The 6th Target

understand?'

He was sitting up now, legs over the side of the bed, so much love in his face I had to turn away.

'I love you, Lindsay. Please, let's not fight. I have to leave in the morning.'

'You have to leave now, Joe,' I heard myself say. 'It kills me to say this, but I don't want any more well-intentioned promises,' I said. 'Let's end this, okay? We had a great time. Please? If you love me, let me go.'

After Joe kissed me good-bye, I lay on my bed, staring at the ceiling for a long time, tears soaking my pillow. I wondered what the hell I had done.

Chapter 40

IT WAS SATURDAY NIGHT, almost midnight. Cindy was sleeping in the bedroom of her new apartment at the Blakely Arms – alone – when she was awoken by a woman shouting her lungs out in Spanish on a floor somewhere over her head.

A door slammed, there were running footsteps, then a hinge creaked and another door slammed, this one closer to Cindy's apartment.

Maybe it was the door to the stairwell?

She heard more shouting, this time down on the street. Men's voices rose up to her third-floor windows, then there was the sound of scuffling.

Cindy was having thoughts she'd never had in her old apartment building.

Was she safe here?

Was the great buy she got on this place a poor bargain after all?

She threw back the covers, left her bedroom, and went out to her new airy living room and foyer. She peeked through the peephole – saw no one. She twisted the knob of the dead bolt, left-right-left-right, before going to her desk.

She ran her hands through her hair, pulled it up into a band. Jeez. Her hands were shaking.

Maybe it wasn't just the nightlife in the building. Maybe she was giving herself the creeps because of the story she was writing about child abduction. Since Henry Tyler's phone call, she'd been surfing the Web, reading more than she'd ever known about the thousands of children who were abducted in the United States every year.

Most of those kids were taken by family members, found, and returned. But a few hundred children every year were strangled, stabbed, or buried alive by their abductors.

And the majority of those kids were murdered within the first hours of their abduction.

Statistically it was far more likely that Madison had been grabbed by an extortionist than a child-molesting, murdering freak. The only problem with that scenario was that it left a huge, chilling question in her mind.

Why hadn't the Tylers been contacted about paying a ransom?

Cindy was halfway back to her bedroom when the doorbell rang. She froze, heart jumping inside her chest. She didn't know a soul in this building.

So who could be ringing her doorbell?

The bell rung again, insistently.

Clutching her robe, Cindy went to the door and peered through the peephole. She couldn't believe who was peering back.

It was Lindsay.

And she looked like hell.

Chapter 41

I WAS ABOUT TO TURN AND GO when Cindy opened the door in her pink PJs, her curls rubber banded into a pom-pom on the top of her head. She was looking at me as if she'd just seen the dead.

'You okay?' I asked.

'Me? I'm fine, Lindsay. I live here, remember? What's wrong with you?'

'I would've called,' I said, hugging my friend, using the moment to try to get a grip on myself. But clearly Cindy had scanned and memorized the shock on my face. And frankly she didn't look so good herself. 'But I didn't know I was coming until I was here.'

'Come in, and for God's sake, sit down,' she said, staring at me anxiously as I made for the couch.

Cardboard cartons were stacked against the walls, and layers of Bubble Wrap wafted around my feet.

'What's happened, Lindsay? As Yuki would say, 'You look like you've been dragged through a duck's ass.' '

I managed a weak laugh. 'That's about how I feel.'

'What can I get you? Tea? Maybe something stronger.'

'Tea would be great.'

I fell back onto the sofa cushions, and a few minutes later, Cindy returned from the kitchen, pulled up a footstool to sit on, and handed me a mug. 'Talk to me,' she said.

No joke, Cindy was a perfect paradox: all pink ruffles and curls on the outside, never leaving home without lipstick and the perfect shoes, but inside that girlie-girl was a bulldog who would get a grip on your leg and hang on until you had no choice but to tell her what she wanted to know.

I suddenly felt idiotic. Just seeing Cindy changed my mood for the better, and I no longer wanted to open myself up and talk about Joe.

'I wanted to see your apartment.'

'Give. Me. A. Break.'

'You're relentless -'

'Blame it on my choice of career.'

'And proud of it.'

'Ab-solutely.'

'Bitch.' I found myself laughing.

'Go ahead. Get it off your chest,' she said. 'Give me your best shot.'

'Calling you a bitch was my best shot.'

'Okay, then. What gives, Linds?'

I covered my face with a throw pillow, shutting out the light, feeling myself tumbling down. I sighed. 'I broke up with Joe.'

Cindy grabbed the pillow away from my face.

'You're kidding, right?'

'Be nice, okay, Cindy? Or I'll throw up on your rug.'

'Okay, okay, so why did you do that? Joe's smart. He's gorgeous. He loves you. You love him. What's wrong with you?'

I pulled my knees up and hugged them tight with my arms. Cindy sat down next to me on the couch. She put an arm around me.

I felt as if I were holding on to a skinny tree while being lashed by a tidal wave. I'd been crying so much lately. I thought I might be losing my mind.

'Take your time, honey. I'm here. The night is young. Sort of.'

So I gave in, blurted out the story about my totally embarrassing trip to DC and how I felt about the whole mood-swinging affair with Joe. 'It really, really hurts, Cindy. But I did the right thing.'

'It's not just because you got your feelings hurt when he wasn't home and you saw that girl?'

'No. Hell no.'