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He had another one!

Rosalie heard the girl trying to scream through her gag, and from the sounds of his movements, she was struggling, fighting him, dragging her feet.

That was good. Now, if she was smart and figured out that the rest of them were in nearby stalls, she might come up with a way to let them out. “Hey!” Rosalie called. “What's going on?”

As if on cue, Candice let out a broken sob.

“You got another girl?” Rosalie baited.

“
Shut the fuck up, Star!”

“My name's Rosalie!”

“No more.
Ooof!
” More struggling. “You little bitch!”
Slap!
The sound of flesh meeting flesh ricocheted through the barn, and the girl let out a muted shriek of rage. “Quit your fighting, Rebel,” he said. “Or you'll get no food or water or pail. You can go hungry and thirsty and defecate all over yourself for all I care!”

More muffled shrieking.

Smack!

God, he was hitting her. Unfazed about leaving a mark. Never before had he seemed so angry, so out of control, at least not since Rosalie's last thwarted attempt at escape.

“You see that, do ya, Rebel?” he yelled. “No, I'm not talkin' about my cock, you little whore, but this belt. I'll use it on you, I will. Ask Star; she knows all about it.”

Some other girl gasped, Dana maybe, and Candice crumpled completely; soft sobs emanated from her stall.

The new girl shut up, which was probably smart, but Rosalie hated that she'd given up so quickly. True, the bastard who was holding them had all the power, but Rosalie would have liked to have heard a little more fight from their new cell mate. In order for any plan to work, they had to be strong, united, and willing to do whatever it took to break free.

Familiar noises came from the stall, the addition of a pail and water bottles.

Finally, things went quiet, and Rosalie imagined the bastard squaring off with his new victim. Tense seconds passed, and she heard a bat fly overhead. Next door Mary-Alice shrieked, and then the barn went silent again.

He must have removed the new girl's gag, because suddenly the barn was filled with a new voice. “What the hell do you think you're doing?” she yelled. “You fucker! Let me go!”

Thud!

A stall door slammed shut, and with the click of a lock, the newest victim was bolted inside.

“You can't do this!” she screamed, and sounds of her throwing herself at the door echoed through the barn.

He wasted no time and snapped off the lights before slamming the door. With a click, the lock was latched. “You damned freaking fuck! Let me out!” the new girl screamed at the top of her lungs. “You can't do this!” She was beating on the door as if she thought she could break it down with her fists.

The truck's engine sparked to life, rumbling loudly.

“No!” she cried, but the sound of the engine was already fading as he drove off. “Oh, God, no . . .”

“Hey!” Rosalie said.

“What?” the new girl said, sounding startled.

“There are four of us locked in here besides you.”

“What is this? What the hell's going on?”

Of course she was confused. She'd just suffered the trauma of her capture and then what sounded like a beating. “I'm Rosalie Jamison, the one he called Star.”

“Oh God, I was afraid of this. I just didn't want to believe it,” she said.

“Believe it.”

“Who else?”

Rosalie said, “Candice, they call her ‘Lucky'.”

“Candice . . . wait, ‘they'?” the new girl said.

“There's more than one guy.” Rosalie explained about Scraggly Hair, then introduced Dana as Whiskey. “Finally there's Mary-Alice. She's Princess.”

She moaned, “Jesus, this is worse than I thought.”

“Jade,” the snooty girl said as if the word tasted bad.

“Mary-A,” Jade's voice was dismal.

“Hold it,” Rosalie barked, sensing a fight. “I don't know what's going on with the two of you, if you know each other or not, but we really don't have time for any petty girl-bitch shit.”

The two stopped talking to each other, thank God. Rosalie then laid out everything to Jade, the entire, dire situation, including telling her about the meeting planned for the next night and what her fears were about the future. “These bastards aren't screwing around,” she said, “So our best bet is to get out of here before the rest of the posse of perverts shows up.”

No one said a word for a few seconds, and the bat took another turn around the rafters.

“Okay,” Jade said. “How?”

“First of all, look for anything on you, or in that stall, that will help. We need weapons. You can't see anything now, I know, but the second it starts to get light, or if he comes back and turns on the lights, look around, see what you can find, and get ready to use it.”

