The other men move when the man holding Candace falls. Tyler and Monica open fire.

I go for Candace but I step on the slingshot bullet I dropped which causes me to stumble. So, rather than knocking her aside, I end up tackling her into the wall. This is a good thing as I hear bullets buzzing overhead through the space Candace and I would have occupied.

The gunfire is soon over.

Ears ringing, I look back at Monica and Tyler to see if they’re okay.

They’re both upright and seem fine, guns smoking in their hands. There’s a thin haze hanging in the air that smells of cordite.

“They just stood there,” says Monica. I can tell she’s shouting but it's like she's under two or three thick blankets. “Shooting at her.” She nods at Candace.

I look down at the dead man who'd nearly killed her. His eyes are open and staring. He could have been reading a technical manual. The gun is still in his hand, my knife sticking up. I reach out to retrieve it.

“Don’t,” says Tyler. “Don’t touch anything.”

But that’s not what makes me hesitate. There’s a shadow on the side of his neck.

The aethings flare and the dark eclipses the light almost completely.

“OUT!” I yell.

I lift Candace and throw her toward the front door. Movement in the corners of my eyes let me know that Monica and Tyler are running but I’m too slow. I've yet to get the rest of the way off the floor.

I push hard against the dark and hurl myself sideways at the tasteful sofa in front of the bay window like I’m a tween pretending to be a superhero. I hit it too high and it begins to topple backwards.

There’s a flash and a big bass whump as a hot hand lifts and spins the couch up lengthwise and tosses it through the glass. It’s the centrifugal force more than my death grip on the cushions, I think, that keeps me in the center as the couch revolves around me. We roll once on the grass and then rock upright and come to rest.

I sit up and watch the smoke pour out of the bay window. Every one of the five men had exploded.

The police arrive in the next few seconds and then the fire department a few minutes after that.

I sit with Candace on the couch with my arm around her. She’s stunned and in shock.

Tyler is fine. She stands nearby, tall and official, her phone on her ear, grass stains on her arms and legs. She and Candace had been blown through he front door and into the yard.

Monica has a knot on her head. She went for the hallway and the shockwave sent her into the wall. She's now in my RV with Amir and Stacy, keeping them inside and out of the way.

“They didn’t say anything,” says Candace to no one in particular.

I gesture for Tyler who hurries over.

“They were at the front door and the back, pounding, but didn’t say anything,” Candace says to the grass in her yard. “The back door must’ve broken or something. That’s how they got in. I was hiding behind the curtains in the living room. Stupid. A man went to the front door to let the others in. One man stayed there. The other went to the back so I couldn’t get out of the house. The rest looked for me and it didn’t take them long. I fought them. Kicked and punched and bit one pretty good. They had me and started moving me toward the kitchen and the garage, I think. That’s when you showed up.” She looks up at Tyler. “They didn’t say a word the whole time. Not to me. Not to each other. Nothing. They were going to kill me, weren’t they?”

Tyler puts a hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “We don’t know, ma’am.”

Candace nods.

“You said on the phone something about Craig and your children?”

Candace nods. “Craig says he took our kids to his church for a youth group activity but when I call them there’s no answer. He won’t answer my calls or texts now either. I left so many messages and finally, I told him, Craig, you either bring our children home right this instant or I’m calling the police and filing for divorce. I left that message an hour ago?”

“Does Craig have a sponsor?” asks Tyler.

Candace snorts. “No.”

“Do you or your husband know any practitioners or anybody affiliated with them?”

“No.”

“I don’t suppose he knows or hangs out with the Wild Specters motorcycle gang?”

Candace barks a laugh. “Craig’s an interior decorator so unless their clubhouse was pretty chic, probably not. I’ve never met a biker in my life.”

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Tyler asks some more questions and takes down a bunch of information from the shaken woman who becomes increasingly distraught until she cracks.

“Where is Craig?” she demands. “Where are my children? Where? I need to find them. Where are they? Are you looking for them?”

“Of course, we’re looking for them,” I say. I look up at Tyler. “Can I take her to Stacy?”

“Stacy’s here?” asks Candace.

“Yes,” I say. “She’s been trying to see you but there’s all this.” I indicate police and fire and the medical examiner and EMTs tracking up and down her yard. The fire is under control but they’re still pumping water into the house.

I help Candace over to the motorhome where Monica is waiting in the open side door with Stacy behind her wringing her hands.

“Whose RV is this?” says Candace.

“Mine,” I say. “It’s my new home. Myra helped me get it.”

“Myra’s great,” she says. “A bit odd.”

“Alex and Myra are awesome,” I say. “They’re on their way. I texted them.”

She hugs me and kisses my cheek. “Thank you,” she says.

Monica helps her up the stairs where Stacy pulls her into a hug and they’re both sobbing.

Monica steps out to stand beside me, watching the two women.

I nod at her head. “You get that looked at?” I ask.

“Just a bump,” she says. Then, when my expression doesn’t change, she adds, “Mom made sure I did. I’m fine. Not concussed or anything, I swear.”

“I don’t think she likes it when you call her mom,” I say. “You’re like, what? Five years younger than Tyler?”

“Seven.”

“Odd family. Thanksgiving must be awkward,” I sing at her.

She punches me lightly on the arm.

