f.u.c.k.

"If you try anything, I'll shoot you," he said. He had the gun trained on her.

I am sunk. He could take me anywhere...Throw me into a river...Shoot me in the forest.

And there won't be any Andy Flynn to save me this time.

CHAPTER 47.

"Andy, it's Bob. What were you saying?"

"Are you in your room?" Andy asked.

"Yup."

"I'll be there in a flash."

When Andy arrived, Bob was sitting on the bed with his suitcases open and his belongings laid out around him. He was to fly back to Quantico the following morning.

"Do you remember when you met Makedde at the conference?" Andy asked. "Before we went for lunch? She went off with a guy. He was a tall, young..."

"That's right. I remember you coming over all jealous."

"I did not come over all jealous."

Bob gave him an incredulous look.

"I do remember him, actually," he said. "He was a security guard. You say his name is Roy?"

"Well, it could be. Makedde has been dating someone named Roy."

"Last name?"

He thought of the card on the flowers. "No idea."

"Okay, what about the photo on his rego? Same guy?"

"I'll have to check. I didn't immediately recognise him. He still could have been the same guy though. Twenty-nine sound right to you?"

"Unfortunately. And you say your girlfriend's dating him?"

"She's not my girlfriend."

"Evidently not." Bob said, straight-faced. "Well, if this is our guy, she's got one h.e.l.l of a psycho-beacon going."

"She once called herself a psycho-magnet."

"Well, at least she knows it. Let's give her a ring and see what she can tell us about him," Bob suggested.

But Makedde was not answering her phone.

Andy stood in the hotel hallway, feeling panicked. The phone had rung several times, and the machine kept picking it up. He didn't want to leave a message but he had to contact her-now.

He walked back into the room. "No answer," he told Bob. "I know someone else to call, though."

Andy dialled the number for Makedde's father in Victoria. He felt thankful that he had the number handy...until the machine kicked in there as well.

"d.a.m.n," he said aloud. "h.e.l.lo, Mr Vanderwall, it's Andy Flynn. Please give me a call as soon as possible..."

CHAPTER 48.

Makedde looked at her captor with hatred and confusion.

Why are you doing this, Roy?

But unbeknown to Makedde it was Roy's brother Daniel who watched the road intently as he drove them at speed deep into the countryside. When he turned and caught her looking at him, he smiled and let out a humourless chuckle.

And to think I actually liked that smile...

Gagged, all she could do was watch out the window, trying to catch a glimpse of something recognisable-the top of a familiar building, a landmark, a highway sign, anything to give her some idea where they were headed.

Nothing. Dark sky and the occasional treetop. Nothing useful at all.

If only she could reach that doorhandle, jump out right now, but they were moving way too fast. Even on the off-chance that she did survive the fall, he would shoot her like a lame horse as she lay wounded on the side of the road. He'd already killed Ann, after all. What if there was another car? A witness? But Makedde thought better of that plan. It was just as likely that he would kill a witness who stopped to help her, wasn't it?

Is he the Nahatlatch Killer? Is he responsible for murdering the UBC students?

It made sense now. Roy was a security guard at UBC...he had access to students, he had their trust.

Would he take her all the way out to the Nahatlatch and shoot her there and bury her? Or did he have a new spot now? How much did he know about the investigation?

She thought about the doorhandle again. Could she wrench the door open with her wrists bound? Was it worth a shot? Was it better to die trying, or wait for a better chance?

CHAPTER 49.

Dr Ann Morgan estimated that she was about four feet away from her living room telephone. In reality she had a further seven feet left to crawl. The psychiatrist knew she had lost a lot of blood. It had poured out of the gunshot wound in her stomach and turned her clothes scarlet and her head woozy. Years ago she had saved a stabbing victim on the streets of East Vancouver, stumbling across the scene quite by chance-and it had been b.l.o.o.d.y. But now for the first time in her life, Dr Morgan's hands and knees were sticky with blood that was her own.

Ann had already blacked out twice since she was shot, and she feared that she would lose consciousness once more, and never regain it.

911.

911.

911.

All she had to do was to get to that phone and dial.

