Lindsey was descended from a monster. It wasn't the best news to receive, especially since, in her innocence and naivety she hadn't even realized that her father, Henry Fontaine Junior, wasn't truly her grandfather's son.

Along with her grief and confusion, worry and fear consumed her. Her beloved grandfather was dead, having slipped away in his sleep. To her knowledge he hadn't even been ill. If he could just suddenly die, what was to keep her mother, who still fought her cancer, from doing the very same thing?

Lindsey took to sitting outside her parents' bedroom late at night, after they'd gone to sleep. She'd kept her ear pressed to the door, listening for the quiet sound of her mother's breathing. If she stopped, Lindsey would hear her, rush in, and revive her.

At least that was her plan.

It wasn't until years later that she truly understood. Her grandfather had had a massive heart attack. Even if she'd been by his side when it had happened, she wouldn't have been able to keep him from dying.

Much in the same way she hadn't been able to keep her mother alive.

Around the table, the men were silent, still watching her expectantly, still wanting to hear more about the man who was a legend in the military community.

Jenk, however, was looking at her with almost tender understanding-as if he'd been able to see into her mind and follow exactly where her thoughts had gone.

She forced a smile, forced herself to look anywhere else but at him. She smiled particularly sunnily at Izzy-what was wrong with her? That was just plain childish. Was she trying to piss Jenk off? "What else can I tell you? He was...really good at hide-and-seek," she told them, which of course got the laugh she'd hoped for.

From everyone, that is, but Jenkins. He just watched her, his dinner ignored.

The way he was looking at her was making her feel more exposed than when she'd been with him and naked.

So she pushed back her chair and got to her feet. "I hear a hot shower calling my name. I'll see you guys later. Or tomorrow. Whichever comes first." Hardy-har-har. It wasn't even funny, but she laughed, so they did, too.

Except, of course, Jenk.

She took her plate to the sink, feeling his thoughtful gaze following her all the way out the door.

Tracy had failed to pack her sleeping pills.

Or her hip flask filled with tequila.

Who knew that their destination would be outside the reaches of civilization, and that their rustic motel would be sans attached top-line-liquorfilled lounge?

She sure hadn't.

Feigning an oncoming case of sniffles, she'd grabbed her purse and told Sophia she was going to see if she could score some NyQuil, which contained both alcohol and sleep aids.

Wearing only her sneakers and her flannel pjs, a zippered hoodie on top, Tracy braved the arctic cold. She jammed her hands in her sweatshirt's pocket and hurried along the outside corridor and down the stairs, toward the motel lobby. Her hair was back in a ponytail and she'd long since taken off her makeup. She wasn't exactly dressed for human contact, but her luck was good. Stella was at the front desk.

And she had some NyQuil that Tracy could have, no charge.

She rummaged through a drawer and came up with a small foil-and-plastic packet that she put into Tracy's hand.

Tracy stared down at it. Two shiny green gel capsules stared back at her, like some alien creature's unblinking eyes.

"Oh," she said. "No, I was hoping for a bottle, you know, the kind that comes in a liquid?"

"That's all we've got," Stella said.

"Are you sure?" Tracy said. "Sometimes people have it in the back of their medicine cabinets and don't even know-"

"I'm sure," Stella said. "Honey, we're dry. We don't have any alcohol here. But we do hold a sunrise meeting. Of course, if you need one tonight, you'll have to drive into Happy Hills. There's a nine o'clock at the Congregational Church. Rob would be heading over to it himself if his back wasn't hurting."

"Meeting?" Tracy echoed even as she understood. AA meeting, as in Alcoholics Anonymous. She laughed. "No, see, I'm just coming down with a cold."

"Those pills work fine," Stella told her. "And they're alcohol-free."

"Great," Tracy said, backing away. "Thanks. Is there, by any chance a store-"

"Nearest store is in Happy Hills, too," Stella told her. "Although the only thing open at this hour is the Criminal, attached to the gas station. But it closes at nine. There's a twenty-four hour pharmacy, but it's much farther away."