Tyler walks over. We watch as a few more cars arrive, lights flashing on their dashes, and then the sheriff’s cruiser.

Abernathy strolls up with Smythe and Torelli. He nods at the house. “Exploders?” he asks.

Tyler nods. “Five.”

The sheriff swore. “Anybody hurt?”

“Just those five,” says Tyler. “You find the ledgers?”

“Yes, we did,” says Abernathy. “No names though. Just symbols for customers. Whoever bought those little girls were the same ones who bought from Lansky. They’re marked with a plus sign.”

“A plus sign?” says Monica.

“Aren’t you on suspension?” says Abernathy.

Monica shrugs and hooks a thumb at my motorhome. “I was hanging out with friends,” she says. Then she points at the smoking house. “Exigent circumstances.”

“Uh huh,” says the sheriff. “And how is Mrs. Engstrom related?”

It takes me a second to get that Mrs. Engstrom is Candace.

Tyler says, “We’re not sure if she is. We were following up on another lead when we ran into one of her friends, Stacy Nostrum. Ms. Nostrum was on the phone with Mrs. Engstrom who reported that men were trying to enter the house.”

“Same group who robbed the bank and kidnapped that kid in Akron,” says Smythe shaking her head.

They talk some more, sharing details.

I sidle up to Torelli.

I say, “Who found the biker’s books, by the way?”

Torelli nods at the sheriff.

I hear Tyler say, “Oh! Looks like the hospital has sent us the video.” She's looking at her phone.

Monica walks over to look through the cab’s windshield. She points and gestures for Amir to come out. I can’t see him. She shakes her head, points to something, nods, and then walks back over to us. “He’s bringing it,” she says.

Amir bounds out of the motorhome with Monica’s laptop in his hands. She takes it from him, types, then looks at all of us and nods at the screen. We gather around to see a still on a video window. It’s the kidnapper’s hospital room. The man himself is lying in his bed with Gerald Whately checking his vitals.

“Why didn’t we get this earlier?” I ask.

Monica says, “Their lawyers had to talk to our lawyers.” She shrugs and presses play.

We see the flashing of the fire alarm lights and Whately looks up and moves to the door. When he gets there, the camera is whited out from the explosion. When the software makes its adjustments the hospital room is a charred black and red ruin.

“Go back,” says Smythe. “Let’s look at it frame by frame.”

Monica rolls the video back and pauses it right as Whately is getting to the door. She double-taps the touchpad a few times and the video stutters forward. As it does so, we can see a red light emanating from the kidnapper’s chest. Then it brightens to pink, then after the next pause, Monica takes her fingers away and we stare.

The light inside the kidnapper is so bright we can see the shadows of his bones and faint hints of internal organs. The light is brightest in a small spot the size of a quarter under the man’s left ear.

“They don’t want us to know anything about them,” says the sheriff. “They blow not just to cause damage, confusion, and whatnot. They don’t want us to identify them.”

Everybody but me nods or makes small sounds of agreement.

I’m trying, and failing, not to stare at the sheriff.

We volunteer to take Candace to the station. She needs to have her statement taken. The Wests are notified and will meet us there. Stacy sits with the stricken woman at the dinette while Amir works up in the cabover, looking for local plus signs.

Monica has volunteered to drive. Tyler’s in the passenger’s seat and I’m sitting on the floor between.

“Okay, what is it?” asks Tyler as soon as we pull out onto Candace's street.

“Huh?” I say.

“You’ve got something,” says Monica. “Or you think you do. Spill.”

“I do, I think,” I say. “You saw that bright spot of light under the kidnapper’s ear?”

They both nod.

“I saw it when we were chasing him,” I tell them. “In the car right before they went off the road. Those guys in there? Well, okay, the guy who had Candace? He had a mark there too. I bet they all did.”

Monica thumps on the ceiling.

Amir’s head hangs over the edge of the cabover above. “Yo,” he says.

Monica says, “The preliminary medical examiner’s reports on the bank robbers. Find it. We should have something, even if it's just their notes. Read whatever they got. See if there’s any mention of marks on the neck.”

“Marks on the neck,” says Amir. “Got it.” He vanishes.

“It’s thin,” says Tyler. “But it’s something. What is it? A tattoo?”

I shake my head. “It’s more like a slight discoloration? Sometimes it’s lighter or darker than the skin around it. Or, you know, maybe it’s the other way around? The mark’s the same color but the skin tones are different. Um, and guys? The sheriff’s got one too.”

They look at me.

Monica pulls over.

“The sheriff,” says Monica.

“What? He’s got a mark,” I say. Pointing at my neck under my left ear. “Right here.”

“You’re saying the sheriff is an exploder,” says Monica.

“I’m saying he’s got a mark. Maybe it’s a bruise. It probably is. He’s the one that found the ledgers, right? If he was in on it, he’d want them to stay hidden.”

“But they wouldn’t,” says Tyler. “Stay hidden, I mean. If they were there, once we knew they existed, we’d find them. Maybe he found them and was about to destroy or hide them again but didn’t get the opportunity.”

Amir’s head reappears. “Dude,” he says. “All the robbers had some kind of mark on their necks by their left ears. The M.E. took audio notes I transcribed and did a search? All of them. How’d you know?”