I'd been sitting there with the door half-open, one foot out while I thought. With a suddenness that struck me dumb, a big SUV pulled in beside me, the door was ripped from my hands, and my arm was grabbed and I was out of the car. Then a big hand hit me right where the shovel had bashed me a long, long time ago, and then I was out.

Chapter 13

I was in his vehicle by the time I was conscious enough to understand what was happening, and by then my mouth was taped shut and my hands were bound together. His blitz attack had caught me completely unawares.

Barney Simpson was hunched in the driver's seat, backing out of the driveway and taking off down the road like a maniac. The SUV lurched so violently that I slid to the floor. I had no means to stop myself. I landed on my bad arm, and the pain was excruciating. I would have screamed, but once again, he'd taken care of that.

There's something terrible about being right when being right means you get bitten on the ass.

I'd be lucky if that was all that happened.

He pulled over after five minutes. I still couldn't move, but I was trying to gather my energy. I had no idea where we were. Twyla lived in a suburb, maybe Doraville's only upscale housing development. Five minutes from it would take us almost anywhere: into the older part of Doraville or out into the country. Past Barney's head, I could see ice melting off a pine tree, one of a stand of trees. There are trees all over in North Carolina.

"We had it all," he said. He was looking down at me, and his big black-framed glasses magnified his eyes, so he was not just looking, but glaring. "We had it all, until you found them. I'd spot them at the hospital and mark them for the future, or Tom would see them out walking or hitching, and we would pick them up and then we'd just...use them up."

Oh, Jesus, I thought.

"We'd use every bit, all the pain, all the sex, all the fear. We'd consume them. Until they were nothing."

I was strangling behind the tape, gurgling and gasping.

"We had the second place, the place in the barn, in case we had two boys at the same time. It was like a holding cell. We'd never really had to use it. But I guess Tom just couldn't resist, even though the last thing he should have done was pick up another boy."

Having made his point, which was that I was the snake in their paradise, he put the SUV in gear and glanced in his rearview mirror. He pulled back onto the road.

"But Tom couldn't give it up, thought it would be his last time, I guess, and a hitchhiker, they're just like apples falling into your lap."

I couldn't just huddle there on the floorboard and fear. I had to think of something to do. I might manage to open the door and roll out, but the car was going so fast that I didn't think I'd survive. I would save that for a last resort. Dying that way would be better than dying the way the boys had.

Okay, it was time to fight. I kept telling myself that, but I remained so dizzy and disoriented that it was hard to make my muscles agree on an aggressive program. And then it was hard to get in position to make my blows count for something. My legs were free, because Barney hadn't had time to confine them, and also maybe he'd hoped I'd stay unconscious for longer. So I kicked at him, trying to get some force behind my legs, wriggling so that my back was braced against the door. Of course, the SUV swerved and he screamed at me, "I'm going to pull your skin off!" I knew he meant it literally. He didn't look like a hospital administrator anymore. He looked like what he really was: a man crazed with his own evil.

He struck at me, but he had to drive, so the random swings didn't connect with my legs often. If they did, they didn't have much force behind them because he was having to strain to reach me.

The pain in my arm was constant and increasing. In a way it was good, because it kept me awake and angry, and in a way it was bad, because it was draining my energy and my will. I even caught myself wanting to be careful of the healing injury. But there was no point in keeping the arm from breaking if I died soon after, I told myself stoutly, and I kicked with renewed vigor and rage.

"You crazy bitch!" he screamed. Well, right back at you, buddy. I was so pleased I had my hiking boots on.

I'd assumed sooner or later we'd be in the center of Doraville, but he swerved to the right, and I knew we'd turned onto one of the back roads that twisted through the county. We were going up into the mountains. That was the worst possible development.

He leaned way over, till his left hand was barely on the wheel, and he hit me in the face open-handed. I saw gray for a second. He looked very satisfied, when I could focus on his face again. He'd caused pain, and he liked that a lot. Also, I'd quit kicking. He could drive with both hands on the wheel. I debated with myself whether to let him drive safely and not get hit again, or to kick out and get hurt. I rested for a couple of minutes and decided it was time to try again.

