Random reading wouldn't do. She needed a systematic approach.

The oldest books first. These were the least familiar.

Margaret reached for D.'s first novel on the far left of the top shelf.

CHAPTER twenty-eight

Kaitlan's legs felt rubbery as she walked through the kitchen. At each step her brain screamed there must be some way out of this nightmare. Something beyond this world, a rescue swooping out of the clouds ...Craig stood in her bedroom doorway, simmering with impatience. "Where's your vacuum cleaner?"

Vacuum cleaner? Kaitlan stared at him. Kaitlan stared at him.

Craig gestured with his head toward the sliding gla.s.s door behind him. "Your carpet's dirty."

The footprint. Kaitlan's eyes cut toward it. Kaitlan's eyes cut toward it.

"We need to clean it up."

We The word sank to the depths of her. We We-a team. Hiding evidence that could be used against him.

She could go to jail for that.

He nudged her arm. "Go get it."

Zombie-like, she turned and headed for the closet near her front door. There she pulled out her small portable vacuum. She returned to Craig.

He gave her a smug smile. "Thanks."

A realization spun through her. He'd planned this moment of entrapment.

The thought sent her back to a scene in her childhood. At the age of eight she'd been playing with a neighborhood boy when he caught a moth. He stuck one of his mother's sewing needles through the moth's body and pinned it to cardboard. As it fluttered in a death dance she begged him to let it go. But he'd merely looked on, fascinated.

Now she was the moth.

Craig took the vacuum. "Go sit in the living room."

Heart scudding, she obeyed.

We.

Kaitlan perched on her couch and waited.

The vacuum surged on. She listened to the rise and fall of its whine as it pushed across the carpet. She imagined the dirt particles it was picking up, the footprint pulled apart. Obliterated.

The noise cut off. Kaitlan heard the sound of a plug pulled from a socket, the whizzing grate of the automatic cord roll-up. Craig's footsteps in the hall. A thunk of vacuum against floor. The closet door closing.

Kaitlan focused on a magazine upon her coffee table. Filling its cover-the perfect face of a laughing model. An article heading: "Six Secrets to Make Yourself Irresistible."

Craig approached. She tensed. He laid both hands on her shoulders.

Kaitlan thought she would crack in two. Right down the middle, between those hands. Between those fingers that had strangled three women.

"Thanks for helping," Craig said.

We.

"Get up, Kaitlan. Come with me into the bedroom."

She stared at the magazine. A second article-"Budget Now for Christmas."

A holiday she would never see.

Quiet despair uncoiled in her chest. The way he was doing this. Drawing it out, like he enjoyed every minute.

She stood and turned to face him, the couch as a barrier. "You going to kill me now too?"

His jaw flexed. "Just do as I say."

Her eyes teared up. "Where did this come come from, Craig? from, Craig? Why Why?"

Silence.

"Does your father know?"

Anger shrank his eyes. "Leave my father out of it."

"He does, doesn't he. That's why he threatened me tonight."

"I said leave him out of it leave him out of it!" He lunged for her over the couch.

Kaitlan reared out of his reach, hit the coffee table. Almost fell.

Craig cursed. He pulled back, face darkening, and strode toward the end of the sofa.

Kaitlan turned and ran. Around the coffee table, into the kitchen. She flung herself at the door.

Craig caught her left arm at the elbow and yanked her backward.

"No!" Kaitlan writhed from his grip. She pulled toward the door with all her might, her right hand reaching, flailing for the k.n.o.b, fingers almost touching - He grasped her right shoulder and whirled her around.

Kaitlan's arms flew out, pummeled his chest. Sickly little sobs spilled from her lips. He spat curses, hands slicing the air, trying to catch her wrists.

"Stop!" Kaitlan aimed a knee at his groin.

He swiveled to one side, raked up a handful of her hair and wrenched her head toward the floor. Her body twisted in on itself. She fell forward into his waist. He gripped her shoulders hard, shoved her upright and back against the door. The k.n.o.b hit her left kidney, knocking the wind clean out of her. Kaitlan gasped.

"Want to try that again, huh?" Craig pushed himself into her, breathing hard. Rage hardened his features into a face she couldn't recognize.

Kaitlan slumped in his arms and cried.

"Now you listen to me." Craig's words flattened to steel. "We are going in the bedroom in the bedroom. You can walk or I can drag you. But we are going. Got it?"

Kaitlan's world blurred. She looked down at his feet. The shoes that had left the footprint, now swept away.

Craig stepped back, still gripping her shoulders. "Go." He pushed her.

She moved.

At the angled entrance of the bedroom he shoved her forward until she could see the whole room. "Look around. Anything else that needs to be cleaned up?"

Now he wanted her her to find lingering evidence? to find lingering evidence?

Kaitlan gazed dully.

The body was gone. The bed straightened. But the smell of urine on her bedspread-that Kaitlan would keep to herself.

Craig raised an eyebrow-well?

"You're the cop, Craig. What are you asking me for?"

He hit her hard with the back of his hand. She reeled, fell to the carpet. Her cheek flamed with fire, slugged twice in the same night. She struggled up on one elbow, head lolling, sucking air. Craig loomed over her, legs spread apart.

"Get up."

She closed her eyes.

"Get up!" Craig kicked her side.

Slowly Kaitlan gathered both arms beneath her and pushed to her knees. She staggered to stand.

The world tipped.

Craig grabbed her chin, and Kaitlan flinched. He jerked her face to one side, examining her cheek.

In that moment a change swept over him. His fingers loosened, emotions rippling over his features like wind over water.

He let go of her. Stepped back.

"That'll bruise by tomorrow." Craig spoke the words as if he couldn't believe what he'd done. He pressed a hand to his forehead. "Okay, look. When people ask, you'll say you got up in the night to go to the bathroom and ran into the door. Got it?"

She nodded.

"Say it. Say the words."

"I got up at night to go to the bathroom and ran into the door."

"You don't sound very convincing. Say it again."

A tremor jagged down Kaitlan's spine. "I got up at night to-"

"No! Laugh first. Shrug, wave your hand in the air. Something Something to make the story believable." to make the story believable."

Kaitlan swayed. Craig steadied her with stone fingers. "Try again."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can."

She swished her hand and forced a chilling little laugh. Reached down inside for the words he wanted to hear, but in her righteous indignation the wrong ones blurted out. "Oh, silly me. I ran into my boyfriend's fist."

She shrank back, shocked at herself.

Craig's jaw moved to one side. He took a slow, deep breath. "You think you're smarter than me? Think I can't shut you up?"

Kaitlan threw her hands up, palms out. "I'm sorry. Really. I'll say whatever you want."

His expression relaxed. Hints of the Craig she once knew softened his face. He gathered her hands in his and brought them to his chest. "Nothing needs to change between you and me. I still love you. You just have to keep quiet."

Her cheek throbbed. Kaitlan tried to draw away, but Craig wouldn't let go. The fierce control etched back into his eyes.

"Why?" she whispered. "Why did you kill them?"

His gaze drifted over her shoulder. For a drawn out moment she thought he wouldn't answer.

"I don't know."

The words writhed between them. Kaitlan couldn't breathe.

Defensiveness carved into Craig's face. "It's not going to happen again." He gripped her hands until they hurt. "You are not going to tell anyone." His gaze flicked around the room. "As you can see, there's nothing to tell."

"Where is she?"

"Who?"

"The woman on my bed, Craig."

"Gone."

"They'll find her soon, like they did the rest."

"Not this time."