Into the Fire (3 page)

“Tooney, you total space cadet, is this what you’re looking for?”

It was the girl named Angelina. Taller even than Hannah, but with long dark hair, and the body of a twenty-year-old, Angelina wore makeup without a note from home. When Hannah had first arrived, she’d mistaken her for one of the college-age counselors. But one of her Daffodil bunkmates had corrected her.

Angelina, apparently, was the daughter of a rap music producer named BadAss T. She was a Sunflower and even more popular than Brianna, despite the fact that this was only her second year at camp.

Something shiny and gold dangled now off of one of Angelina’s well-manicured fingers.

Petunia grabbed it. “Ohmigod! Where did you find it?”

“It was right on your bunk,” Angelina informed the smaller girl, then turning to include Bree in her admonishment. “Next time look with your eyes open before calling someone a liar and a thief. My daddy’s killed men for less.” She turned to the crowd. “What are you looking at? Show’s over. Get gone.”

Hannah, too, faded back, hoping to slip away now that the attention was off of her. She was almost to the showerhouse door when Angelina caught up to her.

“Yo, Raging Bull, what’s the rush?”

Hannah didn’t slow down. She opened the heavy door and went into the cool dimness of the bathroom, catching sight of herself in the mirrors over the sink. Most of her hair had fallen out of her ponytail and it hung in strings around her dirty face. Her T-shirt was a mess, too, streaked with dirt where Carolyn had kicked her. And her elbow…

It was bleeding and raw. Washing that out was going to hurt, big time. Hannah got right to it, washing her hands first, and then her face, then twisting to get her elbow under the cold water faucet.

“Aren’t you even going to thank me?”

Hannah looked up into the mirror, at Angelina, who had followed her inside.

“For what?” Hannah asked.

“Ah, so she
does
have a voice,” Angelina said, flipping her long, dark hair over her shoulder. “I thought maybe you were, you know, deaf or something.”

“Mute,” Hannah corrected her. “It’s mute when you can’t speak.”

“Whatever.” She crossed her arms, settling back against the sink. “I saved your ass, girlfriend.”

Argh, the soap stung. Hannah gritted her teeth, unwilling to make a sound in front of Miss Sunflower Homegirl 1993. Unless Angelina left, she was going to have to go into one of the toilet stalls to survey the damage done to her side when Carolyn kicked her.

“My ass didn’t need saving,” Hannah said coolly, when the pain numbed out and she could finally speak. “I was doing just fine by myself.”

“Yeah? Where do you think Carolyn went running to? She was getting a counselor. Fighting is a capital offense around here, you know.”

Hannah straightened up, reaching for a paper towel to blot her arm. “As opposed to stealing your cluster-mates’ jewelry, which is what? A competitive sport?”

“I didn’t steal anything,” Angelina was affronted. “I found it—”

“Bullshit.” Hannah turned to look at her. “We both know you took
‘Tooney’s’
bracelet, so cut the crap. What I can’t figure out is why give it back.”

Angelina laughed. “Because it’s only day two, and I’m already bored out of my mind with Bree and her Valley Girl clones. Because you’re different. You’re interesting. You fight like you’re from the ‘hood—”

“Oh, please.” Hannah cut her off. “That’s more bullshit. You’re not from the
‘hood
any more than I am. Any more than freaking Brianna is. Seriously? BadAss T?”

Angelina was standing there, as if trying to decide what crap to hurl at Hannah next.

She finally laughed. Shrugged. “Most of these girls only listen to country. Toby Keith—kill me now. They’re too afraid to admit they’ve never heard of BadAss T.”

“So you just keep on lying to them.”

“They like it. When I told them I was working on an album of my own, they practically French-kissed me. Even Bree, who hates that I’m more popular than she is.” She looked at Hannah critically. “I think you’ve still got some dirt by your eyebrow…”

Hannah turned back to the mirror. Yeah, she’d definitely missed a spot.

“Did you really write a prizewinning essay?” Angelina asked.

“Yup.” Hannah wet the paper towel. She’d won, although she probably would’ve won even if she’d written five pages of nonsense. She was here because all of her friends at school were boys. Because she lived in a household with four men. Because Ms. Julio had convinced Patrick that two weeks at this camp would make her more well-rounded, which was their way of saying “less of a tomboy,” as if there was something wrong with that.

