neesha’s lap, the same way she’d glanced down the hall and made note of Todd’s body sprawled in front of the bedroom door. She was not afraid, but she was also not a fool.

Continuing to check for Neesha’s permission, she reached for the cell phone and opened it, pushing some of the buttons and … She held it out so that Neesha could see the pictures on the tiny screen.

Yes, that was Lindsey with Izzy and Danny and another, shorter man, and another man with darker hair. “That’s from my wedding,” she told Neesha with a smile. “Izzy and Dan and our other friend, Jay Lopez, they were all best men. My husband, Mark—that’s him.” She pointed to the shorter man who was smiling broadly. “He couldn’t decide who should be his best man, and since he has three best friends, he had three best men. He’s very diplomatic.” She pointed to the dark-haired man. “That’s Jay. He’s outside, with Mark, right now. The three of us will take you to the hospital. With a police escort, of course. But you’ll be in the car with us. And one of us will stay with you, until you feel confident that you’re safe. Is that okay?”

Neesha looked back into Lindsey’s eyes, but didn’t respond. She wasn’t sure yet if it was okay. “Can I keep the gun?” she finally asked.

“No,” Lindsey said.

Neesha nodded. “I didn’t think so. Will I go to jail?”

Lindsey answered the exact same way, with no hesitation. “No.”

“But I’m illegal.”

This time Lindsey didn’t answer quite as quickly. This time, she said, “Is that what they told you? That you’d be arrested because you’re here illegally?”

Neesha nodded. “I saw on the TV news—all the people who hate me.”

But Lindsey was shaking her head. “Neesha, you were brought here against your will. You’re the victim of a terrible crime—you’re not a criminal. And if you want to? You can help the police and the FBI bring charges against the people who hurt you. You can go to court and testify. But only if you want to.”

Neesha looked at Lindsey. “I want to,” she said.

“Good,” Lindsey said. “The first thing you’ll do is look at some pictures and point out the men and women that you recognize—if there
are
any that you recognize.”

“I don’t have to look at pictures,” Neesha said. “I can just …” She reached over to the paper and pen she’d been using while she’d waited, after Todd was no longer a threat. It had been a long, long time since she’d had either to work with and at first she was rusty, but then she got better. She handed her drawings to Lindsey. “That’s Mr. Nelson, on the top,” she said as Lindsey flipped through the pages. “And a man called Karl and another called Ron. I haven’t seen them at all in the past few years, so maybe they’re dead—”

“They’re not,” Lindsey said. “Neesha, this is …”

“There’s Jake.” Neesha pointed at her drawings. “And a man named Nathan. And Todd. When he still had a face.”

Lindsey looked back at her. “Now I know why they were so desperate to find you.”

“They stopped giving me paper and pencils,” Neesha told her, “when I was twelve. It was the same year I first … met Todd.”

“God.” Lindsey held up the last page. “Who’s this?”

Neesha pointed to the woman she’d drawn. “That’s my mother,” she said, “before she got sick and died. And the man is her father—my grandfather.”

Lindsey nodded. “We can help you find him.”

“He might not want me anymore.”

“If he doesn’t,” Lindsey said, “he’s an idiot. Whatever happens, though? You’ll be safe. I can guarantee that.” She stood up. Held out her hand. “Why don’t you give me that weapon so we can get over to the hospital, get you checked out. You can say hi to Ben …”

Neesha looked up at Lindsey. And handed her the gun.

D
anny needed surgery, because the bullet that had hit him hadn’t exited his leg.
It was supposed to be quick and easy, but Eden knew that Jennilyn was anxious. She and Izzy had volunteered to sit with her in the waiting room, even as Ben was being given a thorough examination just down the hall.

Mark Jenkins had gone to get food from the hospital cafeteria, and had brought it back with him—burgers and salads and fries. Izzy dug in—they were all hungry—while Eden went to see what was taking Jenn so long in the ladies’ room.

She bumped into Lindsey—Mark’s wife—who was also on her way in to use the facilities.

“Oh, hi, Eden,” Lindsey said. “Neesha’s in talking to Ben, and Lopez is with them. I’ve had a lot of coffee this morning, so …” She made a face.

“It’s been a long night,” Eden agreed.

Jenn was over at the sinks, washing her hands, and she looked up at Eden in the mirror. “You can say that again.”

“It’s been a long one for Lindsey, too,” Eden told her. She looked at Lindsey. “Danny told me about your miscarriage. I’m so sorry.”

Lindsey sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “It still hasn’t really …” Tears
flooded her eyes, but she blinked them back and smiled. “The really stupid thing is that I was really scared, you know, at first? At the idea of having this baby. But Mark was so happy and … I
just
finally started to really get into it and …”

“The
really
stupid thing isn’t that,” Eden told her as she gave Lindsey a hug. “The really stupid thing is that you miscarried. It’s
not
fair, and it sucks, and I am so,
so
sorry.”

Lindsey laughed through her tears as she hugged Eden back. “Yeah, it really does suck, doesn’t it?”

“And everyone goes,
well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be
and you just want to bitch-slap them,” Eden said, and she felt Lindsey nod.

“Mark’s really upset,” Lindsey confessed. “You know, we’re buying this house, and now he’s talking about just fixing it up a little and turning around and selling it right away. And I know what he means, because it just feels so pathetic and sad.”

“But you can try again,” Eden said, pulling back to look at her. “Can’t you? I mean …”

“Well, yeah,” Lindsey said, wiping her eyes. “Except, we weren’t exactly trying. It was kind of accidental, so …”

“So now you get to try,” Eden said. “I mean, if you want. If you don’t, that’s okay, too, you know? And you move into the house, because you weren’t buying it for the baby—that’s crazy. You don’t buy a baby a house. You buy it for your family. And your family’s just going to be a little bit smaller than you’d thought, at least for a little while. You’ve still got Mark and he’s still got you.”

Lindsey nodded. “You know, you’re right.” But then she laughed. “Am I the only one aware of the irony of this wisdom coming from the crazy woman who ran away to Germany after losing
her
baby?”

Eden laughed, too, as she wiped her own eyes. “Guilty as charged,” she said. “I
was
crazy. But I got better. Eventually, it starts to suck a little less.”

Lindsey hugged her again. “Thanks,” she said. “You know, Izzy really loves you.”

Eden smiled. “I do know. And I love him, too.”

“Good,” Lindsey said, “because if you mess with him again, I’d have to beat you senseless, regardless of how nice you are to me.”

“You won’t have to,” Eden said.

And as Lindsey went into one of the stalls, Eden looked over at Jenn, who’d been standing there quietly, by the sink. “You okay?”

Jenn nodded. “I’m just …”

“I know,” Eden said. “The doctor should be out soon. And then you can go in and see Danny.”

“That’ll be good,” Jenn said.

And together they went out and sat with Izzy and with Mark Jenkins. And they were even joined by Ben and Neesha and Jay Lopez and finally Lindsey, who came out of the bathroom right before the doctor appeared and said the words they all were waiting to hear.

“He’s going to be just fine. He’s alert—you can go in to see him now.”

The first thing that Dan said to Jenn when she went into the room where he was recovering from his surgery was, “The doctor said the bullet didn’t even so much as nick the artery. Recovery’s going to be much faster and easier.”