She had to crawl to the telephone cord and pull the phone off the edge of the table. Simple. It would fall to the floor in front of her and she could pick up the receiver and dial. Three little numbers-911-that's all she had to remember and then she stood a chance of living, and she stood a chance of seeing her children again. She could not leave Emily and Connor like this. Not now. They were only teenagers. They needed a mother. Ann Morgan wanted to live to be a good mother, and grandmother. She wanted to live to see them grow into happy, well-adjusted adults, their parents' split a distant memory without lingering consequences. That's what Ann wanted to see.

She thought of Les Vanderwall, and his daughter...

Makedde.

Daniel Blake had taken her. Someone had to be alerted. Someone had to find her before it was too late.

Get to that phone.

Ann struggled across the hardwood floor of her living room, the hard-backed dining-room chair she had been tied to still weighing her down like a ball and chain. She had bought that chair at an auction with Tony, back when their marriage still seemed salvageable. She had been so happy about the purchase-it was the perfect antique eight-piece dining set she had been looking for. Now she could not free herself from it.

Another six inches along the floor and Ann was making progress...she was getting there...that phone cord was closer now...

CHAPTER 50.

Mak was handcuffed to a chair in an isolated cabin outside of Vancouver.

Her captor had discarded the ropes and had cuffed her ankles and wrists. The gag was still in her mouth. She knew that the burglary had been simply staged to account for Ann's death. But why? If he was only after Makedde, why not wait till she left Ann's house and abduct her then?

Or did Roy think that Ann had figured him out?

"Welcome to the Hunter's Lair. This isn't quite how I usually do this, but I'll accommodate you as best I can. This is rather unexpected, after all." He followed up his ridiculous banter by resuming his hollow grin.

Yes, he killed the other girls...My G.o.d...Roy is the Nahatlatch Killer!

She didn't try to talk, or to signal for him to remove the gag. He was playing some kind of game, and she wanted no part of it. He would take the gag off her when it suited him. In the meantime, it was best to observe and to think. She had to keep her head clear. There was so much she didn't know about this man she had dated.

CHAPTER 51.

Connor Morgan was hungry. As a growing seventeen year old, he was as bad a cook as his father, but burdened with twice the appet.i.te.

He lived in a messy converted attic above his father's garage. The arrangement worked well because he could live cheaply and his dad let him play the drums as loud as he wanted, anytime he wanted. The noise didn't trouble his father because he was never home. Tony Morgan had been working late hours with the local police for as long as his son could remember.

So the pantry was consistently and depressingly empty. Pizza Hut was quick-dial option number two on the kitchen telephone (his work number being number one) and when Connor wasn't munching on a Pizza Supreme with a stuffed crust and the works, he was picking up takeaway. That's just the way things were. That was the kind of sacrifice he was prepared to make for his drums.

Connor was on his way home after a Dirty Pistol jam session with his pals Jake and Scott when the hunger really hit. He slowed his rusting Toyota Corolla as he neared the Seven Eleven barely ten minutes from Jake's house, and took a quick inventory of the stuff he regularly bought there-a sub with ham and mustard, a Mars bar, a Penthouse magazine if Rigby was behind the counter.

For some reason Seven Eleven's finest offerings didn't appeal at that moment. Connor drove right past. He could get by for weeks on end on a solid fare of Tim Hortons, Pizza Hut and the usual Seven Eleven selection, but even he had his limit, and when he reached it there was no getting around it. Sometimes he needed a real meal, and on his budget there was only one place to go for that.

He checked his watch. It was only a little after nine-not too late. Perhaps she had an apple pie going? Some leftover Chicken Kiev or a lasagne? It was worth a try. It was only five minutes further away than his dad's, after all. Perhaps she wouldn't grill him about school or the band.

His mother had got better about that.

CHAPTER 52.

The gag was off and Makedde wanted answers.

"So, you brought the others here, too. The 'Hunter's Lair', as you call it. How? How did you get them to come here?" she asked, as bravely as she could, trying hard not to appear afraid as she sat trapped in the metal chair. The slight, uncontrollable trembling of her lips betrayed her fear.

The tall man before her nodded and folded his arms. "Ah, yes...the others. You know about the others. It was the doctor, wasn't it?"

Yes, I was right. The senseless ransacking was all staged and this monster of a human being was cunning enough to change his modus operandi for the task. Even down to the rope he used on her instead of cuffs like these, just in case the forensic pathologists had picked that part up in the autopsies of the Nahatlatch victims. The police might not connect Ann's murder to the other women. There weren't enough links.