After two rings a deep, familiar voice answered, “Bella?”

There was a roar of music and people talking in the background, the various sounds like a crowd competing for space.

“Hi.”

“Hello? Bella? Hold on, let me get into my office.” After a long, noisy pause, the din was cut off sharply. “Hey, how are you and your little miracle doing?”

“I need a place to stay.”

Total silence. Then her brother said, “Would that be for three or for two?”

“Two.”

Another long pause. “Do I need to kill that fool bastard?”

The cold, vicious tone scared her a little, reminding her that her beloved brother was not a male you wanted to screw with. “God, no.”

“Talk, sister mine. Tell me what’s going on.”

Death was a black parcel that came in a lot of different shapes and weights and sizes. Still, it was the kind of thing that when it hit your front doorstep, you knew the sender without checking the return address or even opening the thing up.

You just knew.

As Z back-flatted into the path of those two lessers, he knew that his FedEx-tinction package had arrived, and the only thing that went through his mind was that he wasn’t ready to take delivery.

Course, it wasn’t the kind of thing you could refuse to sign for.

Above him, cast in a dim glow from some kind of light, the lessers froze as if he were the last thing they expected to see. Then they took out their guns.

Z didn’t have a last word; he had a last image, one that totally eclipsed the double-barreled action that was at point-blank range of his head. In his mind he saw Bella and Nalla together in that rocker back in the nursery. It was not a picture from the night before when there had been Kleenexes and red-rimmed eyes and his twin looking grave. It was from a couple of weeks ago, when Bella had been staring down at the young in her arms with such tenderness and love. As if she’d sensed him in the doorway, she’d lifted her eyes, and for a moment the love that was in her face had wrapped around him as well.