“How can you be so calm?” she asked.

Rosalie wasn't calm, not inside. She was scared and angry and a whole shitload of emotions that just wouldn't help the situation. “I don't know about you, but I don't like being called by a horse's name, and I don't like some freak kidnapping me and selling me off to a prostitution ring or whatever, so I'm going to try to get the hell out of here any way I can.”

Jade said with hard resolve, “I'm in.”

S
arah jogged down the path leading to the cemetery. With Gracie beside her, the dog somewhere in the nearby fields, she followed the weak, bobbing light from her flashlight. Night was falling rapidly, and the beam did little to pierce the surrounding umbra.

Years before, she'd followed this same path. First sneaking out of the house, then running across the fields, her heart light, her feet swift, moonlight her guide as she ran to meet Clint near the pond.

Oh, how long ago that seemed. A summer of hot days and passionate nights, of sunlight, and swimming and sex.

Now, instead of anticipation, she felt a burgeoning sense of dread steal over her. Rather than turn to the right, to circumvent the pond, she took a hard left, veering toward the graveyard she'd explored as a child and mostly avoided during her teen years, when she'd started to understand the malevolency of the undead, a notion fostered by her brothers, who gleefully told her ghost stories and scared the crap out of her. Of course, those tales had been silly attempts to scare her, and her brothers' imaginations, though vivid, could conjure nothing that compared to the nightmare she was now living, whatever the hell it was.

As they topped a small hill, the cemetery loomed before them, grave markers seeming to rise out of the surrounding mist, brambles growing over the decrepit, broken fence that had once surrounded the plot. Angelique Le Duc's tomb was taller than all the surrounding headstones.

“Wow,” Gracie said, in awe.

Sarah found the gate that had tumbled into the enclosure, where grave markers poked through the tall grass and weeds.

She didn't wait, but cut across the graveyard to the vault built squarely in the center of the cemetery. A large marble edifice engraved with angels and scriptures, it had once been surrounded by a rose garden, but now, when she passed the beam from her flashlight over them, the plants that remained were leggy and leafless, winter-dead.

Making her way to the front of the tomb, Sarah shined her light over the doorway and beneath the carved angels, where a bit of scripture from the book of Matthew had been etched into the stone.

She moved to one side and swept the beam over the long, south-facing exterior wall. where a line of scripture attributed to the Gospel of Mark had been carved.

“What're you doing?” Gracie asked as the dog bounded over the fence and began sniffing the headstone. “Let's go inside.”

“We will.”
Or I will,
she amended as she wasn't certain she'd let Gracie step inside the tomb if she were able to open it. Not until she'd viewed it first.

She walked around to the rear of the vault to view another piece of scripture, this one from Saint Luke, and then finally, on the last wall, a verse from the Gospel of John.

A tingle of dread slid down her spine.

What was it Mother had said? That Theresa was safe with Matthew and John, and then, at another time, she'd mentioned her oldest daughter was safe with Luke? Dee Linn had even joked about Mark, wondering where he was.

“Right here,” Sarah whispered and wondered about what she would find inside. A dusty, empty vault? Or the final resting place of the sister she'd never met?

Sarah's heart beat faster. Was it possible? Would she find Theresa in this very tomb? No . . . If Mother had known where she was, she wouldn't have been so haunted, so hopeful that Theresa would return. But that cryptic bit of conversation that she and her siblings had considered just a part of her mother's dementia . . . what did it mean?

A gust of wind blew by, chasing the fog, chilling the air.

She rounded the final corner that led to the front of the vault and again ran the beam of her light over the angels carved above the door. The cherubic faces were marred, streaks of dirt running down their cheeks like black tears.

“Okay, let's do this, but, Gracie, I'm going first. If I get in there and it's safe, you can come on down the steps.” She slid a glance at her daughter. “I don't know what I'll find, if there are bodies down there . . .”

“I can handle it, Mom. What else would you expect to find in a grave?”

God only knows, Sarah thought, training the light with one hand and sliding the key into the lock. “I'll be right back.”