I got his knee this time, and there was the familiar swerve, but this time he looked all around and pulled over again. Okay, this was a step for the worse. He flung open his door and dashed around the SUV while I was struggling to change positions so I'd be facing him. But I couldn't manage it, and he popped open the passenger door so suddenly that I fell out. He caught me by my hair, pulling the stitches in my scalp. I made a noise that would have been a scream if I could have opened my mouth. He dragged me out by the hair, out onto the narrow shoulder, gray with ice and snow slush. There was a steep slope down to the forest, patched with white. Beyond the forest, I glimpsed water.

I had to struggle desperately to keep from landing flat on the ground. I got my feet under me somehow, and tried to twist away, and he hit me again, this time with his fist, in the ribs.

Oh, God, it hurt.

Once I got my feet braced I rammed against him, trying to knock him down, but I only made him stagger a foot or two, and then he began beating me in earnest. I thought if I fell down he would kill me, but I didn't think I could stay up for long. I landed a lucky kick to his crotch, but when I brought my foot back down I slipped on the ice by the side of the road, and I toppled over. I rolled through snow and wet grass, down and down to the bottom of the slope.

He was no more dressed than I for something like this; in fact, he was even less prepared, because I was wearing boots and a heavy coat and scarf, and he was wearing a suit and that was it. His shoes went along with the suit, strictly indoor wear. By the time I got to the tree line at the bottom of the slope, he'd begun floundering down after me.

Getting up was very hard with my hands taped, but I was able to struggle to my feet, and I took off. It was terrible, making my way through the heavy brush and trees, with the ground slushy. But I had to put as much distance as I could between him and me.

Would he come down in the trees after me?

Yes, idiot. Of course he will. I heard his inarticulate scream of rage and then the sounds of him thrashing through the trees.

At least he was openly nuts now. At least he wasn't trying to reason. That was the only chance I had, his mental state.

Not that I was thinking. I was just running.

Plan, plan, plan, I needed a plan. The weather and terrain were all against me. If I trod in the patches of snow, all he had to do was follow my tracks. And it was very precarious, trying to hurry and also trying to avoid stepping in the snow. At least there were a few other tracks around; people had ridden their four-wheelers through here, and I could see another set of tracks, vague ones, a few yards away. I leaped between the snow patches, hoping that the ground would not show every print I made simply because it was wet. Maybe he wasn't any more of a woodsman than I was.

I felt the buzz of bones, very close. Instinctively I began tracking the buzz. The dead could not rise up and protect me, which would only have been right...but could they hide me? I couldn't have told you exactly what I was thinking, but I was comfortable with the dead.

The sky was darkening and visibility was getting worse even as I ran, bashing into trees and staggering to keep to my feet. I headed for the dead man. If no one had found him, maybe no one would find me. The feeling of him was fairly fresh, and I was so tired. But I kept on scampering, fast as a panicked squirrel.

The dead man was in the thicket right before me, an overgrown patch of short tree saplings, vines, and myrtle. The thicket was surrounded by pines, and there were pinecones littering the ground. I crouched to grab up a couple.

The live man trying to kill me was just a few yards behind me, though I couldn't see him. I could hear him, snorting and pushing through the growth. Half-standing, I threw one pinecone, then another. I threw them as hard as I could with my bound hands, and they made just a bit of noise a few yards away, when they hit the soggy ground. I didn't think Barney Simpson was any Daniel Boone. Maybe he would think he was hearing footsteps. There was a rocky outcropping close, and he might think my next steps had been on the rock surface. The dead man was waiting.

I hunkered down and tried to slow down my breathing. I sounded like a faulty bellows. Please, Dead Guy, I begged, please be a hunter.

