Furious, I threw the pillow at my headboard, irritated with the harmless way it bounced onto the comforter. The whole mess—the missing strippers, the dead toms, Marc’s…issues—would never have happened if I’d realized I’d infected Andrew.

I had to tell my father about Luiz. I was already in the hall, the tile cold against my bare feet, before I came to my senses. I couldn’t wake my father up after less than two hours of sleep to ramble on about a theory based on a hunch. I needed proof, something to validate what was otherwise merely the instinct of a vastly underexperienced enforcer.

Ryan. I had to talk to the Cowardly Lion himself. He might know something about Miguel’s plans and accomplices that would substantiate my speculation. Spinning on one heel, I ran back down the hall toward the kitchen, pausing in the foyer to glance at the grandfather clock. Even with only pale moonlight shining through the front windows, I could read the time clearly. Four-twenty-two in the morning. I probably wouldn’t see my bed again before dawn. Which was just as well, because I couldn’t have slept, anyway.

In the kitchen, I yawned as I passed the bar on my way to the basement door before my exhausted brain processed what I’d seen sitting on the long white countertop. There, next to the wall, where the guys had clearly pushed it to make room for their ice cream, was a shiny silver tray, on which sat a dinner plate, loaded with baked halibut, scalloped potatoes, and several spears of asparagus covered in cold, congealed hollandaise. Next to the dinner plate lay a linen napkin, a dinner fork, a dessert fork, and a dessert plate, empty but for a crumb of graham-cracker crust and a smear of strawberry. And a glass of tea, into which the ice had long ago melted.

Ryan’s dinner. No one had bothered to take it to him. I shook my head, half in shame and half in frustration. The fact that it lay unnoticed on the counter said that my mother had spent her entire evening in the woods. She made him a tray every night when she cleaned the kitchen, but had consistently refused to take it to him, even when my father had pushed the issue. One of us was supposed to do it, but apparently everyone’s least-favorite chore had been neglected in the excitement of the evening’s discoveries.

Of course, the ice cream hadn’t been neglected, and someone had obviously found time to eat Ryan’s cheesecake.

Great, I thought. He’s going to be in no mood to talk tonight. If he was even awake. Huffing in frustration, I set the empty dessert plate and fork on the counter, then picked up the tray. I balanced the tray on one hand as I pulled the basement door open, then marched down the stairs, glad the basement light was still on to illuminate my way.

Halfway along the steps, the stench of an un-flushed toilet hit me, no doubt made worse by the stifling heat in the basement, even in the predawn hours.

“’Bout time,” Ryan snapped by way of a greeting, sitting up on his mattress. “You guys forget I was alive down here? Or has Dad decided to remedy that?”

“One can only hope.” I stopped several feet in front of the cage to stare at him. “And don’t blame me for the delay. I spent most of today in New Orleans.”

For an instant, his eyes lit up in curiosity. But then his usual scowl slipped into place, and he whipped the conversation back around to his favorite topic: Ryan Sanders. “Yeah, well, someone could have at least emptied the damned coffee can and brought me some dinner. Or has the list of basic human necessities changed since I last saw daylight?”

Frowning, I set the tray on the seat of a ladder-backed chair next to the cage. “You’re in the lap of luxury compared to the hell you put me through, so shut up before I flush your dinner down the toilet along with this.” Growling, I picked up the foul-smelling coffee can he’d set just outside the bars of his cage and carried it into the bathroom on the other side of the basement, behind the weight bench and stand of free weights. “Why aren’t you asleep, anyway?”

“The sound of my stomach growling kept me awake.”

My teeth ground together as I rinsed the can in the sink.

“Try sleeping through the sound of your cousin crying herself to sleep after being raped.” Angry now, I stomped back to his cell and set the can where he could reach it, then returned to the bathroom to wash my hands.

Back at the bars, I picked up Ryan’s plate, sloshing hollandaise over the side, and dropped the fork into the middle of his scalloped potatoes.

“Step against the far wall and put your hands over your head, palms flat against the bricks.”

“Come on, Faythe. Is this really necessary?” Ryan whined, pouting at me as if I gave a damn. I didn’t. I’d let go of any familial affection for him the night he left me locked in Miguel’s basement to fight off two rapists in defense of my honor. And my life.

I gave him a faux casual shrug. “Fine. I don’t give a shit whether or not you eat.”

“All right, all right.” Ryan turned and pressed the side of his face into the brick wall, in the same position he assumed three times every day. At least, until today. Satisfied, I knelt on the floor in front of a smal steel flap at the bottom of the cage, through which I shoved his dinner plate and napkin. Then I reached through the bars to set his glass of tea next to the plate.

As I settled into the wooden chair, Ryan shuffled forward to grab his plate in one hand and his glass in the other, completely ignoring the napkin as he backed toward his bunk, the only place he had to sit and eat.

I folded my arms across my chest, grimacing in disgust as he licked butter and congealed fat from the handle of the fork. “You just gonna sit there and watch?” he asked. Then, before I could answer, he glanced around the basement, as if looking for something on the wal s. “What time is it, anyway?”