Gone (Michael Bennett)

had proposed to her the day they both graduated from Irvine. He once told her that he truly liked only three things in this world. Her, running, and beer. They had six kids now, two of them in college, and were still going strong. They were lucky people.
    “How’s Aquaman?” Mitch asked.
    “I’m sorry to say I still don’t see too many Olympic diving team invitations in Ian’s near future,” she said with a wince.
    Mitch said something, but she couldn’t hear him at all as one of the landscapers came directly behind the SUV, the air rake screaming in the painful decibel range now, like a 747 taking off.
    “Hold on a second, Mitch. I can’t hear you,” Lillian said. The side window suddenly smashed inward.
    Staggered by the abrupt explosion, glass still spraying around her, Lillian turned to see the hard face of the Hispanic landscaper in the blown-open window, already half in the car. Her glance went to his hand. There was something black in it rising toward her face.
    She was pulling the .40 caliber in the pancake holster on her right side when the pepper spray hit. Gagging on chemical fire, her face burning, her eyes blinded, Lillian still managed to draw her service automatic as the air rake shrieked in her ears.
    Then the landscaper smashed her in the jaw with his huge fist, hard enough to make her teeth click. The last things Lillian heard were the thump of her gun dropping to the foot well and the sound of the truck door opening. The seat belt loosened then, and she was sliding and falling, tumbling into a wave of black that seemed to rise up to meet her halfway.

CHAPTER 66
     
    WHEN SPECIAL AGENT MARA came to, she was being carried by someone large and strong up a slate walkway. The house they approached was a white stucco, Spanish mission–style structure with a clay tile roof. The man carrying her smelled strongly of tobacco and coffee. The door looked like something from a castle, with dark wood timbers banded in iron.
    She opened her mouth but couldn’t form words or even sounds. Drugs , she thought dully. She’d been drugged. The opulent door was creaking open when the black came back.
    Music was playing when she woke up again. It was classical, a baroque cello concerto. Was it Bach? No, it’s Haydn , Lillian thought dreamily. She even knew the piece, she realized. Concerto in D Major.
    She wondered idly where she was, but something told her not to worry so much. She kept her eyes closed as she listened to the deep, warm tones of the cello playing melody, then harmony, then melody again.
    Lillian opened her eyes when she realized someone was humming along to the music. A cute, perky-looking young Hispanic woman was standing alongside her.
    A nurse? Lillian thought. But no. It couldn’t be. The woman was wearing a shiny green- white- and- red Mexican-soccer shirt over yoga pants, with bright-pink-and-white Nikes. Her highlighted brown hair was pulled back in a tight, all-business ponytail.
    Lillian blinked, quickly trying to wipe the last of the cobwebs from her foggy mind, assessing her situation.
    She was in a dark, paneled room, some kind of office with wood blinds pulled down. There were bookshelves on one wall with no books in them. She was sitting, almost fully reclined, in a large leather office chair, her arms and legs strapped securely to the chair with thick, gray duct tape.
    She remembered. Ian. The pool. The window crashing in.
    Jesus, God, no , she thought as she began to shake hysterically, trying to break free. No, no, no. Just no.
    “Relax,” the athletic young woman said, stroking the back of the FBI agent’s arm. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to hurt yourself. My name is Vida. I am going to help you, if you let me, Agent Mara. Or shall I call you Lillian?”
    “What do you want?” Lillian sobbed. “Let me go. Why are you doing this to me?”
    “There are many reasons. But for now, we’ll concentrate on one,” Vida said, lifting a stern finger. “Our organization is looking for a man who is in hiding. We believe that he may be in California. His name is Michael Bennett. Do you know him?”
    “No,” Lillian said, staring at the woman. “You have the wrong person. I am an FBI agent, but I run the white-collar division. I don’t know anything.”
    “That truly is a shame,” Vida said, turning on the heel of one of her pink-and-white Nikes and lifting something from the corner of the dark room. Lillian wheezed. It was a large, yellow-handled,