“A brainiac, huh?” Angelina said.

“Yeah,” Hannah said, shooting her a look. “I’m a real genius. My prize was this two-week jail sentence.” She gave up and just scooped water into her hands, wetting her entire face again.

Angelina waited until Hannah turned the water back off, holding out more paper towels for her. “It’s not that bad here. Well, aside from the fact that everyone sucks.”

“Maybe I can convince them that my father’s a producer, too,” Hannah said as she dried her face. “White Chocolate, aka Comb-over Q.”

Angelina laughed. “Or we can spread rumors that the essay contest you won was open to all the girls in juvie cellblocks A, B, and C. That’ll gain you some respect.”

Hannah rolled her eyes as she laughed, too.

“It’s gotta be better than the truth,” Angelina urged her. She was quiet for a moment, then added, “My mother works for Bree Parker’s father. Cleaning his office.”

Hannah must have reacted, because Angelina continued, “Yeah. I’m here on scholarship because Mr. Parker wants to screw me. At least he did before he found out I’m his daughter’s age. I’m still not exactly sure if his sending me here, two years running, is out of genuine guilt for grabbing my tits when I was fourteen, or if it’s some kind of hush-me payoff.” She settled back against the sink. “Or maybe I’m his mistress in training. Maybe he’s just waiting for me to get old enough to squeeze without jail time. How well do you think
that
truth will go over with Queen Bree?”

Hannah just shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

“I made up the whole BadAss T thing last year,” Angelina said, “when I saw how Bree and her alleged friends welcomed the other scholarship girls.” She paused. “So do you have a partner yet for this afternoon’s sailing class?”

Hannah looked at her. “What do
you
think?” At breakfast, Lacey had loudly announced she was partnering with a girl from the Daisy cluster, leaving Hannah odd man out.

“You want to…?” Angelina motioned between the two of them.

“With you.” Hannah didn’t voice it as a question, but Angelina answered it anyway.

“Yeah.”

“I don’t have any jewelry worth stealing,” Hannah said.

Angelina laughed.

“I wasn’t kidding,” Hannah said. “I’m not going to partner with a thief.”

“I never keep it,” Angelina defended herself. “The things I take. Someone always goes home early, and I hide it all in their bunk. We find it and…Everyone gets everything back.”

“So…what?” Hannah said. “You take it because…you like it when they start a witch hunt and blame innocent people?”

“I take it,” Angelina said, hand on her hip, heavy on the attitude, “because they flaunt it in the faces of the girls who don’t have their kind of money. I take it because it gives us something to talk about. And I take it because they expect me to have expensive jewelry, and I can say that it’s gone missing, too, okay?”

“Except you don’t get yours back,” Hannah pointed out.

“Last year that worked out to be kind of a bonus,” she admitted. “Everyone figured that Deedee—the girl who went home early—kept my necklace and anklet, on account of, you know, BadAss T’s Grammy win? So Bree and her friends all chipped in and bought me a replacement. A diamond pendant.”

“So you conned them,” Hannah interpreted.

“It was a gift,” Angelina argued. “I had no idea they were going to do it. Who am I to turn down something like that?”

“They’ll catch on if you do it again this year,” Hannah told her.

“They’ll only catch on,” Angelina countered, crossing her arms, “if you tell them.”

“Then they’ll catch on,” Hannah said. “Because if something else goes missing, I
will
tell them.”

And there they stood, staring each other down.

Angelina broke first, laughing. “Yo, Nobody Girl. Don’t you get the fact that if you walk into lunch with me, they’ll ask you to be a Sunflower?”

Hannah laughed her disgust as she went into one of the stalls to make sure she wasn’t bleeding beneath her shirt from Carolyn’s kick. “Why, in God’s name, would I ever want that?”

“Wow,” Angelina said, as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her ever before.

“Good point.”

C
HAPTER
T
WO

J
ANUARY
2008
S
AN
D
IEGO
, C
ALIFORNIA

I
t was going to be a lovely evening.

