"You've been so kind." She choked the words out, fighting the bile that was rising in her throat. "I'm asking for one more kindness. Let me fight Number Twenty-One. Let me finish her off."

He didn't say a thing. He just turned, taking the tray into the kitchen.

"Please," Beth called after him. "I'm begging you. I'll do it your way. With your knife, if you want me to."

It took him a few minutes, but he finally came back. He was wearing the plaid hunter's jacket he always wore when she fought, and her relief was mixed with sorrow.

He'd brought her a plastic cup, too. Handed it to her. "Drink."

It was ginger ale. She obeyed him. Gave him back the empty cup. He tucked it under his arm because he was holding both his deadly little gun and the keys that would unlock her chains.

He tossed her the keys.

Deck hadn't asked her.

Dave glanced at him as he drove through the storm. According to the map, the road ahead of them was straight for the next few miles, so he picked up speed even though visibility was next to nothing.

Deck being Deck, he knew what Dave was thinking. "I know," he said. "I'm a coward."

"It wasn't exactly the right time," Dave pointed out. And it wasn't, with the news about both the signal from Gillman's jacket and the search warrant for this Nortman guy's house. It was, as always, disappointing to be sent away from the action, but Lindsey was alone out here, and the danger wasn't just from a serial killer. These roads were treacherous.

"It'll never be the right time," Deck admitted. "Because I just don't know how to-"

"Hello, Sophia?" Dave interrupted him. "It's me, Deck, the idiot. I was hoping you and I could have dinner sometime soon. How does the first Friday after we get back to California sound?" He looked at Decker. "Do you need me to repeat that?"

Deck shook his head. Muscles jumping in his jaw, as if he were preparing to face a gang of murderous ninjas, he dialed his phone.

He was actually doing it, actually calling. Dave had this sudden urge to swerve off the road, to knock the phone from his hands, to rewind the past few days.

To let Decker and Sophia continue to drift apart.

Sophia would get over Deck eventually, wouldn't she? And when she did, Dave would be there.

Deck held the phone to his ear, clearing his throat as he waited for her to pick up.

But then his eyes narrowed and he leaned forward, looking through both the frosted windshield and the snow. "Dave!"

Oh, shit. An enormous tree was down in front of them, completely blocking the road, and all his brakes did was lock the tires-they were worse than useless.

"Hang on!"

They were skidding sideways now, Deck's side of the truck heading directly for...

The side window shattered right before metal crunched. Dave saw Deck's phone sail into the air.

But then he saw nothing as the air bag punched him right in the face.

CHAPTER.

TWENTY.

Lindsey got there first.

The house, looming through the swirling snow, was pure Stephen King-one of those Victorian three-storied monsters that cost a fortune to maintain, let alone heat in the winter. There were quite a few of them in this area, built as summer homes, no doubt at the turn of the century when business at the old hunting lodge had been thriving.

Like most that Lindsey had driven past, this one, too, was in a shabby state of disrepair. Peeling paint, broken gutters, missing slates on the roof, sagging porch.

Big windows with rotting frames, like vacant, lifeless eyes. A center door like a mouth open in a silent scream.

Yeah, Lindsey couldn't have found a creepier-looking house if she'd gone to the local real estate office and asked to see something in classic Batesian psychopath.

There was an outbuilding-a barn from the looks of it-by the road. Lindsey had cut her headlights long before she'd pulled up alongside of it and now lurked there in the swirling snow and gloom.

The barn probably wasn't a garage, since there was a car parked out in front of the house-a little beat-up Nissan, half-buried in snow, with nary a nine in the plate number.

On the drive over, Lindsey had gotten some information from the police, via Sophia, about the home's owner-one Peter Thornton. He'd inherited the house from an elderly uncle, seven years ago. That didn't fit their profile for Richard Eulie, their suspected killer. But...apparently, Peter's brother, Dick-Dick, Richard?-had moved in with him...wait for it...three years ago.

And that did fit.

