“She’ll be here soon,” Colt said even though he’d learned from the girls she wasn’t at the garden center. She had the day off preparing for the possible aftermath of the bachelorette party. She wasn’t at home but her Mustang was in the drive.

Colt looked at Eric again and Eric moved out of the door.

“Settle in, I’ll be back,” Colt said to Kate and Keira and followed Eric. Once he got the door closed and walked Eric into the yard, he turned his back to the house and got close. “Call it in. She’s gone. Bed’s unmade, car’s in the drive. All eyes peeled for her. I want officers here. Plainclothes in case the girls see them canvassing. Door to door. Did they see Vi leave the house, what was she wearing, what was she driving, was she with someone? Did they see anyone suspicious? Every house. They’re not home, you get to Feb, get their phone numbers and call them at work. Copy that?”

Eric nodded and headed to his car. Colt jogged to his house. Feb had the door open before he was halfway across the street. She looked tired and not well, wearing her hangover on her face which to Colt made her no less gorgeous and at any other time he would find this hilarious. Now, he did not.

When he made it to her he didn’t say hello.

“Call Jackie. She comes to get Jack. You go over and wait with the girls.”

Feb’s face got even paler and Colt watched the line of her body turn static.

“Wait for what?” she asked.

“Feb –” he started but didn’t finish. Her eyes sliced to Vi’s house before she nodded and without a word hustled back into the house.

Colt started to jog back across his yard when his phone rang. He slowed to a walk, pulled it out of his blazer, looked at the display, flipped it open and put it to his ear.

“What you got for me, Sul?”

“Chris and Adam down.” The words sounded like they’d been dragged out of his partner’s throat and they made Colt stop dead right in the middle of the street.

“Down how?”

“Don’t know. They’re both breathin’ but they’re also both in ambulances.”

“Vi isn’t at her house,” Colt informed him.

“Mike called. She isn’t at the garden center either.”

“She didn’t have a shift today.”

“Yeah, Mike talked to Bobbie,” Sully said then hissed, “Fuck, why did we not know this?”

“Where was Chris found?”

“Car on the side of the road outside town found by a Good Samaritan. Door open. Radio smashed. Chris unconscious in a ditch.”

“Any idea why he was there?” Colt asked.

“No clue, but it looks like he didn’t make his shift,” Sully answered.

“Adam?”

“Mike found him.”

“Where?”

“Mike left the garden center, went to Cal’s offices. He found Adam in his car outside.”

“Cal?”

“No sign and his girl isn’t there either.”

“Struggle?”

Silence and Colt started walking again, his eyes on Vi’s house, both girls looking out the window at him.

“Sully, were there signs of a struggle?”

“Colt…” Sully stopped speaking and Colt stopped on the sidewalk, turned with his side to the girls but faced away, across the street so the girls couldn’t see him when he reacted to what he was about to hear.

“Sully, tell me.”

“You’re friends with Cal.”

“Sul –”

Sully sighed then spoke fast. “Mike says it’s bad. Boys are goin’ to the scene. Two men at the scene shot dead. Mike doesn’t know either of them but says there was no muss no fuss with the gunshot wounds. Mike says prelim looks like warning shots fired meant to incapacitate, not meant to take them out, kill shots fired when they didn’t stop. But he says there’s lots of blood, place is a mess, looks like it was bad and there’s no Cal.”

“Cal said he’d keep his gun on him, he wasn’t with the girls,” Colt muttered.

“Any chance he’d have Vi with him?”

“Girls say they left together this morning. Them for school, Cal headed for the office. Kate said Vi was hungover. He left her in bed. Somethin’ got her out of that bed but she didn’t make it and she also didn’t make a mess gettin’ ready. Nothin’ that looks like she even left in a hurry.”

“Cal wouldn’t –?”

“Grab her and go? Not without the girls.”

“I’ll get a man at the school, just in case they turn up,” Sully said.

“I’m doin’ another sweep of the house,” Colt told him then asked, “Where’s Mike?”

“Climbin’ the bloody walls at Cal’s office,” Sully answered, not being funny, being almost literal.

“He may need to be locked down,” Colt advised.

“Boys headin’ his way know, everyone knows. Sean’s off today but he’s been called and he’s headed to Mike.”

Colt looked back at the house to see the girls hadn’t moved.

“I gotta get into that house,” he told Sully.

“Yeah. I’m command central as of now. You get anything, you feed it to me.”

“Got it and what you get, you feed to Pryor.”

Sully didn’t have to agree, he’d do it. Instead he said, “While you’re lookin’ around, pray.”

Colt didn’t normally have time for that. He was of a mind that God didn’t need to be informed of his own business but with what was going down and those two girls looking out the window, he’d make time.

“Out,” he said to Sully.

“Later,” Sully replied and disconnected.

Colt forced himself to walk calmly to the house. He opened the door and both girls were no longer at the window. They were at the door waiting for him.

“Mom?” Kate asked and Colt shook his head.

“We’re lookin’. Feb’s comin’ over. Can you make coffee?”

Kate nodded but Keira spoke and what she asked meant Kate didn’t move.

“Where’s Joe? Has anyone called Joe?”

Jesus. How did he answer that?

Shit.

“We can’t find Joe,” he answered and Keira turned to Kate, her movement jerky, panicked.

Dammit, where the fuck was Feb?

Kate’s arms slid around her sister but her eyes stayed on Colt.

“Keirry, let’s make Colt coffee.”

“But –” Keira started and Kate looked at her sister.

“Coffee,” she whispered, Keira’s lip quivered and then she nodded.

Both girls moved to the kitchen and Colt went to the bedroom.