The sky had gone into glorious sunset mode after a day that had been unseasonably warm for January. But now the air was cooler and there was a nice breeze. It was perfect weather for riding in his truck with the windows down. And for going back to his apartment to screw his brains out.

Izzy stood in the Ladybug parking lot with an honestly earned tired-on after forty-eight hours of hard physical training. It hadn’t all been fun and games, but he damn well preferred it to sitting behind a desk and filling out endless paperwork.

He was good and exhausted, he was beyond hungry,
and
he was more than ready to break his current record-long streak of not getting laid.

“I kind of do,” Maybe-Susan told him earnestly, and at first he didn’t know what she was talking about, his thoughts had gone in so many different directions, most of them leading to his extremely optimistic dick. But she clarified. “Need to find Danny.”

Not the best news, but in the grand scheme of things, it was no real biggie. Izzy would be there, a shoulder to cry on, after Danny blew her off. He searched through the contact list on his cell, landing on Gillman’s number. He pushed talk and handed her his phone.

She squinted at it, puzzled until she saw that it was ringing
Gillman, Dan,
at which point she put it to her ear. “You
do
know him. Oh, my God…”

She must’ve gone straight to Gilligan’s voicemail, because her recently shored up levels of shining hope took a serious dive south. She abruptly hung up, chewing on her lip, frowning slightly.

She was gorgeous when she frowned, too. She looked like someone, probably some movie star, but Izzy just couldn’t place where or when he’d seen her. Probably during some in-flight movie on some recent freaking-endless transatlantic trek.

“You don’t want to leave a message?” Izzy asked her.

She met his eyes only briefly as she shook her head. “I need to talk to him. If I leave a message…”

“You’re afraid he won’t call back,” Izzy guessed.

“No,” she said, certain. “I know he will. I just…need to talk to him first. Before…”

“Before what?” Izzy asked, but again she just shook her head.

He took the phone from her. Redialed. Left a message, for her. “Gillman, it’s Zanella. Call me when you get this. It’s important.”

She gave him a smile, but it was significantly more wan than the ones she’d delivered inside the Bug.

Izzy ended the call, then shuffled through his list and dialed Jay Lopez. “I got a friend who might be able to track Gillman down,” he told her. Chances were strong that Lopez would either be with Gillman or know where he was.

Lopez picked up on the first ring. “Izzy. Sorry, man. I meant to tell you, I’m not heading over to the Bug tonight.”

“You did, I know, I’m cool,” Izzy reassured him. “I’m actually looking for Gillman. Is he with you, bro?”

“No, Danny headed out, about two hours ago,” Lopez informed Izzy. “He caught a flight to Vegas. Some kind of family emergency.”

“What’s going on?” Izzy asked. M-Susan was watching him, her eyes again showing some hope mixed in with her anxiety. He shook his head, no, and now that new hope faded some, too, and she was back to lip chewing.

Which looked like fun.
You need any help with that, sweetheart?

“I don’t know,” Lopez’s voice in Izzy’s ear broke into his little fantasy. “He got a phone call from his mother, and then…he was gone. Tore out of the parking lot like a bat out of hell.”

And didn’t Izzy know
that.
So okay. Maybe the mud-in-his-face thing hadn’t been entirely intentional.

“Do me a favor, Jay,” Iz said now, “and call him. Let him know that…” What? He gazed at Maybe-Susan, who was biting a fingernail now, which made her look about twelve. “Just tell him to call me, ASAP.”

“Will do.”

Izzy hung up his cell phone. “Lopez said Gillman went home, to Vegas, for a few days.”

She laughed at that, even as tears filled her eyes. “Of course he did.” She immediately steeled herself so that she didn’t cry—so much for Izzy being a strong shoulder. In fact, she flat-out turned away from him, surreptitiously wiping her eyes as she pretended to look out toward the setting sun. She breathed and focused—damn, watching her was like watching a home movie of himself as a kid. Never show your fear. Never let ’em know they’ve won. Deny that you’re bleeding, even when your blood is dripping on the kitchen linoleum.

It was as if she were bracing for a catastrophe that was yet to come. Izzy knew that particular feeling well.

