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** KEVIN **

I was panicking, but I didn’t want Howie to know it. I struggled to control the tremor in my fingers as I pulled thirty dollars out of my wallet and threw it on the table. Kristen deserved a generous tip anyways. I stuffed my wallet and the creepy note into my back pocket and motioned for Howie to follow my lead as I stood up as casually as possible. I could hear him falling into step behind me as I walked purposefully towards the exit, waving goodbye to Kristen as she hurried to refill the coffee mugs belonging to a pair of construction workers who were sitting at the long counter.

Thankfully, Howie picked up on my desire to play it cool and he waited until we were alone on the sidewalk before he spoke. “What are we going to do? Do we show the note to Joey?”

I nodded definitively, lengthening my strides to increase my speed. I was fighting the urge to sprint towards our waiting bodyguard, as I knew that the two of us running full speed down the street at nine o’clock in the morning would attract unnecessary attention. I was trying unsuccessfully to look in every direction at once. Whoever had slipped the note under our bill had to still be in the general vicinity. I was sure that the culprit was still watching us; I could feel it.

“Where is he?”

Howie’s voice cut into my thoughts and I stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. The Focus was empty and Joey was nowhere in sight. I twirled around in place, my eyes frantically scanning the semi-crowded street. The good-for-nothing lump had said that he was going to stay in the car. He was supposed to be protecting us.

“Do you think that something happened to him?” Howie’s voice was creeping into the falsetto range. He was clearly on the verge of a breakdown.

“Let’s get the stuff that we came for.” I gestured in the direction of the hardware store that now boasted an ‘Open’ sign in the front window. “If Joey doesn’t show up by the time we’re done, we’re leaving without him.”

“This is a bad idea.” Howie hissed as the two of us stepped into the store. “We should just head back to the house.”

The door creaked softly as we stepped inside, and the older man behind the counter looked up from his newspaper and nodded politely in our direction. I returned his nod and elbowed Howie discreetly in the ribs. The last thing that I wanted was for the man to pay us any unwarranted attention. I let out a breath that I didn’t even know that I had been holding as Howie fell silent, and began leading the way down the first aisle.

“We’ll be less than ten minutes.” I promised. “Go and look for the baseball bats.”

“Fine.” Howie glanced at his watch. “But we’re leaving after ten minutes. I don’t care if we’ve found everything or not.”

“Fair enough.” I relented as I checked my own watch. “I’ll meet you in front of the cash.”

Howie stalked off in search of the sporting goods section and I returned my attention to the multitude of items on the shelves in front of me. I yanked a spool of rope off of the wall and looped it around my arm as I moved hastily down the aisle. I had less than eight minutes to find flashlights, batteries, and whatever else I thought that we could use.

My eyes quickly scanned the overflowing shelves as I hustled down the second aisle. The apprehension was building in my stomach and I tried desperately to keep it at bay. I could practically feel the note burning a hole in my back pocket. The notion that we were being watched made me want to vomit. The police had promised that we would be safe here, that nobody would be able to find us if we followed the rules. A lot of good listening to the police had done us. I couldn’t wait to get Detective Eaton and Detective Bell on the phone so that I could rip the two of them a new one.

“Excuse me?”

I pulled my eyes away from the shelves and turned in the direction of the soft, feminine voice. A young woman was standing in the aisle staring woefully at the display of screwdrivers.

“Do you know which one of these is a philipshead?”

It took me a moment to find my voice. The woman was strikingly beautiful; slender and petite with wide set green eyes and flowing blonde hair.

“It’s this one here.” I stepped up beside her and pulled the appropriate screwdriver off of the shelf.

“Thank you.” The woman wrapped her tiny fingers around the screwdriver and flashed me a near-perfect smile. “I’m trying to assemble an Ikea dresser.”

“Ahhh” I smiled knowingly. “Those can be tricky.”

The woman kept her eyes trained on my face; her smile pulling softly at the corners of her mouth. “You look familiar.”

“Really?” I tried to play it cool, to keep my voice level. “I’m nobody special.”

A look of recognition crossed the woman’s face. “You’re Kevin – Kevin Richardson from the Backstreet Boys!”

Shit! I was immediately overcome with anxiety. I needed to find Howie and get out of the store before this woman caused a scene. Although she appeared to be calm and relaxed, I knew from experience that even seemingly well-adjusted fans could turn into raving lunatics with less than a moment’s notice. The woman was now rummaging around in her purse and I was beginning to sweat.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” The women pressed. She pulled a standard sized photograph out of her purse and smiled brightly at me. “You’re Kevin and this is your family.” She turned the picture around and held it out to me.

