Into the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page A

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,