"Can we please drive?" Izzy asked. "Because now we know that Tracy's with this motherfucker, and personally?" His voice actually shook. "I'm very fond of her eyes right where they are, securely in her head."

Tracy woke up in the dark, groggy and confused.

Wherever she was, it was cold and damp. Her neck hurt from sleeping on the floor, her head throbbed, and as she moved, a chain clanked, and she remembered.

The man with the gun, the dead man on the floor of the store, the woman in the bed with the gash on her arm.

A Tupperware bowl from the freezer that was filled with human eyes.

He'd dragged her into his kitchen where he'd showed her that nightmare, along with the awful eyeless thing that had once been a woman.

Dear God. Perhaps the darkness was due to the fact that Tracy herself no longer had eyes. But she felt her face, and it was still intact. Lids with eyes beneath them. Nose. Ears.

Clank. There was some sort of shackle around her ankle. She followed the chain to a bracket in what felt like a stone wall.

She had to be in some kind of subterranean room. A basement or cellar. She had no memory of coming down here, but she could remember him laughing at her screams as he stuck her with a needle.

God, how she'd screamed at the sight of that gruesome mutilated body, just sitting at his kitchen table, as if joining him for lunch.

Had he silenced Tracy because he was afraid someone would hear her?

If she screamed now, would he come down here and do to her what he'd done to that poor woman? Dear God, he'd scalped her, then stretched the skin in an embroidery hoop to dry. Whoever she was, she'd once had long, golden hair, which he'd washed until it shined.

The alternative was to wait in silence, at which point he'd probably kill her anyway.

"Help!" Tracy started to scream. "Someone help me!"

Dave tried to stomp the snow off his feet before getting back into the truck.

"Anything?" Deck asked.

He shook his head. "Just a pair of older ladies. They didn't want to invite me in at first because, well, their house smelled like pot. But I told them that was okay with me."

Deck looked at him.

"Medical marijuana," Dave explained. "One of them was bald from chemo-it was kind of obvious what was going on. They were friendly and willing to help, but they didn't recognize either Tracy or our Ralph Fiennes impersonator."

Deck nodded. "Single truck in the garage. The bulkhead to the basement was open, so I went in. It was spotless-I think they paint their basement floor."

After leaving the motel, they'd quickly established a pattern. Dave would go to the door, while Deck did a quick circuit of the outside of the house. He also checked any outbuildings or garages for a car with a nine in the license plate.

"Where to now?" Dave asked.

Deck turned on the interior light to check the map. "House number five is about four miles up the hill. It's the next house on the left. The road curves so take it slow."

As if there was any other way to travel in this weather. Dave put the truck in gear. He could barely see through the windshield. But they were definitely moving faster than they would've been able to on foot. Although frequently Decker had to get out and find the road for him, as he had to do right now.

It was then, when he was climbing back into the cab that Deck surprised the hell out of him.

"I really fucked up today," he said. "I don't know how I'm going to tell Sophia."

Dave glanced at him. "Tell her what?"

Deck pretended to look at the map, but Dave knew he was just avoiding eye contact. "I went all cowboy," he admitted. "On Gillman and MacInnough. And Zanella and Lopez and Jenkins. Jesus. I thought..." He exhaled his frustration. "I thought they'd found out about Sophia."

About how she'd used sex to stay alive in Bashir's palace.

"I thought their interest in her was inappropriate," Deck continued. "I was wrong. They didn't know. But they do now." At Dave's glance, he added, "Yeah. I managed to confirm the rumors. Brilliant, huh?"

Does everyone know?

Sophia was going to be upset, but Dave couldn't help but think that this would be, in the long run, a good thing.

"She has nothing to be ashamed of," he told Decker. "The truth is that she managed to survive a terrible situation. Keeping it a secret isn't going to change what happened. It'll never be just magically erased. Frankly, I think she'll be better off with everyone knowing. I think she should be talking about it. Maybe now she will."

Decker was just shaking his head.

"What, you disagree?"

"No," Deck said. "You're probably right. I just...I'm ashamed."

"Of Sophia?"