God heard me. Or fate heard me. Or it was just the way it turned out. Dead Guy had a knife. It was in a sheath on his rotting belt. His camo was in shredded rags, stained with the fluids from his body. Some of his bones had been scattered, and the stomach area had been torn open and devoured by something. But Lyle - that was his name, Lyle Worsham - had a knife in that sheath. The Velcro yielded to my fingers, and then with some difficulty, I worked the knife out. It was rusted and pocked, but it was a knife - not the stout hunting knife I'd expected, though. The shape was strange to me. I awkwardly turned it in my fingers and tried to saw through the duct tape with it.

Before I was through, I was glad I had a coat on. My arms would've been a mess. And my first act was to rip the tape off my mouth. No silencing me.

Of course, then I crouched there without making a single noise. Where was he? Was he going to pounce on me any second? Had he given up to go back to the SUV? Was he even now fleeing the county? I didn't mind staying here until I was sure. I was cold and wet and scared, but I could be patient. I had old Lyle here with me. Had Lyle had a gun? He should have, right?

As it turned out, Lyle had been fishing, not hunting. There was a tackle box sitting on its side in two years' worth of downed leaves, and there was a creel that had once contained his catch. So now I knew why this knife had such a strange shape - it must be a filleting knife. He'd been to the lake to fish. Would the surface of the water have iced over? It had gotten above freezing this afternoon, and it had been sunny for a while. Now that the twilight was drawing in, the water might freeze again. I shivered. My vague idea of cutting across the frozen lake surface was simply stupid. My ignorance of the woods was probably equal to Barney Simpson's. Barney preferred indoor sports, like having sex with bound boys. I wonder what the former Mrs. Simpson had to say about Barney's sexual kinks.

My mind stopped wandering and focused at the faint noises I was hearing. Barney was trying for stealth, but he was a big man and he was wearing the wrong footwear. The snow crunched under his feet and he was breathing heavily. Me and Lyle, we were really quiet.

The next time I got abducted, I was going to have my gloves on, I promised myself. And a hat.

"Get out here, bitch," Barney called.

Mr. Simpson, I'm not satisfied with my treatment by your staff.

"There aren't any houses around here, and no one's going to come help you," he called, and he was closer to where I was crouched.

Could he possibly be lying? Why, yes, I thought he might be. The same way he'd been lying all along.

The glimpses I'd caught while I was running away had included a brief vista across a body of water, and the glimpse of some cabins; distant, but visible. Reachable. I was pretty sure of my location.

I thought I was very close to the southern shore of Pine Landing Lake. I thought if I struck out through the trees, following the lake line northwest, I might find the cabin again. If I could go up and walk on the road I'd be sure, and walking would be easier and faster.

Now he was right outside the thicket. I bit my lip to keep from letting out my shuddering breath. With my right hand, I held the knife at the ready.

Hold it. Hold it. Don't say anything. And then his feet moved away.

The darkness couldn't fall fast enough to suit me.

He was the one who was in a hurry. Not me.

Lyle, you and me, we can wait forever, right?

And then he howled and pounced but he was howling and pouncing on the wrong shadow, and since I'd held still I was okay, I was okay. My arm was truly broken all the way through now, thanks to the beating by the side of the road, and my scalp was really bleeding, and my head was hurting like someone had dragged me out of a car by my hair, but I was okay. In danger of freezing in this position, though. I'd been in one position for too long, and I needed to move, needed to stretch a little, needed to shift my weight. But I was too scared.

He didn't have a gun, apparently. That was good. He could just shoot at bushes until he hit me; no, that would attract too much attention. Even in the rural South, random shooting will attract a certain amount of notice. But he might risk that, to kill me.

"This is ridiculous," he said, so close I almost shrieked. "I mean, after all, you must be nuts to react to a man talking to you that way. Kicking and screaming, fighting and biting. Who could expect anyone in your line of work to be sane, anyway? I was just trying to take you to the hospital when you started having a fit, that's all. Your overreaction caused me to panic. I took the wrong turn. Now here we are out in the middle of nowhere in very cold weather and you won't let me know where you are so I can get you the help you need."

The help I need is for someone to come along and shoot you, I thought. Barney was busy building a story, some kind of story that would enable him to hold on to what he had. He was doomed to fail. But then, he'd lasted this long, and it must be hard for him to believe it was the end.