"What's a Criminal?"

"Convenience store." The older woman leaned on the counter with an elbow, chin in her hand. With her crazy hair, she looked like a character from a zany sitcom. "You know, you go in and pick up one of those little half-sized boxes of Lorna Doones, and they're so expensive, you practically drop them. But you get them anyway, because you're hungry, and nothing else is open. But as you're paying, you're thinking, This is highway robbery. It's criminal."

"Cute. How far is Happy Hills?" It sounded like a final resting place for cocker spaniels. But if Happy Hills had a store, and that store was open until nine...

"It's a haul and a half," Stella told her.

"Okay, now, you're purposely being evasive," Tracy accused her.

"I am," Stella agreed, straightening up. "Because you have that same look in your eye that Robert used to have when he-"

"Excuse me, I'm a paying customer," Tracy said. What a total bitch. "And I certainly didn't request a psychology guessing game with an uneducated amateur, along with your third-world towels, the fourteen-thread-count sheets, cigarette-burned blankets, and that spider the size of Staten Island that was in the bathtub!"

"What's going on?" A blast of cold air from outside hit Tracy, and she turned to see Izzy standing just inside the door. He stamped his feet and smacked his hands together to get them warm. "I get back from the gas station to see the two top candidates for the role of Mrs. Irving Zanella doing everything but pulling out their switchblades and slashing each other's throats."

"Shoot, you were just at the gas station?" Tracy couldn't believe her bad timing. "In Happy Hills?"

"Shoot," he said. "Yes. But I'm going back. I'm gassing up the trucks we took out to the lodge. Why? You need some pork rinds? Or one of those little teddy bears holding a flag that says Live free or die?"

"The princess needs a drink," Stella tossed over her shoulder as she waddled into the back room.

Izzy turned to look at Tracy. There was heat in his eyes tonight. The same kind of heat that she'd thought she'd seen when he'd first walked into the Troubleshooters' office, the first time she saw him. Heat that she'd glimpsed from time to time since then. Heat that he'd tried to hide.

He wasn't trying to hide it now.

It was as if she were face-to-face with an entirely different man than the one who'd turned down her clumsy invitation in the parking lot of the Ladybug Lounge.

"I need some cold medicine," Tracy said, her mouth suddenly dry. The more times she repeated the lie, the more her throat hurt, as if she really did have a postnasal drip. "And, yes, okay, I could use a drink." She raised her voice so that it would carry into the back. "It doesn't mean I need a meeting!"

"Hmm," Izzy said, his gaze skimming down her, taking in her shapeless sweatshirt, her baggy pj pants. "You want to tag along, gorgeous? Round-trip takes a minimum of fifty minutes. Longer if we stop on the side of the road to neck."

If he'd said that to her a few days ago, she would have responded with, As if. The Izzy Zanella she knew then talked a big game, but that's all it was. Talk.

But this man was looking at her right now as if she were a piece of cheesecake that he wanted to devour.

His smile made her heart pound, and when she spoke, her voice sounded breathless. "I'm not exactly dressed for travel." She didn't want to sound too eager. "And tomorrow's an early morning..."

"It'll take longer still if we stop for a beer at Hooters. Well, I'll only have a Coke. The Navy's funny about the whole drinking and driving thing."

"Happy Hills has a Hooters?"

"I'm pretty sure it was a prerequisite to the registration of their town name. I mean, Happy Hills. How could there not be a Hooters?" He grinned at her.

"I should get my coat."

"I got a jacket you can borrow," Izzy told her. "It's already in the truck. Shall we?" He held the door for her, and with only the briefest hesitation, she went outside.

"Damn," he added. "How do you do it? How do you manage to make plaid look sexy?"

Lyle would have berated her for looking so slovenly in public. He would have insisted she go back to her room to change. God, Tracy hated him. And she hated herself for being stupid enough to want him anyway.