“I don’t know what went down between you and Gillman,” Izzy started. “But—”

She cut him off. “Look, I’m in trouble,” she admitted, as she turned back to him, squaring her shoulders and assuming what he was starting to think of as her default fighter’s stance. “My wallet, my bag—all my stuff—was…stolen.”

Okay, so
that
was a lie. Izzy took a mental step back, settling in to hear her out—but more as an audience member instead of someone with an emotional connection—really just ready to enjoy the upcoming dramatic performance.

But then she recanted, choking out what had to be the truth.

“I don’t know if it was stolen intentionally—it might have been. But, see, I got ditched. By my asshole of a boyfriend. All my stuff was in the car and he just…left me. I was in the bathroom. In a Krispy Kreme. When I came out…”

It was that grim little detail—Krispy Kreme—that convinced Izzy. Jesus Christ. The humiliation factor here was so high. No way could she be making this shit up.

She continued, her voice thick with her misery: “I hitched down here from LA because I thought maybe Danny might…”

She paused, her eyes averted, and Izzy waited. Of course, maybe she was merely a brilliant actor. A con artist who knew, just from glancing at him, that he would buy her story if she told him she’d been dumped at a Krispy Kreme rather than, say, a Home Depot.

Intermission over, she took a deep breath, and started Act Two, her eyes still fixed on the cracked and potholed tarmac. “I have no money and no place to stay.”

And here it came.
Can I borrow some cash? Just a few hundred dollars to tide me over. I’ll pay you back…

“Is there any chance,” she asked, forcing herself to look up and meet his gaze, “I can stay with you until Danny gets back?”

Whoa.

Izzy was more than merely surprised. He was taken aback. This woman—girl really—was a total stranger. And even more importantly,
he
was a stranger to
her.
A large, strong, dangerous-looking, malodorous stranger.

Yeah, he’d fantasized about her coming home with him and doing the naked Macarena, but he’d imagined that discussion happening in more of a heated moment—
your place or mine?
—after Danny’d told her it was Sophia or the monastery for him, and that he was taking his vows tomorrow. Izzy’d pictured it happening after she’d cried herself dry in his sympathetic arms, and he’d given her some comforting kisses that turned—unexpectedly, natch—to pure fire.

Why that should have made a difference to him was absurd, but it did.

Izzy realized that his stunned silence was stretching on. And on. It no doubt was seeming to last forever for Maybe-Susan, too, who must’ve truly been at her wits’ end to ask if she could come home with him, said total stranger
grande.

Either that, or she was a freaking idiot—Blanche DuBois reincarnated.
Ah have always relahd on the kahndness of strangahs…

Or she really
was
a con artist, looking to gain access to his apartment, where, while he was sleeping, she would rob him blind. Or she’d take pictures of him in bed with her boyfriend, so they could blackmail him by threatening to post the photos on the Internet.

Note to self: Don’t fall asleep tonight.

But before he could make the “Yuh” sound to say
yes, you can sleep on my couch—at least for tonight,
because he really didn’t have anything in his apartment worth stealing and lack of sleep was well worth the potential prize of her moving off his couch and into his bed, she upped the ante.

“Rumor has it, I give good head.” She smiled, but something shifted in her eyes, just slightly, and the effect was disarming. For someone so young and pretty, she suddenly looked tired—battle-worn—like she was twenty going on fifty.

She took a step toward him, and Izzy took a step back, which was kind of stupid, like what? Did he really think she was going to fellate him right in the middle of the parking lot?

Except, damn, he was depraved, because her offer had gone in through his ears, been processed by his brain, and sent straight to his dick, solidifying the father of all woodies that was lurking behind his zipper. And okay, maybe he was being harder on himself than he had to be, because, to be honest, the kind of Louisville Slugger he was packing was pretty standard MO for him after an adrenaline-filled op—even when that op was just training. He’d had the damn thing—or at least its little brother—before she’d walked into the Bug.

Izzy opened his mouth and “I need a shower” came out, which was a dumbass thing to say, because there was this implication that
after
he showered, she’d…

Yeah. Like it was helping him to stand here thinking about that.

