The last time Esme had been up there, in high school, someone had gotten a couch up the staircase. She didn’t know how. The first time she’d been in the O’Lounge, the day of the dare, it had been furnished with produce crates, a couple of broken chairs from the restaurant that somebody had duct-taped back together, and an amazing number of empty beer bottles, “handles,” and forties. How the O’Lounge had lasted all these years without some drunken kid accidentally pitching himself over the side of the roof was beyond her.

Johnny pushed the kitchen door open, and she got hit with bright light and chaos. In a big place like O’Shaunessy’s, on a Friday night, the kitchen was a madhouse. Dozens of people were moving in dozens of directions, orders flying, flames on the grill flaring, cooks yelling above the din, waiters going every which way.

Nobody asked them if they needed help, or particularly took notice of them. Johnny knew how to walk through a room like he belonged there, and so did she. They stayed out of the action, keeping close to the storage shelves. It wasn’t very many steps to the pantry, just enough for him to take the small spiral-bound notebook and his mechanical pencil out of his shirt pocket and look exactly like a delivery guy checking an order.

She, on the other hand, made a point of looking like his boss-expensive and unhappy.

“Two problems?” she repeated, when they reached the pantry. She kept her attention on the door, with an occasional glance at his notebook. She did not look around the kitchen.

“I think Dovey Smollett did this dare back in seventh grade.”

Oh, crap. He was right. Dovey had been a Campbell Junior High kid, and like every other outcast, which at Campbell had just about encompassed the entire damn seventh grade and half the eighth-graders, Dovey had laid himself on the line for double dog dares. On the whole, ninth-graders were too sophisticated for double dog dares. By ninth grade, sex, drugs, and gangs had taken them.

But Dovey, she remembered, had gotten suckered into a few sketchy moments and gotten hurt on the Larimer Square dare, a bit of “on the hoof” pickpocketing of the chichi LoDo crowd. Dovey had been too heavy-handed for the deed and been knocked into next week by the guy whose wallet he’d tried to lift.

Esme had bypassed the Larimer Square dare, out-and-out thievery being beyond her comfort zone at the time, way beyond, though she’d obviously since adjusted her parameters. Johnny, as she recalled, had been quite comfortable and surprisingly skilled at picking pockets. He’d gotten a couple of wallets the night he’d done it. Fourteen years old and running freaking wild on the streets.

It was a wonder he’d never gotten arrested. Or maybe he had been. Hell, for all she knew, he was an ex-con on probation, which made her wonder what in the hell she was doing going to the O’Lounge with him.

Getting away from Dovey and the Bear, and staying out of Franklin Bleak’s clutches-the answer really was straightforward, and honestly, it didn’t matter how many crimes and misdemeanors John Ramos had committed as one of the city’s more skilled juvenile delinquents, or at any other time. He’d already redeemed himself by rescuing her off Wynkoop.

And wasn’t it funny how quickly a girl’s perspective could change, from abduction to rescue.

She walked into the pantry after him, looking concerned and serious, and like any number of the most expensive items in her entire inventory had been misplaced by one of her delivery drivers-up until he closed the door.

“We better-” he said.

“Yeah,” she finished his thought, looking around. The pantry was small, the shelving high and narrow, and there was a step stool pushed up against a crate.

She shoved it toward him, and he lodged it between the wall and the shelving unit closest to the door, then further reinforced the blockade with two five-gallon tubs of Greek olives. By the time he was finished, she’d moved three cases of premium mixers for the bar away from the small door in the back of the room.

“There’s a-” she said, noticing a lock on the door.

“I’ve got it.” He took his mechanical pencil and shoved it hard between the hasp and the door. When he pulled, half the hasp and its screws came out of the wood, and the door swung wide.

She was impressed.

She ducked inside the door and started up the stairs. “Steel pencil?” It had to be.

“Titanium.”

Very cool. Dax had a titanium pencil. It had saved his life once, when he’d buried it in…

Her thought trailed off for a second. The narrow stairwell was dark, and it took her a couple of seconds to get her flashlight out of its pocket on the messenger bag. There were a few things she never went anywhere without; a small flashlight was one of them.

What Dax had buried his titanium pencil in was some guy’s throat. He’d recommended she get one for the same reason. She’d decided to stick with her knife instead, and even then, even with the training she’d had, she wasn’t sure how effective she’d be if the moment ever came for the throat-burying move. Not because her training wasn’t good, but because she hadn’t had enough of it-yet. Working with Dax meant there was plenty more on her horizon.

And Johnny Ramos had a titanium pencil and had been giving her directions like “incoming,” and “two o’clock,” for the last five minutes. Possibly, he had risen above street level.

The stairs were short, not up to code, and she was taking them two at a time, quickly, following the pool of illumination cast by her flashlight.

“You said there were two problems.”

“Yeah… two.” He was right behind her on the stairs, coming on fast, keeping her moving.

“So what’s the second problem?” she prompted, when he didn’t explain. Franklin Bleak was on her ass. She needed all the information she could get, and she needed it immediately, and she needed to get ahold of her dad again, her dad who had not called her back yet. Geez, he knew what she was up against tonight, and now she had this little sidebar into O’Shaunessy’s, and then the damn second running of the double dog dare. It was all just plain eating into her schedule. She needed to get to Nachman’s and get that damn money or the whole damn night was a bust, and her father was going to have to pack his bags for a one-way trip to Siberia.

Sure, she could get her dad out of town, and her mother… and Aunt Nanna, and Danny, and Deb, and Uncle Tim, and about forty other family members.

Crap.

She got in another half dozen stairs before Johnny spoke two words guaranteed to get her attention.

“Kevin Harrell.”

Well, that sure as hell stopped her cold. She whirled around, and landed smack dab up against him.

Her first realization was very physical, and very profound: Johnny Ramos was built like a slab of granite.

Her second realization was how amazingly angry she still was at the idiot who had dared to slam her up against the lockers in East High.