Especially since, after the brother showed up, Peter conveniently retired to Florida, never to be seen again.

He was, perhaps in truth, stashed in the attic.

His mummified body would be a special feature when it came time to resell the house-for that ever-growing number of serial killers in the real estate market.

Lindsey dialed Dave's cell, but got bumped right to voice mail. This house was right on the edge of a dead zone. The fact that she couldn't reach them hopefully meant that Dave and Decker were nearby. Any second now, they'd appear. She squinted out the car's rear window at the road behind her.

Any second now...

But they didn't come. And they still didn't come. She finally called Sophia, and actually got through. "Any news from Nortman's?"

"Nothing yet."

"Have you heard from Decker or Dave?"

"They're not there yet?" Sophia asked, concern in her voice. "Deck just called in, a few minutes ago, but...It was weird-as if the connection was there, but no one was on the other end. I tried calling back, but I couldn't get through. I'm going to try again after I'm off with you."

Their own connection was dreadful. "The wind out here is pretty intense," Lindsey told her. "It's possible one of the towers came down."

"Tess says the wind alone can affect the signal," Sophia reported. "Even if the towers stand."

Wonderful. "The roads are awful, too," Lindsey said. "It took me three times longer than I thought it would to get here." She described the house to Sophia.

"I've dug up some more info on Dick Thornton," Sophia in turn told her. "Nobody in town knows him very well-he really keeps to himself. He shops in the grocery store, but never stops to talk. Apparently, he disappears, sometimes for weeks at a time-speculation is he travels for business. But, other than the extended trips, he seems to be retired-putters around his yard, working on his car...Some people think he made a fortune from some Internet business, others think he inherited money, but they all agree that he doesn't live as if he's rich. Stella told me Rob was hoping to get some work, fixing up the house, but Thornton hasn't done any renovations at all-other than to put in a security system, which, frankly, everyone thinks is weird. To quote Stella, Who needs a security system out here? Most folks don't even lock their doors."

Unless the system wasn't to keep people from getting in, but rather from getting out. Creepier and creepier.

There didn't seem to be any lights on in the house, although it was so big, the kitchen could be in the back, lights blazing, oven on. Dick Thornton could be baking Christmas cookies, getting ready to hunker down for an evening of watching Rudolph and The Grinch.

"Will you do me a favor and try calling Dave and Deck again?" Lindsey asked. Or he could be getting ready to do embroidery on Tracy's face. "Maybe you'll get through on Dave's phone. I just want to get an estimate of when they'll be here. This place is freaking weird. My spidey senses are tingling."

"Do not approach that house," Sophia ordered. "I'll call you right back."

Izzy wasn't armed.

It wasn't that the senior chief didn't trust him. Well, okay, it was that the senior chief didn't trust him, considering that after this was said and done, with Tracy safely home, Izzy was going to take an extended trip to Punishmentland.

The senior had provided weapons for all the other SEALs in the SUV. And had given specific instructions to Gillman to keep them out of Izzy's disobedient hands.

Still, Izzy was a body, and he was here with his boyz, and about five of the local police officers of varying shapes, sizes, and probably skill levels, considering that the guy with the beer gut was also unarmed. Although there was one little redheaded waif who looked about fourteen, who got to carry. No doubt she'd earned her Girl Scout firearms badge.

With the stealth of a herd of goats, they moved into place outside of Todd Nortman's little house in the big woods.

And it was a little house. It was the New England equivalent of a shotgun shack. Two rooms, tops. Nortman's ancient car, parked in front, was almost larger.

The car had a nine in the plate, and Tracy's mitten on the floor of the front seat.

Jesus Lord of heaven and earth, please let them find her here, unharmed.

The local police were in charge of this takedown, a uniformed officer named Morris waiting until he got the signal from Lopez that he and Gillman were positioned outside the back door.

The delay-what the hell was taking them so long?-made Izzy want to scream in frustration.

Waddling through the deep snow, clearly challenged by the weight of his bulletproof vest, Morris finally knocked on Nortman's door.