 

To hell with the party. Clint didn't give a damn about Dee Linn or Walter Bigelow and the event he'd planned to attend. His reason for saying yes to the invitation was because he'd known Sarah would be there and he wanted to see her again. Of course, he'd told himself it was just to break the ice because they were neighbors and he'd be inspecting the work on her house and . . . well, it had all been bullshit. He strode to his truck and, because Tex was putting up a fuss about leaving, whistled and opened the driver's side. The black-and-white dog was a streak as he leaped inside, as always, thrilled to be a part of any adventure, even if it was running to the store for a box of batteries. Every trip was an occasion to stand with his legs on the armrest and put his nose to the wind when Clint cracked his window, which he did before he fired up the Beast and took off. He didn't know how he'd explain his presence to Sarah, and didn't really care.

He was a part of her family, whether she liked it or not, and after a day of coming to terms with the fact that he was Jade's father, he'd decided to quit acting like a fool and take command of the situation, not just with the lawyer but with actions. They were neighbors, for God's sake. They could make this work.

There were rough times ahead, he saw that, but if he'd learned anything in the past few years, it was that life was short and a person had to do what he wanted to do or lose the opportunity. Sarah had taken the bull by the horns and come home to Stewart's Crossing, even taking up residence in that old wreck of a house she'd sworn she hated. Well, hell, if she could fight her fears and inner demons, so could he. The plain, hard fact of the matter was that he'd turned his back on Sarah years ago because she was a complicated woman, different and intriguing, a woman to whom he knew he could lose his heart and soul. Loving her wasn't easy then, and it sure as hell wouldn't be easy now.

Love?

He glanced into the rearview mirror to look himself in the eye.

Slow down, pardner, It's far too soon to be thinking in those terms,

Yeah, well, what the hell good would waiting do? He knew it half a lifetime ago, and he knew it now: Sarah Stewart McAdams was the single most fascinating woman he'd ever met.

At the county road, he eased off the gas until the Beast nearly stopped; then, seeing there was no traffic, he cranked the wheel and took off again. He wanted to see Sarah and Jade and even little Gracie right now. Ridiculous? Probably. But now that he'd made up his mind to work things out with Sarah, he couldn't wait.

A sense of urgency that was way out of proportion to the moment overtook him, though he couldn't say why.

He rounded the final corner, looking for the lane leading to Blue Peacock Manor, when he saw headlights aimed at him. Easing off the throttle, waiting for the car to pass before he crossed in front of it, he squinted through the fog and sensed that something was off about the vehicle. It wasn't completely on the road, and the driver's side door was open.

Frowning, he slowed down. It looked like someone had slid off the road in the fog or had suffered a flat, but whoever it was hadn't had the sense to close the door. He rolled past the entrance to Sarah's house and drove the extra hundred yards. To the car. The import seemed almost abandoned—though, in the fog, who knew? He nosed up to it, hit his emergency flashers, and cut the engine.

“Stay,” he told a whining Tex. It was too dangerous with the low visibility for the dog to be out of the truck.

He climbed out, his boots hitting the gravel on the side of the road, while a bad vibe stole over him. The car, interior light glowing, was empty, the engine running. “Hey!” he called out. “Need any help?” Only silence reached his ears. “Hello?” he tried again, turning slowly and squinting, eyes searching the surrounding forest on Sarah's side of the road and, on the other, a wide field. Walking around the car, he saw that the back bumper had been bashed in, hard enough to crease the trunk, but no one was around. He thought he'd call it in himself when he noticed that the license plates were from Washington.

Sarah drove an Explorer, so this wasn't hers, but . . .

For a second the world seemed to stop. Hadn't Jade said something about her car, a Honda, being in the shop? The breath stopped in his lungs. Dread spiked through his blood. For a second he flashed on the accident scene where his son had lost his life. A mangled car. His wife at the wheel . . . But this was different. What the hell had happened here? The car was still running, so Jade hadn't just left it by the side of the road and walked home. He checked inside it. Sure enough, her phone was on the floor in front of the passenger seat, her bag next to it. He looked for her wallet and found it. Cash and a credit card, her Washington driver's license . . . all left in the car.

His heart dropped.

No woman left her purse unattended.

No teenager was ever without her phone.