“Look, I hate to be a buzzkill,” Izzy forced himself to tell her. “But I gotta be honest. It creeps me out when there’s this implied exchange of goods and services—yeah, you can stay with me tonight, but in order to surf my couch you’ve got to…you know. Blow me. That’s not cool. I mean, yeah, it would be cool in another dimension where God was a fourteen-year-old but…” He scratched the back of his head. “I’m not even figuring in the mystery factor. You never did quite tell me your name.”

She didn’t hesitate this time. “It’s Brittney.”

“Really,” Izzy said.

She looked away. “Of course not. You’re friends with Danny. If I tell you who I am, you’ll tell him.”

“Actually,” Izzy said. “Me and Gillman—we’re not really friends. I work with him, yeah, but…He pretty much hates my guts. So, see, I kinda lied, too.” He held out his hand to her. “Let’s start over, okay? I’m Irving Zanella. People call me Izzy, from my initials—I.Z. Izzy, get it? Because, you know,
Irving?
Damn. I’m pretty sure my parents hated me. At the very least they wanted me to die a virgin.”

She managed a brief laugh as she shook his hand, and his heart did another flip, because she really floated his boat. And not just because she allegedly gave good head. He liked her. Extremely. Crazy or not. Warnings from Lopez and Gillman be damned. Before this night ended, at the
very
least, Izzy was going to walk away with her phone number. And he was going to call her again.

Probably tomorrow.

He’d invite her to go skydiving. And if he were lucky, he’d be able to keep up.

But maybe—and he still had a shot here—he’d get her into bed with him tonight. But he didn’t want it to happen because she was desperate, but rather because she’d discovered that she truly wanted to be there.

“And you are…?” he prompted her.

Her smile faded. “I have no ID. Even if I do tell you, why should you believe me?” She looked searchingly into his eyes, shivering slightly in the breeze off the ocean.

That sassy
Rumor has it, I give good head,
had been an act of desperation—Izzy was at least ninety-eight percent sure of that now. The sun was nearly gone, casting long shadows across the parking lot. The air was cooling fast, and soon it would be dark. She had no money, no jacket, no place to go…

“Try me,” Izzy told her.

He watched as she thought about trusting him. He watched as she realized that she didn’t have much of a choice. And then he saw her surrender.

But he didn’t see the massive clusterfuck that was coming when she opened her mouth, not until she uttered words that riveted him to the ragged tarmac.

“I’m Eden,” she said. “Gillman.”

Holy shit.

Izzy must not have registered any response at all, because she added, “Danny’s sister?”

Holy,
holy
shit.

That
was who she’d reminded him of—Gilligan, not some movie starlet. Danny, too, was gleamingly good-looking, with his dark hair and brown eyes. In fact, he could see bits of Danny in Eden’s eyes, and around her chin and her mouth.

Sweet Jesus, don’t think about her mouth and that implied offer she’d made to…

“Eden, huh?” he said, because he had to say something. Gillman had two sisters, one of whom was married with kids. But his little sister—Eden—had just graduated—barely—from high school. She was the troublemaker. The problem child. The black sheep of Gillman’s otherwise perfect, golden-spoon and trust-fund encrusted family.

“Damn,” Izzy said. “Are you even eighteen?”

She was looking at him now with the same trepidation she’d had in her eyes when she’d first glanced in his direction, back in the Bug. “Please don’t tell Danny that I—”

“Relax.” Izzy took out his cell phone. “Just…Look, why don’t you give me your parents’ phone number in Vegas, so I can—”

Disappointment—and anger—flared in her eyes. “I
knew
it.”

“Whoa!” Izzy blocked her route, even though she had limited options. Marching out of that parking lot would leave her alone and cold on a dark street. “Lopez told me your brother went home for a family emergency,” he said to Eden. “I’ll call and ask for him. I won’t say you’re with me, I won’t speak to your parents. Just Dan. Okay?”

She stared at Izzy.

“Okay?” he said again.

“I can’t go back there,” she said.

“No one’s saying that you should,” Izzy pointed out. “But you wanted to talk to Dan, and he’s there, so…”

She didn’t seem convinced.

“Am I right in assuming that you’re the family emergency?” he asked.