It opened immediately, revealing a little, wizened turtle-looking man, with an underbite, a nonexistent chin, and a bald head that he attempted to hide with a comb-over.

"Officer Morris," Nortman said, genuinely pleased to see him. "What a surprise. Bless your heart for coming all the way out in this storm to check up on Mother and me! Won't you come inside?"

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick.

If this was their killer, Izzy was his own grandmother.

Tracy didn't hear the door open because she was crying.

She did, however, see the light streaming down the flight of rough cellar stairs.

She also got a look around, which would have made her cry even harder, except for the fact that she'd vowed never again to let him see just how frightened she was. If she was going to scream, it was going to be for help.

She was chained to a wall, just as she'd thought, in a basement, just as she'd thought.

What she hadn't imagined were the bloodstains on the rough concrete floor. The pile of-oh dear God-human fingers, some of them recently severed, most of them little more than bones.

How many women had he brought down here to kill? All those eyelids, all those eyes?

But it wasn't him coming down the stairs, it was Beth. She leaned heavily on the railing, taking one step at a time.

Hope bloomed, until Tracy saw that he was right behind her, the light gleaming off the barrel of his gun.

As Lindsey got out of the rental car, her cell phone rang.

It was Jenk, as if he'd telepathically known that-after waiting for Decker and Dave for what seemed like forever-she'd finally decided to investigate the contents of that barn.

She got back in the car, restarted the engine and the heater. "Hello?" Just that two-second exposure to the elements had chilled her to the bone.

"Where are you?" he asked.

"Sitting in the car, outside this creepy-ass house, still waiting for Deck and Dave," she was able to tell him honestly.

"I'm pretty sure Nortman's not our man," Jenk informed her. "He's cooperating completely-he's willing to help in any way he can-fingerprinting, DNA tests. We're taking him up on that, although it'll be a while before we get the results."

"What does he look like?" Lindsey asked.

"Well, unless Tracy has a secret thing for Don Knotts...Hang on," Jenk said. "I'm going to send you a picture. If I lose you, I'll call you right back."

And there it was, right on the screen of Lindsey's phone. A photo of Todd Nortman. Wide, bulgy eyes and a comb-over and...yeah. Even tanked on tequila, Tracy would never have described Todd Nortman as a hot guy.

"He says he picked up Tracy on the night of the exercise," Jenk told her, "on the road behind the cabin. She was in his car for well over an hour, helping him deliver food baskets to what he calls neighbors in need. Although, if you could see this guy's house, you'd wonder why he's not at the top of his own list. Anyway, he says he dropped Tracy at the pharmacy-it's also a bus station-because he had more deliveries to make, and going to the Motel-A-Rama would've taken him too far out of his way. His mother-she's real, she's about a hundred and fifty years old. Apparently she would've worried if he was gone that long. He said there was one other car in the parking lot at the store-a dark-colored Impala that he didn't recognize. And this is a guy who knows everyone in town."

"Have you relayed this information to Sophia?"

"Affirmative," Jenk said. "I'm already on my way to you, with Gillman, Lopez, and Zanella. She told me to tell you that Decker and Dave have fallen off the map. She needs you to backtrack, to try to find them. Got your map?"

"I do." Lindsey picked it up, squinting at it in the dim afternoon light. She was far enough from the house not to be seen from the windows, but that would change if she put on the overhead light. She marked the map as Jenk rattled off a series of roads-the route Dave and Deck had been taking to reach her.

"While you're waiting for us, head back that way. See if maybe they went off the road."

Lindsey couldn't not say it. "If we go inside this house-when you get here-and Tracy's there and we're too late..." God. "The idea of turning around, of leaving her in there..."

"You'll be back," Jenk said. "Think of it as getting in there sooner. If you can find Deck and Dave..."

And if she didn't? "Just hurry," she told him.

Tracy-Number Twenty-One-stood up, chin defiantly high, chains clanking.

He hadn't hurt her.