I will say, with some modicum of pride, that I did not panic. Okay, I did have a few moments of heart palpitations and rapid breathing, but I managed to pull myself together before hitting the clinical anxiety stage.
It took only a few minutes for Lucas and his father to come up with a plan that kept me from barreling out the door and grabbing the next plane home. Benicio had already dispatched the corporate jet to Portland. By the time he mentioned the possible danger to Savannah, Cabal guards were en route to pick her up. I will admit to a brief moment of “What if this is all a setup and he’s going to snatch Savannah” anxiety, but I managed to stifle it before I blurted out any wild accusations. Lucas trusted his father to bring Savannah here, so I trusted him.
Lucas made the call to Michelle’s parents, apologized for waking them, and tossed together a plausible story to explain why several huge men would be arriving at their door to collect Savannah. Or I assume he came up with a plausible story. I heard none of it. I knew enough about Lucas, though, to know he was capable of manufacturing the most convincing lies at a moment’s notice—yet another birthright from his father.
At my request, Lucas also talked to Savannah. What did he tell her? The truth. I’m sure of that. If it was me on that phone, I’d have sugarcoated it for her. I couldn’t help it. The urge to make her life easier was too great. So I’d have given her a watered-down version, and she’d have listened, then asked to speak to Lucas to get the truth.
Once Benicio was gone, Lucas walked to the sofa, sat down beside me, and took my hand.
“You okay?” he murmured.
I squeezed his hand and managed a wan smile. “I’ll be better when she’s here, but I’m okay.”
“About this case,” he said. “Am I correct in assuming you want it?”
“I want it, but—”
“After what happened tonight, we’ve moved beyond the luxury of worrying about conflict of interest. Someone needs to investigate this.”
“You don’t think the Cabals can handle it?”
“Individually, I’d say the Cabals are quite capable of handling the situation. But together? Together they work at a fraction of their capacity.”
“Infighting?”
He nodded. “Precisely. It’s like two warring countries teaming up against a common enemy. Each will want to lead the attack. Each won’t share their information for fear of divulging contacts and techniques. Each will want the other to put their men at risk. A plan of action won’t be decided so much as negotiated.”
“And in the meantime, more kids will be hurt.”
“Collateral damage. I won’t say the Cabals don’t care; they aren’t monsters. But they are structured around profit-making and self-preservation. Those priorities will always come first, intentionally or not.”
“But obviously your father foresees this or he wouldn’t still be asking you to take the case. Why doesn’t he tell the other Cabals, ‘Thanks for the offer, but we’ll go it alone’?”
Lucas leaned back into the sofa. “Politics. At this level, even my father’s hands are tied. If he refuses to cooperate, it’ll not only affect his standing with the other Cabals but also cause internal dissent. Understandably, his employees will question why he’d refuse extra help.”
“So it’s down to us. In that case, then, I definitely want to—” I stopped. “Wait. What about Savannah? I certainly can’t let her tag along and—”
“I have a thought on that. Someone who could look after her.”
I shook my head. “You know how I am. Either I look after her myself, or I’ll go crazy worrying. I don’t trust anyone—”
He told me who he had in mind.
“Oh,” I said. “That might work.”
Benicio called to say that Savannah was on the jet and would arrive in Miami just after six. Lucas told him our decision, that I would take the case, starting immediately. As for Lucas’s role, we’d decided on honesty over subterfuge. Of course he’d help me. Yes, this meant working alongside the Cabals, but the cause was right, and he wouldn’t cheapen that by hiding his involvement. If Benicio felt he’d won a victory, we had to let him have that satisfaction. Our only defense was that we wouldn’t accept a Cabal paycheck for the job. We were doing this on our own, for our own reasons.
With securing Savannah’s safety now our top priority, Lucas asked his father for a rain check on breakfast. Instead, Benicio would