She could hear Sophia relaying the information, probably to Tom. "They're there," she said. Her voice got louder as she spoke directly into the phone. "We've got a blip. It just entered your area. According to the computer, Tracy's moving southwest, about eight miles east of you."

CHAPTER.

SEVENTEEN.

Beth woke up slowly, gradually, with the awful realization that the house was still silent.

She lay in the bed, just listening-automatically testing each of the restraints that held her prisoner there.

They were all still secure. All and then some. He'd cuffed her other ankle, now, too.

"Hello?" Beth called, her voice as weak as her body. Still, the sound had to carry. If he were here, he'd hear her.

Nothing moved. Floorboards didn't creak. No one so much as breathed.

She knew the sensation of being alone in this house quite well. Of course, she was used to being down in the basement.

"Tracy?" she called, but of course, there was no answer.

Tracy, who'd dared to stand up to him, was gone.

She'd given Beth an antibiotic to fight the infected cut on her arm. She'd washed and bandaged it, too-using some of the ointment he'd brought back from the pharmacy.

Her makeup had been streaked from crying and her face pale, but as she'd sat bandaging Beth's arm, she'd dared defy him.

Can you read my lips? she silently asked Beth, as she kept giving him reasons to leave the room. The water he'd brought was too cold. She needed a needle and thread to stitch up the wound. Both had to be sterilized. Ice to numb the raw edges of Beth's skin. No, never mind, now that she'd cleaned it up, she could see it would be better to leave it open to allow it to drain.

That sounded like bull to Beth, who'd taken first aid in the army, but he didn't question her.

Squeeze my hand once for yes, twice for no, Tracy told her silently. Did he kidnap you, too?

Beth squeezed once.

If we scream, will anyone hear us?

She squeezed twice. With the amount of screaming that she alone had done in this house, it was clear there was no one around to hear and come to the rescue.

Were those really eyelids?

Beth squeezed once, and Tracy's eyes filled with tears.

Is he going to kill me?

Two squeezes, as Beth felt herself start to cry, too. I am, she told Tracy silently. But she could tell Tracy didn't understand. He'll make me do it. He'll make us fight until one of us is dead.

And then Tracy did understand, horror on her pretty face.

He came back then, his footsteps heavy in the hall.

But Tracy dared to say one more thing: Two against one...

She wiped her tears and faced him. "Beth's in agony. I'm going to give her something for the pain."

He hit Tracy, backhanding her across her face, sending her flying into the wall.

"Five," Beth said frantically. "I'm Five!"

"Five," Tracy sobbed. "I meant Five."

"Give her what she needs."

Tracy crawled to the piles of medicine bottles on the floor, searching through them. She found what she was looking for, opened the bottle, brought it to Beth.

Her lip had split-it was bloody and already swollen, and her face was wet with tears and snot. She handed Beth a plastic tumbler that held water, and put the pill into her mouth.

Except...there was no pill.

"Swallow," Tracy had told her, then turned back to him. "I've given her Percodan. It'll knock her out for quite a few hours. I suggest you help improve her circulation by unlocking her during that time."

It had been a valiant try.

"What did you give her for her arm?" he'd asked then.

Tracy had shook her head, chin high in defiance. "If I tell you, you won't need me. You're just going to have to keep me around to give her the next dose, in eight hours. Although I'll be surprised if she keeps it down, with only bread in her stomach. She needs soup."

It was then that he grabbed her. He just pulled her, kicking and screaming, out of the room.

"What are you doing?" Tracy had shrieked, over and over again. And then, "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!"

And then she'd just screamed. And screamed. And screamed.

Until she'd stopped.

Izzy heard the distant sound of a car horn and ran back toward the cabin.

Sure enough, it was Jenkins making all that noise. Lindsey was in the front with him, so Izzy scrambled into the back.

"The computer picked up the signal from Tracy's jacket." Jenk took off like a rocket, even before Izzy got the door shut.

"About freaking time." He slid into the middle of the backseat, pushing aside a bag of Lindsey's gear, so he could see both of them. "So why the double grim?"

Lindsey was on her phone, but Jenk glanced at him in the rearview mirror and Izzy knew the news wasn't going to be good. "Tommy also just got a call from the local police," Jenk said. "There's been a robbery/murder at a twenty-four-hour pharmacy about twenty miles north of here."

Oh, please, no. "Tracy?" Izzy managed to ask. The computer had picked up the signal from Tracy's jacket, they'd said. Not Tracy, her jacket.

Lindsey turned to look at him, her phone still to her ear. "We don't think so. We don't know much, though," she told him. "Apparently the store's owner-he's also the local pharmacist...He was bludgeoned to death, about nine o'clock last night."

Mere hours after Tracy had left the cabin.

"Yeah, Tess, I'm still here," Lindsey said into her phone. She was talking to Tess Bailey, Troubleshooters' computer expert. "We're moving though, and the signal's not too good. What's the road we're looking for?"

"The police think the crime's drug-related," Jenk reported. "The store's entire supply of prescription meds was stolen. If Tracy stumbled in there, in the middle of the robbery..."

"Wellington Mountain Road," Lindsey said. She was peering at a map. "It's a left? Okay, I found it on the map."