The look Deck shot him would've turned Dave into stone in another dimension. "Of myself."

Screw that!

"Get over it!" Dave said. "Do you have any clue at all just how much she cares about you? How many times do we have to have this conversation anyway?" He was gripping the steering wheel so hard his knuckles were white. "But this is it. The last time. Listen carefully, because after this, you are on your own. I'm not going to say this again. Ask her to dinner, and when she says yes-which she will say with an expression of total joy on her face-put your arms around her and kiss the hell out of her. Just do it! Don't think, don't analyze, don't argue, and for the love of God, don't, don't, don't feel ashamed. The past is over. Let it go. Start focusing on the future."

Decker didn't look convinced. "She told Mac it was too soon to start dating-"

"Yeah-to start dating Mac." Dave completely lost it. He actually pounded on the steering wheel. "Do you have any idea, any idea, what I would give to be you, you stupid, stupid fool? I wouldn't have waited a second longer than I'd had to. By now she would be pregnant with my child, my ring around her finger. And she wouldn't have nightmares anymore, because I would be there at night, to talk to her, to hold her, to make sure she knew that she was safe forever. God, I am so in love with her, but you're the one she wants-you total fucking idiot. How can you just throw that away because you're ashamed of some mistake that you made a million years ago? A mistake that she's forgiven you for!"

Silence seemed to ring in the car, broken only by the sound of the tires and the windshield wiper laboring to clear away the falling snow.

"I didn't know," Decker finally said.

"Well, congratulations, now you do." Dave was so done. He used to think Deck would be good for Sophia, but now...It was over. He was no longer willing to help her find happiness by pushing Decker in her direction, by trying to talk him into spending time with her. He was finished with that. Finis. No more.

Yeah, and who was he kidding? He was done all right-until the next time Sophia looked longingly in Deck's direction. Shit. Shit.

"I'll do it," Decker said. "I'll ask her. To dinner. If that's really what she wants."

Dave took out his phone. "Great. Call her right now."

"We're in a dead zone."

"Not for the next few minutes," Dave told him. He dialed Sophia's number. Held the phone out to Decker. "Take it, it's ringing."

He took it, just as Sophia answered. Dave could hear her voice-his volume was up that loud. "Dave?"

"No, it's, uh, Deck."

"Is everything okay?" she asked. "Your timing is incredible!" She sounded excited.

"Uh, yeah," he said. "I was-" They must've both spoken at the same time, because he stopped. "I'm sorry-go ahead."

"I was just about to call you." Her voice crackled-the connection was tenuous at best, and Dave slowed down, afraid he was moving out of range. "We got a blip from Gillman's missing jacket on the computer, and you're the closest team."

Jenk was on the verge of going bullshit.

He'd handed over the driving to Gillman, so he could double-check the map, but there was no doubt about it.

Lindsey, at the motel, was the closest operative to the location of the blip that was being picked up by the computer. The blip that was Gillman's jacket that Tracy had taken from the cabin. The blip that was Tracy and/or a vicious and dangerous serial killer named Richard Eulie.

He dialed Lindsey's cell again.

She picked up-thank you, Jesus-and he didn't wait for her to say more than hello. "Please tell me you're waiting for backup."

"I'm meeting Dave and Decker there," she told him.

"And you'll wait for them, if you get there first, right?" This connection sucked. The wind wasn't helping.

"Oh, yeah," she said. "Believe me, I'm not crazy."

And yet she was alone in a vehicle, probably his POS rental car, without chains on the tires, rushing through a blizzard. Not crazy? No comment. In fact, Jenk clenched his teeth over any recriminations that might inadvertently pop out of his mouth. He wouldn't like it if she questioned his ability to handle a dangerous situation. She was an experienced, skilled operative-it had to go both ways.

Still, it was safe to say that, as far as their relationship went, this aspect of it was far less fun than having sex. In fact, it was going to take a lot of sex to make up for this.

Lindsey corrected herself. "I'm not too crazy."

"Yeah, that's what I'm afraid of," Jenk said.

"I thought Navy SEALs weren't afraid of anything," she teased.