Oh, sweet Jesus.

A dark thought started deep in the back of his mind. He'd read about intentional accidents, in which the criminal rammed into the back of a vehicle in order to force the victim from the car and—

He saw the blood. Deep red, a small pool near the side of the road, at the edge of the asphalt.
God, please, don't let it be Jade's,
he thought frantically, knowing his prayer was for naught. This was Jade's car, and no doubt the pooling red stain on the dark asphalt was her blood.

Yanking the phone from his pocket, he intended to call Sarah . . . maybe Jade was only hurt, taken to a hospital. If not, he'd dial the police. He hadn't gained a daughter just to lose her again.

He started to punch out Sarah's number when he heard the thrum of a car's engine rounding the corner; a second later, blue and red lights strobed the night.

Somehow, the police had arrived.

He only hoped they weren't too late.

 

Bellisario slammed on her brakes. What the hell was this? An accident? Cars at the side of the road, headlights on, doors open, one man leaning against the fender of a Honda. “Look, I gotta go,” she said into her headset. “Got a situation, but run Hardy Jones in. If that isn't his ugly mug on the shot of Dana Rickert being abducted, I don't know what is.”

“Got it,” Mendoza said. “And while I'm at it, I'm gonna ask him about his association with our friend, Josh Dodds, now that we've got him in for his cache of illegal weapons. The FBI is leaning on him, and it looks like he might know more about these missing girls than we thought.”

“Seriously?” The guy by the Honda was now running at her car, waving his arms.

“That's what he's saying. But he wants a lawyer; wants to strike a deal. If Dodds is involved, we'll have leverage, play one against the other.”

“Where does Roger Anderson figure into this?”

“That's what I aim to find out.”

“See if Jones and Dodds will roll on Anderson. He must be the guy in the security cam shot with Hardy. About the right size.” But something was off about it, something not quite right. There was something about the second man in the picture that didn't fit. “Accident here. Send backup to the curve just before Rocky Point, about a mile south of The Elbow Room, close to the turnoff to Blue Peacock Manor. In this soup, we need traffic control at the least and probably more.”

“You got it.”

He hung up as Bellisario pulled onto the shoulder, parked, and drew her sidearm from its holster. “Stand back!” she ordered, opening her car door. “Hands over your head.” She didn't like anyone running at her.

The guy raised his hands over his head. “You have to help,” he said. “I'm Clint Walsh, and I've discovered my daughter's car, but she's not inside.” He stood in the middle of the road, and as Bellisario approached, she saw that his features were drawn, worry in his eyes. He looked familiar, but she didn't know him.

“What happened?”

“I was driving to my neighbor's house to see my daughter.”

“She was visiting?”

“She lives there,” he said. “My daughter is Jade McAdams, this is her car, and I found it just as you see it. Empty. Her purse, ID, and cell phone are inside. There's blood on the pavement.” A muscle worked in his jaw. “We need to contact Sarah Stewart, her mother, see if Jade's at the house and just left her car out here,” he said, but Bellisario, her weapon trained on him, knew he didn't believe it for a second.

“I think my daughter's been kidnapped,” he added. “We have to find her. Now!”

 

Jade was scared and pissed and couldn't believe she was caught with these other girls, locked in a stall in a darkened, smelly barn so that, according to the Rosalie chick, these dirtbags could auction them off. For what? Prostitution, Rosalie had guessed, but Jade refused to think that would happen.

If any one of them touched her, she'd kill them first.

She rubbed her arms. The drafty barn wasn't insulated, cold fog seemed to seep through the wooden walls, so old the knot holes had fallen away, allowing more frigid air inside.

Rosalie had mentioned finding a weapon, and in the time that the lights had been turned on, Jade had seen something—a horseshoe, she thought—mounted over the inside of the door, high over her head but, she hoped, reachable.

It wasn't much, but damn it, it was something. And if she could bash the creep who'd hauled her in here over the head, she'd do it in a heartbeat. She'd watched a lot of crime shows, and she knew how to kill a person, in theory. Go for the throat, bite out the fucker's Adam's apple, shove his nose up into his brain with the flat of her hand, go for the eyes and the balls.