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hand under Glenn’s shoulder and steadied him.
    The two men got Glenn past the front door and into a back bedroom. A bed was already covered with sterile paper.
    “Didn’t exactly show management skills today, did you, Glenn?” Belias asked Glenn, in a falsely hearty voice, who didn’t answer as he eased onto the bed. Holly stood back, arms crossed, her heart heavy.
    Roger pulled on latex gloves and began to inspect Glenn with brisk efficiency. Belias waved fingers over the injury on the side of Glenn’s head. “Do everything you can for him.”
    “Is he going to be okay?” Holly said. Then she noticed what else was in the room. A chair with straps. Plastic spread on the floor. A tray of surgical tools. Because we were going to bring them Diana Keene. They would strap her in that chair. With plastic so it wouldn’t make a mess. That poor girl. Holly’s stomach somersaulted again.
    “Holly, let’s get out of the way. You come in here with me,” Belias said.
    Holly said, “I can help…”
    “Roger trained as a field medic. He can handle his injuries.” His tone didn’t brook argument.
    Roger was no doctor. Roger knew far more about inflicting pain than relieving it. For a moment Holly thought of taking Glenn back out to the car and finding him a real doctor. But Belias wouldn’t let her, she knew that. Now she bitterly regretted not going to the hospital. So Holly said, “All right.” And she followed him into a small den. It was clean and neat, but there was a city of bottles on one table, bourbon and vodka and whiskey, and Holly stared at the glass.
    “Those were for Diana in case we needed to calm her down. Roger’s sober, no worries.”
    Holly sank down into the chair. “Great. Sobriety is something I look for in my medical professionals.”
    “What I look for in my people,” Belias said, “is the ability to grab and capture an unarmed, untrained little idiot off the street.”
    She looked up at his face and wondered how far she could stretch her lies. He was a bit older than her, midthirties, sleek with muscle under the suit, with two premature graying streaks through the dark of his hair. Eyes blue as the sea, almost an unnatural blue. She wondered if he wore contacts to disguise his real eye color. It would be like him to wear a lie on his eyes, to keep a constant mask in place. Even his voice—American but with a British accent trying to work its way through the top. She knew nothing about him except that she feared him.
    Be calm. Save Glenn. Fix this mess. Holly said, “We checked her mother’s usual hangouts; we spotted her near a bar her mom frequented in the Haight. She’d gone to the bar last night and used her credit card before she realized we could track her. Glenn followed her into the bar, and I brought the Audi around so he could inject her with the sedative, pretend to be her friend helping her after she’d drunk too much, get her out the back. Then we’d force her into the car.”
    “What a nice, simple plan.” His tone was mocking. He folded his hands in his lap. “How’d he get hurt?”
    “She ran out into the alley; the bartender came after her, Glenn said. One of them hit Glenn. It must have been the bartender.”
    “This bartender was protecting her?”
    “I guess.”
    “And you let her get away.”
    “You know we can’t be caught.”
    Now he knelt before her. He had a sharp, angular face, all lines and cheekbones and chin, and it broke into a smile that made her think of graves. She’d wondered if Belias’s smile would one day be the last sight in her eyes. “Holly. Haven’t I always been fair with you and”—he waved his fingers in the direction of the other room—“Glenn?”
    “Yes.” She was afraid to give any other answer.
    “I give so much. I ask so little.”
    “I know.”
    “But I do ask for the truth.” A pain crossed his face, as if a memory of a lie lingered.
    Holly stared at him, then her lap.
    “It’s very touching that you’re