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at us through the purse.”
    “I’ve underestimated her,” Belias said, more to Roger than anyone else.
    “Bring her mother back to deal with her. Her mother calls her and tells her to meet us, she’ll come straight out of hiding,” Holly said.
    “Would you do that to your own child, Holly?”
    Holly looked at the floor. “If I needed to make my child understand…” But she knew it was a lie. Please don’t let my kids ever know about Belias. Don’t let them know what I’ve done.
    “Her mother is busy on a very important job for me. For us. Busy, busy bee.” Belias wiggled pale fingers in front of his face.
    “Well, Glenn could have been killed,” Holly snapped. “She’s not that busy.”
    “And you two are screwing up so bad we have collateral damage on the bar floor. Do you think the police will ignore a customer killed inside a Haight-Ashbury bar, where tourists frequent? Well. They. Won’t.” Belias crossed his arms.
    Glenn said, “I didn’t kill him. The bartender did.”
    Holly’s heart sank.
    “Again the bartender. Explain?” Roger asked.
    “You said we had to get this woman. Bring her to you.” Glenn licked his lips. He spoke with what Holly thought of as his negotiating voice—firm, calm, reasonable. Same voice he’d used when he told her just because he was leaving her and the kids, she didn’t need to make a scene. “I didn’t want to put Holly at risk. We’ve never done a kidnapping before. This is in fact the riskiest job you’ve ever asked us to do.”
    Holly stepped behind Belias and Roger, and over their shoulders, she shook her head at Glenn.
    Glenn ignored her. “So I hired a guy to help us. Big man, used to be Russian Special Forces.”
    “And you and he went into the bar together to grab Diana,” Roger said.
    “She made a scene. The bartender confronted him and the Russian went for his knife.”
    Roger inspected his fingernails. “Why did I bother training you and Holly? Seriously. It’s good we never needed candy stolen from a baby.”
    “She had a gun, so I was right. You said she was the biggest threat we ever faced. I wasn’t going to take chances, even if you were.” Defiance armored Glenn’s tone.
    “And this…bartender killed your hired thug.” Roger always wanting to understand the tactics of the situation.
    “Yes.”
    “You didn’t make a very good investment this time, Glenn,” Belias said. “I thought you had a perfect record.”
    “I wanted to protect Holly, and I wanted to be one hundred percent sure we got your so very important target.”
    “Glenn,” Holly said, “calm down, please.”
    Belias didn’t appear to be bothered by his tone. “You broke a rule, Glenn. We do not involve outsiders. Did you mention my name?”
    “Of course not.”
    “Can anyone connect me to this dead, useless Russian?”
    “No. Never.”
    “Only you and Holly.”
    “Only me,” Glenn said. “He didn’t know Holly. He had no contact with her until tonight. I never told him her name.”
    “What did you tell the useless Russian was your reason for finding Diana?”
    “He didn’t ask for a reason. He didn’t care as long as he got his cash.” Glenn’s words came out in staccato bursts.
    “What was his name?” Roger asked.
    “Grigori Rostov,” Glenn said. “It wasn’t a bad decision; he should have been able to grab Diana with efficiency and deal with any random threat like a do-gooder bartender.”
    “A Rostov.” Roger glanced at Belias. “There’s a Russian crime family in New York by that name. Notably disciplined and vicious.”
    Holly watched Belias. She’d thought Glenn’s plan stupid, even patronizing to her, but he’d already hired the Russian when she met him at the rendezvous point in Golden Gate Park, and they’d set out, trying to track Diana from where she’d gone before she realized they were tracking her movements and abandoned her car. The Russian was an impulsive decision by Glenn, and she thought, with a blaze of