As the cold air slapped her face and stung her lungs, she knew in the sharp clarity of the winter night that she was going to take Lyle back. She always did, always would. She was going to say yes to his marriage proposal. Because as much as she hated Lyle right now, she hated being alone even more. It was stupid. She was stupid.

Because, worst of all, she actually hoped that their marriage license would make a difference. She actually dared to believe that by making their relationship legal, Lyle would become faithful and true.

But before she called him to tell him that she'd be his wife-his ticket to making partner at the law firm-she was going to play Lyle's game.

By Lyle's rules.

Izzy opened the passenger door of the SUV, holding it for her as she got in. It was like climbing into a freezer on wheels.

"That extra jacket's in the backseat," he told her. "Although, if you want, you can scoot over close to me. I'm good at sharing body heat."

Tall and solid, with his lean face, charismatic smile, and inscrutable dark eyes, Izzy Zanella-this new, bold Izzy Zanella-was finally Tracy's chance to even the score.

LOCATION: UNCERTAIN.

DATE: UNKNOWN.

Just because the water tasted fresh didn't mean it wasn't drugged.

Beth drank more, pulling the cool liquid through the straw, waiting for that familiar feeling of lethargy to descend upon her. The heaviness of limbs and head. The sense of time and space being altered. The feeling of floating, of leaving her body behind...

But the pain in her arm throbbed with each beat of her heart.

Of course, sometimes the drug he gave her didn't kick in right away.

He was still petting her tangled mass of hair, still crooning nonsensical endearments. "That's my girl." She was neither a girl nor his. In theory, anyway. In practical application, she was chained to this bed. He held the power, which made her anything he wanted her to be.

Including clean and healthy, if he so desired it.

There was no doubt about it, her arm, slashed in the fight with Number Twenty, was infected.

He was being careful, holding tightly to the glass that held the water, even as she held its base, as if to keep it steady. It was thick and heavy, but there was no way she could muscle it away from him. Not as weak as she currently was.

Still, she made a plan. Take the glass from him. Smash it back against the cast-iron frame of the bed. Kick her free leg over him, holding him down, as she plunged a sharp fragment into his carotid artery.

Plunged and slashed.

He smiled. "You'd like to kill me, Five, wouldn't you?"

Beth's stomach churned, and instinctively she pulled back from the straw. No more, or she'd get sick. But then she knew what to do.

She sucked harder on the straw, and it gurgled and burped as she drained the glass.

Her stomach heaved, and her vision tunneled, but she focused only on the glass. Hold on to that glass.

"You bitch!" He let go of the glass as she emptied her stomach all over him. But his cursing and anger were barely audible background noise. Her world shrank down to only the glass, the glass, the glass.

She thrust it back, as hard as she could, felt it shatter. It was now a knife without a handle, cutting her as well, but she didn't feel it, couldn't feel it.

Her legs were pinned by the blankets, so she couldn't hold him down, but she swung at him anyway, her own blood dripping down her arm. It was her one chance, and she couldn't blow it, except she knew she already had.

She heard him laughing, and she knew it was over. She'd tried, and failed. Probably for the last time.

And sure enough, although she connected with him, it was a glancing blow. Barely hard enough to cut him, let alone kill.

Still, his laughter stopped as he cursed. He hit her-a blow meant to torment-on her injured arm.

The pain was incredible. She heard herself scream, and he hit her again.

Mercifully, the world went black.

DARLINGTON, NEW HAMPSHIRE.

SATURDAY NIGHT, DECEMBER 10, 2005.

As they slid onto the bench seats on either side of the table, Tracy checked herself in the mirrored wall at the end of the booth. She'd actually put makeup on in the truck, as Izzy drove through the freezing night, giving her the details on the day's misadventure.

He now caught the bartender's eye. "You can just bring us a tequila IV. As soon as possible, okay?"