My mouth fell open in surprise. Her well-manicured fingers were holding a surveillance style photograph of my wife and children. The three of them had clearly been out for a walk. Kristin was pushing Max in a stroller and Mason was running on ahead of them, his small face lit up in delight as he chased a pigeon along the sidewalk.

“Where did you get that?” My voice warbled and I immediately hated myself for sounding so weak. This woman was easily ten years younger than me and probably one hundred pounds lighter. She shouldn’t have been able to gain the upper hand so easily.

The woman continued to stare at me. The look in her eyes had changed. The innocence and sweetness had been replaced by abhorrence and disdain. Her smile had become sinful.

“Don’t make a scene.”

“What are you …” I trailed off as I felt the gun press into the small of my back. My body tensed and the spool of rope slid off of my arm.

The woman kicked the rope to the side as it hit the floor. “If you do as we say, nothing will happen to Mason and Max. Do you understand?”

“What about Kristin?” I choked, realizing that the woman hadn’t mentioned her name.

The woman rolled her eyes. “If you do as we say, nothing will happen to Mason, Max, and Kristin.” She gave me a pointed look. “Okay?”

I nodded stiffly. The gun was still pressing into my spine and I could feel someone’s warm breath on the back of my neck. I had yet to turn around, but I knew that it was a man standing behind me.

“Kev?”

I pulled my eyes away from the woman’s sickeningly smug expression and looked into Howie’s fearful face. He was standing at the end of the aisle and Joey was directly behind him. I knew without needing to see the weapon that Howie was also being held at gunpoint.

“Oh good!” The woman announced gleefully. “It looks like we’re all ready to go.”

My stomach plummeted. “Joey’s in on it?”

Howie’s eyes widened; confirming my suspicions. “He showed me a picture of Leigh and the boys.”

Howie sounded like he was on the verge of tears and I found myself praying that he wouldn’t cry. We couldn’t let our emotions get in the way.

“Move!” The voice behind me was low and gruff. “Don’t even think about signalling to the old guy for help.”

I took a tentative step forward as the mystery man jabbed the gun sharply into my lower back. The woman’s perfume wafted into my nose as I stepped around her and the smell churned my stomach. I thought back to the message that was tucked into my back pocket. The warning had been on the note and I had been too stupid to put it together. I had been too stupid to decipher the message hidden behind the words that I had sung hundreds, probably even thousands, of times over the past decade: ‘I was about to go home and there SHE was standing in front of me’.

My body shuddered involuntarily as the five of us shuffled past the bored looking man behind the counter. The elderly man barley even glanced up as we left the store. I couldn’t have signalled for help even if I had managed to summon the nerve to do so.

The mid-morning sun was high in the sky by the time we stepped back out onto the sidewalk. I squinted against the brightness and stumbled roughly as the man standing behind me urged me forward towards the waiting Focus. I grabbed on to Howie’s shoulder to steady myself and was surprised to discover that he was trembling. His whole body was shaking beneath my fingers.

“Get in.” Joey instructed. He pulled open the back door and pushed Howie forcefully towards the car while simultaneously tucking his gun back into his jacket.

Howie complied without a word; his head bowed in defeat as he slid into the car. I felt the barrel of the gun pull away from my back as the man holding it stepped around me and followed Howie into the backseat. He was short, stocky, and built like a tank. His muscles bulged against the confines of his t-shirt and the veins in his neck looked as if they were ready to explode.

“Now you.” Joey wrapped his thick fingers around my arm and guided me towards the open door. “Get in the back.”

I glared menacingly at the man who I had come to see as our protector as I allowed myself to be pushed into the car. It was a tight fit with the three of us in the backseat, and I could feel the heat radiating off of Joey’s beefy Italian counterpart. I swallowed hard as I realized that the man sitting beside me had yet to put away his weapon; he was still twirling the gun around in his fingers as if it were nothing more than a harmless toy.

“Are you and the boys comfy back there, Vinny?” Joey slid into the driver’s seat and smirked at me in the rear-view mirror. “You three look nice and cozy.”

The man beside me grunted in response. He looked about as impressed as Howie and I did about being wedged into the confined space. “Let’s hurry this shit up.”

“Don’t worry.” The woman settled herself into the passenger seat and turned around to face us. “We’re not going far.”