He stood in the center of the floor space and looked around. Unmade bed. Cal’s jeans on the floor. All of Vi’s clothes, including bra, tossed to the floor around Cal’s jeans. The top of the dresser was tidy, the drawers all closed, no clothes hanging out as if hastily pulled out and the drawers shoved closed. Some jewelry sitting on top but there was more on Cal’s nightstand.

She’d taken off her clothes before she hit the bed and she hit the bed on Cal’s side but he’d taken off her jewelry last night, put it on his nightstand. Her nightstand had a lamp, a book and a jar of moisturizer. Nothing else. If she took off her jewelry in bed, it’d be on her nightstand. Cal took it off her.

“Talk to me,” he muttered as he walked to the bed and he saw it.

The covers weren’t thrown back like you do when you get out of bed. It was like she slid out from under them. Colt walked to them, carefully lifted an edge of the covers and saw a phone in the bed.

“Fuck me,” he murmured and picked up the phone. He flipped it open and went to received calls. The last one was from Cal. Colt looked to the bedside clock. She got the call just over thirty minutes ago.

He looked back to the clothes on the floor.

Cal’s jeans, socks, Vi’s skirt, top, bra. Colt’s eyes scanned – a pair of sandals that looked like they were kicked off, sitting by the side of the dresser.

Cal wore tees and Colt reckoned Vi wore underwear.

He went to the clothes and toed them.

No tee and no underwear.

She’d put on Cal’s tee and her underwear from last night.

“Fuck me,” he repeated.

She had been in a hurry. In such a hurry that she hadn’t even dressed. Just pulled on Cal’s tee, her underwear and took off. She got the call while in bed, dropped the phone, slid out without even moving the covers off her, got dressed and went.

Whatever Cal said to her made her move. Or whatever someone said to her on Cal’s phone made her move.

Colt opened his phone, hit Sully’s number and put it to his ear.

“Talk to me,” Sully said.

“My guess, she’s in Cal’s tee, black, not wearin’ shoes. She left her phone in the bed.”

“How you guess that?”

“Yesterday’s clothes are still on the floor, her underwear missin’, Cal’s tee missin’ and her phone was in the bed. I don’t picture Cal as a man who picks his clothes up off the floor. Vi does it like Feb does for me, in the morning when she gets up. He stripped off before goin’ to bed like he probably always does. She stripped off because she was drunk. This morning she got a call from Cal’s phone thirty minutes ago. She grabbed what was handy and she moved.”

“But moved where? Eric reports her car in the drive.”

“No clue.”

“We need to see if we can track the GPS in his phone, got his number?”

“I’ll text it to you.”

“Do it fast.”

“You got it. I’ll keep lookin’.”

“Not much, just knowin’ Vi moved out quick and she’s wearin’ a black tee.” It sounded like a complaint but Sully was just bitching because he was worried.

“Get Pryor on the line. I want Daniel Hart’s MO. And get him to call Sal Giglia. This is family and Giglia could use some brownie points with the cops.”

“Giglia’s got issues, he needs to focus.”

“Giglia’s issues are with Daniel Hart. He cooperates, his war gets a lot less bloody.”

“You ever hear of a big man in the mob sittin’ down with cops, family or not?”

“Nope, but I’ve heard about Giglia and I know he’s unpredictable, he’s got brass balls and he does shit just because it amuses him. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this’ll amuse him.”

“Yeah,” Sully muttered, “maybe we’ll get lucky,” then Colt heard the disconnect.

Colt scrolled to Cal’s number, memorized it and then texted it to Sully.

He moved into the bathroom as he heard Feb call her hellos to the girls, thank Christ.

* * *

“I don’t wanna hear this shit,” Vinnie said, sitting out on Sal’s back porch, Sal’s breakfast and coffee dishes on the table, most of the food untouched, the coffee, though, was gone.

“Vincent,” Sal muttered.

“Somethin’ happens to Cal –” Vinnie started.

“Got my boys on it,” Sal stated, his face closed.

He was locked tight. This was because he was worried.

Sal was an asshole and Vinnie hated him. Vinnie grew up with him and never much liked him but when Sal took his son, the hate began. But Sal was a family man, you worked for him or not. He felt what happened to Vinnie Junior and he felt it deep. It wasn’t just one of his boys who he also thought of as family. It was just plain family and that went deeper. Cal, the same. Vinnie Junior was family, he was one of Sal’s boys. But Cal was also family and he was smart, sharp, honest and didn’t take shit. And Cal had taken a bullet for Sal. Cal was not only family to Sal, Sal respected him. That went even deeper.

This shit cut to the bone beyond Sal surviving last night’s bloodbath. It wasn’t Sal who screwed the pooch but it was his responsibility that his man missed. This was on him and he felt it.

“What I hear, Hart doesn’t fuck around. He finds his mark, the bullet goes into the brain,” Vinnie noted, he hated saying it, hated even thinking it but that was what he knew.

“He won’t get Cal,” Sal remarked.

“He does –”

“He won’t.”

The two men stared at each other and then Sal’s eyes went over Vinnie’s shoulder.

“You get Cal?” Sal asked and Vinnie turned to see one of Sal’s soldiers standing just outside the house.

“No, but the cops are on the phone,” his boy answered.

“Talked to the cops last night. Today got things to do. You call Indianapolis like I asked? Get someone down there to move in?” Sal pressed and the boy’s face stayed solid. He was locked tight too.

Vinnie knew why when he spoke. “They’re steerin’ clear. It’s all over the radio. Joe Callahan and his woman are both missin’. Cops in some ‘burg fifteen miles west of Indy are on the hunt. Two boys shot at Callahan’s offices. Chicago PD preliminary identification from pictures puts them in Hart’s army.”

Vinnie’s ass came off the chair. He didn’t stand but he also wasn’t sitting.

“Vi’s girls?” he asked and the soldier’s eyes came to him.

“What?”