"Seriously, Linds, wait for backup, okay?"

"I said that I would."

"We're on our way, too," Jenk reported. "We're probably thirty minutes behind Deck and Dave."

"That's good to know. Hey, I'm getting a beep. Hang on."

He hung. For longer than he'd hoped. He kept checking his phone to make sure he hadn't lost the connection. But then she was back.

"You're about to get a phone call," she told him, and sure enough, Lopez's phone rang.

"What's going on?"

"Sophia just got a call from the police," Lindsey informed him. "Someone saw Tracy on the night she disappeared with a man known as Todd Nortman. He's something of an eccentric-no one really knows him or trusts him. Apparently he gives food away, which makes everyone leery. He's too generous-small-town mentalities boggle my mind. Still, he fits our profile. He's lived-with a mother no one's ever seen-outside of town for two and a half years."

"You don't think he's our man," Jenk could hear her doubt.

"It just seems so obvious-the town freak's a killer? But everyone else likes him for this. The police chief sent a patrol car to his house-and, get this: Tracy's other mitten was spotted through the window of Nortman's car." She exhaled her exasperation. "It just seems so careless. But they're getting a search warrant, so we're diverting everyone in the immediate area-your team included-to his property. They want his house surrounded before they knock on his door."

"Nortman's property is not the same location as our computer blip," Jenk clarified as, sure enough, Gillman carefully turned their SUV around.

"Correct," Lindsey told him. "But it's within ten miles. I keep telling myself that the blip is just the jacket. Tracy may have taken it off hours ago. God, it's hard to see. You know what this is like? With the snow reflecting off my headlights? It's like making the jump into warp speed from the Millennium Falcon."

"Great," Jenk said. "Next you're going to say, I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Yeah, well, I do. I'm going to continue to investigate the blip. With Decker and Dave," she added, a smile in her voice.

"Good," he said.

"Do me a favor," Lindsey said. "When you get over to Nortman's, and you take a look at him...? Give me a call and let me know if you think he fits Tracy's hot guy description, okay?"

"I don't know if I'm qualified," Jenk told her. "But I'll do my best."

Beth dreamed of the days when he'd first brought her down into his basement hell. She dreamed of Number Four, of the screaming that had gone on and on and on. Screaming, and crying. Unholy noises. Sounds that a wounded animal might make.

She dreamed of the horrific thing that he'd carried down the stairs, with its fingerless hands and empty eye sockets. It seemed impossible that it could still be alive, with its hair gone and part of its skull exposed, but it was. It moved. She moved.

And then she spoke, her words impossibly clear from behind that sutured-shut mouth: "Time for your pill."

Beth awoke with a start. It wasn't Number Four who'd spoken to her. It was him.

He carried a tray with a plastic bowl and spoon. One of the antibiotic pills sat beside a plastic cup of water. He'd somehow figured out which drug Tracy had given to Beth, even though she'd tried to hide it. Of course he had. He always knew everything.

"Chicken soup," he told her. He must've gotten it when he went out. She could picture him in a grocery store, pushing his cart down an aisle, waiting patiently for an elderly lady to select her favorite brand of oatmeal. Lord, he'd been in a grocery store, and no one had known that he was the devil.

The screams from her dream continued-they weren't Number Four's. They were Tracy's. Number Twenty-One's. She was still alive.

The wind was howling, making the house creak and shiver, but not loud enough to mask the sounds from the basement.

The chicken soup smelled unbelievably good. It would be the first hot food she'd had in...She couldn't remember how long.

"Thank you so much," she told him, because she had to do this right. She had to be polite, even though she wanted nothing more than to kill him with that plastic spoon. "Will you sit with me for a while?"

She couldn't let him bring Tracy back into the kitchen. God knows what he'd done to her already, although from the sound of her screams she still had her tongue.

It was hard to eat the soup with him watching her with those awful eyes, with Tracy crying now. But she did it. And she kept it down. Took the pill. "I'm feeling much better," she lied.

"You should rest," he said, standing up and taking the tray from her lap.

"Wait," she said. "Please."

He turned back to her.