style="font-size:15px;"> She shrugged. “Well, I was. He seemed secure. I believe he’ll help me.”
“A perfect stranger! Get real, Dana.”
Before she could respond, a message came through on the e-mail again. Tony jumped over to the terminal to read it out loud.
“‘What is the most important thing in life? To lay down one’s life for a brother.’”
Dana looked around as if someone were watching them. “She knows I’m here, Tony.” Lowering her voice, she whispered, “She knows and she’s threatening Stevie again. She’s aware of his problems, and she could easily influence him if she gets her hands on him. I’ve got to get away from here!”
Tony grabbed her to pull her around. “Hold on. Where will you go?”
“I don’t know,” she said, a mortal fear pumping through her system. “I don’t know.”
“What’s the matter?” Stephen asked, his attention diverted completely from his video game to Dana’s frightened face. “Dana’s sad. What’s wrong, Dana?”
“Nothing, Stevie. I’m just worried, is all. Your pizza will be here soon.”
Stephen watched his sister. “You sure, Dana? You sure you’re all right?”
Tony clapped his hands together. “She’s just being a drag,” he said. “Hey, ready to take on the champ, pal?”
“Yeah,” Stephen said, “but I’m warning you. I’m real good at video games.”
“Give me that other control,” Tony said, his tone mockdeadly. “I’ll take you on anytime, anywhere.”
Dana, thankful that Tony was at least trying to pacify Stephen, thought back over the message they’d just received. How did Caryn Roark know she was here? Maybe she’d asked around town and found out that Dana and Tony were friends. Maybe she’d had them followed. Or maybe not. That would be too obvious for someone like Caryn Roark. No, whatever method she was using, Dana was sure it was very underhanded and very secretive. And very high-tech, since someone had obviously found a way to get to Tony’s computer files. But why was the woman still after her? She’d won, hadn’t she? Dana had lost the farm and she’d run away, to protect her brother, to think her way through this, to save her sanity. What more could the woman want?
What if the woman didn’t stop until she had Stephen?
“I can’t let that happen,” Dana said out loud.
Luckily Tony was making such a ruckus with Stephen, neither of them heard. They didn’t hear the doorbell, either.
“I’ll get it,” Dana said. “Probably the pizza man.”
“There’s a twenty on the counter,” Tony said, his eyes never leaving the blur of speeding cars on the television screen.
Dana opened the door and absently took the warm pizza box, her mind preoccupied with other things. Then she handed the delivery boy his money, her eyes touching on his briefly. He looked familiar—
“Thank you,” the boy said, a serene smile plastered across his skinny face. He left so quickly, Dana didn’t connect on why he looked familiar. Shutting the door, she said, “This is one large pizza, and heavily loaded from the weight of it.”
“Set it on the coffee table,” Tony said over his shoulder. “We’ll be there as soon as I finish winning this race.”
“Right.” Looking for a fairly level spot on all the magazines and papers on the long, beat-up table, Dana dropped the pizza box on top. That’s when the lid popped open just enough for her to see the gadget inside.
“Tony,” she said, her heart jumping right along with whatever was in the box. “Tony, come here a minute.”
“Hold on.”
“Now, Tony.”
Something in the panicked tone of her voice got Tony’s attention. “Pause it, Stevie,” he said as he pushed up off the floor. “What’s the matter—no jalapeños?”
Dana pulled him close. “No, something we didn’t order. Listen.”
He did, his eyes widening as they locked with hers. “Get Stevie,” he said, “and go, go as fast as you can. Get out of the building. It might be nothing, just a joke. Just go and I’ll come down and get you after I check it out.”
“I can’t leave you,” she said, her hands clutching his arm. “Come with us.”
“No way. I can’t let anything happen to my equipment.”
“Forget the computers. Come on, Tony!”
He leaned toward the box. “Go on. I know a little bit about detonating bombs. I learned it on the Internet. Go! I’ll call 911, I promise.”
Afraid to leave, but even more afraid to stay, Dana lifted Stephen up. “Listen, sport, I want you to come with me for a few minutes.”
Stephen looked confused. “Hey, what about my pizza? I want pizza.”
“We’ll eat when we get back,” she explained. “Right now I want to try out your new runners. We haven’t really had a chance to go for a good run since we got them.”
“Dana, now?” He rolled his eyes. “I’m hungry and I want to finish this game.” He placed his arms over his chest in a defiant stance.
The box ticked away.
“Now, Stephen. Don’t ask questions, just come on.”
“But I don’t want to run. It’s getting dark out there and we don’t know our way around. You told me, never run in the dark.”
“We’ll be okay. Now, don’t argue with me, Stephen.”
Throwing his controller down in a fit of anger, Stephen glared at his sister. “I don’t want to go.”
“But you are, sport.” Eyeing Tony, who stood staring at the ticking pizza box, she heaved Stephen by the collar, praying he wouldn’t have a tantrum. “We’ll just go around the corner.”
She reached the door, grabbed her purse and took one last look at Tony. “Be careful,” she said. “Call a bomb squad or something—call somebody, Tony!”
“I’ll be fine,” he said, his grin fixed and unsure. “Go, and Dana, you be careful, too.”
“Okay.” She felt the tears pressing at the back of her eyes. “Ready, Stevie?”
“No, no. Don’t want to go.”
“You don’t get to decide,” Dana replied. “We have to leave now, Stephen.”
They made it to the small lobby, where a security guard nodded indifferently at them.
Dana called to the man, “I think we’ve got
