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Margo, Burbank, and Tapper all scream. Hawkeye, always quick with a reaction, can only stand and stare.

We are all thankful, yet we are stunned.

How did this happen?

CHAPTER 29

MADDY IS THE determined intern. R.J. is her by-the-book boss. This is not a match made in heaven.

She thinks that when she tells R.J. about her dealings with Belinda, Joanna, and McCarthy, he’ll be excited that she’s onto something big. But just the opposite happens.

“I send you to do a simple five-minute jail cell interview, and you launch a full-scale, totally unapproved, completely useless investigation. You’re working here three days, and you’ve violated just about every rule in the book,” R.J. says loudly and fiercely.

Maddy doesn’t give an inch.

“I’m telling you that there’s a major drug operation in the city using young girls as a delivery system, and that someone has discovered those girls make easy prey, and you start preaching about the rule book?” Maddy yells, equally angry.

R.J. is trying to keep himself under control. After all, Maddy saved his butt at Belinda’s hearing when he showedup disheveled and unprepared. But he can’t be controlled by that one event. So he tries to find some kind of middle ground.

“Look,” he says. “You’ve got a lot of potential, Maddy, but you also have a lot to learn.”

The cold, stern look on Maddy’s face makes it clear to R.J. that’s she’s not buying this new, calm approach. And she’s not going to let go. She speaks.

“Columbus, Ohio; Orlando, Florida; Scranton, Pennsylvania. That’s how huge this setup is. It’s countrywide! These girls are being used as smugglers and dealers, and who knows where that leads. For at least a few of them, I know it’s led to being murdered.”

“You heard all this from Belinda?” R.J. asks. And he seems interested for the moment.

“No. I heard it from the twelve-year-old girl I brought home last night. The girl I fed. I gave her a bed. I—”

R.J. jumps in. He seems to be both shocked and angry.

“You what? You brought a drug dealer into your house?”

“Oh, my God!” Maddy screams. “She’s a child who’s being taken advantage of!”

“Maddy,” he asks, “what the hell is wrong with you?”

She looks at him and asks quietly, “No, R.J. What the hell is wrong with you?”

CHAPTER 30

MADDY HAS A lesson with Dache coming up. In fifteen minutes. Damnit.

Yes, she knows that to be taught by Dache is a unique privilege. Lamont has told her more than once, “Every class with Dache is amasterclass.”

And while she knows all this is true, she’s also in a really rotten mood, and that is not a good jumping-in point for lessons with Dache.

Since she was younger, years before she became a protégé of Lamont’s, years before Dache took her into his intense training regimen, Maddy could totally chill just by high-speed running. Not jogging, but burnout running, the kind where you go until your body simply can’t anymore. Her usual route these days was parallel to Central Park, pounding the pavement up and down Fifth Avenue.

Once, during a session with Dache, she hesitatinglyasked him about her homemade method of “centering” herself. The great Dache did not mock her for her running method, but he certainly didn’t endorse it.

He told her, “The wordcenteringis highly inadequate for what the practice actually is. What I teach you is far greater than ‘centering.’ I teach you control. Then that control leads to power, and the power produces strength for both body and soul. Then, and only then, will you carry the capacity for doing good.”

Yes, Dache was right. Yes, she would learn. But for now Maddy is longing for a quick fix. So running at top speed up Fifth Avenue will have to do the trick.

When she reaches 72nd Street, Maddy turns into Central Park and keeps on running. But, damnit, her mind is not clearing. Her confusion is not diminishing.

R.J. is still a fool. Lamont still faces the most extraordinary challenge of his life. And Belinda is still living in a hovel while her friend Chloe is missing, with no one looking for her. And what about Joanna? After showering, eating, and staying at Maddy’s overnight, she insisted on leaving the next day, returning to the street, claiming that she could take care of herself.