"But there's only one body?" Izzy asked.

"As far as we know," Lindsey said-words to offer little comfort. "Tom literally just got the call. He's sending a team to the crime scene. He himself is heading in our direction. He's aware that we're not armed."

"Fuck that," Izzy muttered. "I don't need a weapon to rip off some motherfucker's arm and use it to fucking bludgeon him."

Jenk just shook his head, but Lindsey felt the need to issue words of warning. "We've been given a direct order to proceed with extreme caution."

She'd been given one. He and Jenk, however, didn't take orders from Tommy Paoletti. "Was there any sign of a struggle? I mean, other than the...bludgeoning." Jesus Christ.

"We don't know that either." Lindsey was apologetic. "Damnit, the cell signal's gone. Great-we're supposed to be in a hot zone."

Last but not least was the question of the hour. "Do you really think Tracy's with the killer?" Izzy asked.

"Tom seems to think so."

"What do you think?" Izzy persisted. Lindsey had clocked a lot of hours with the LAPD.

She glanced at Jenk before looking back at Izzy. "Honestly?"

"No, make something up for us. Yes, honestly. Christ."

"In the law enforcement realm," she said, "when a person goes missing-mysteriously-on the exact same night as a murder, in a rural area where most people don't lock their doors, yes, odds are the two are linked."

Izzy sat back. It was possible he was going to be sick.

"Oh, one thing we do know..." Lindsey looked at Jenk. "I don't think I told you this either. The killer took the time not just to lock the door behind him, but he also put up a sign saying that the septic system wasn't working again. Left up here, remember-it's a fork. Wellington Mountain Road, but there's probably not a street sign."

Lindsey turned on her flashlight so she could read the map she was holding. Even though it was dawn, the sky was overcast, with clouds that were heavy and dark. It was only a matter of time-hours-before the snow started.

"Got it," Jenk said, as he made the turn.

"We'll take this to the end, and then take a right." Lindsey turned off the torch. "The store was open twenty-four hours," she continued. "Apparently the owner was an insomniac. Kind of eccentric, but a longtime local-a favorite son."

"What's your take on this sign that was put on the door?" Jenk asked.

Lindsey didn't need any time to consider the question. "It's the again that's key. Perp knew there'd been a sewage problem in the past," she said. "Perp's a local boy."

"Boy?" he repeated. "Isn't that sexist?"

"Bludgeoning," Lindsey said, as her phone rang. "According to the LAPD homicide handbook, it's generally not something people do while singing 'I Feel Pretty.' Good timing," she said into the phone.

Jenk was slowing as the road ended in a T. "Right?"

"Right," Lindsey confirmed. "Tess, we're pulling onto the state road, and there's a car approaching us. What's Tracy's status?" She paused as she listened, but then immediately reported to the two SEALs, "Tess says Tracy's been mostly stationary for about five minutes now, about two kilometers due west. We'll need to take another right onto Quarry Road, about a kilometer from here."

The approaching car passed them-an older-model American car, possibly an Impala. Izzy turned, trying to see the plates, but it was moving too fast. "We're sure she's in front of us?"

"What is mostly stationary?" Lindsey asked into her phone. She frowned as she listened to Tess's response, then looked from Jenk to Izzy. "The computer is giving them some weird data."

Freaking perfect. "If she's not there," Izzy started. "If it turns out she was in that car..." But another zipped past-a pickup truck this time, followed closely by a beat-up Volvo. It was rush hour in Dogbutt, New Hampshire.

"A variation in altitude?" Lindsey was saying to Tess, skepticism heavy in her voice. She turned to Jenk. "Is it possible she's...skiing?"

They all looked more closely out the windows. The terrain was hilly enough for someone to set up a low-level beginner slope, sure, but everything Izzy could see was covered with a dense growth of trees.

"On what snow?" he asked.

"At dawn after being missing all night?" Jenk asked. "Is this my right?"

"Right here?" Lindsey asked Tess through the phone. "Yeah," she relayed back to Jenk. "She says we're close."

How did Tess know where they were? Izzy was about to ask, but then he realized that one of the training op jackets was among Lindsey's gear. Tess was picking up their signal, too, and monitoring their movement. Someone had put on their thinking cap this morning. Lindsey.

"How close?" Izzy asked instead.

"One point two three kilometers," Lindsey reported. "According to Tess, the strange movement has stopped. Tracy's now fully stationary. Let's hope she's inside of a house or some other shelter. Maybe she went into the basement."

Jenk, who was driving, had to slow down. The road was little more than broken rocks and frozen mud, similar to the seldom-used path they'd taken to the hunting lodge. If there was a house out here, it was owned by a hermit who'd gone off the grid.

The next few tenths of a kilometer took forever, but finally they moved into what should have been visual range. But there were no other cars, no one standing in the road, nothing but trees, trees, and more trees.

"Where is she?" Izzy asked. And what would she be doing, out here in the middle of the woods?

"Still a quarter kilometer west of us. Stop here," Lindsey ordered Jenk.

Izzy got out of the car. "Which way?"

"Wait for Jenkins," she told him.

But he didn't. He couldn't. West could only be one direction.