Relief made Beth stumble, and he caught her arm, barrel of his gun jammed into her spine.

Only, now what? She'd come down here, thinking she'd find Tracy already tortured, already half-dead. Her intention had been to dispense mercy. To end her suffering.

Instead Beth locked eyes with her, remembering the words she'd mouthed behind his back. Two against one.

Lord, she was weak and dizzy. It was hard to stand, let alone think. And yet she hated him touching her. She pulled her arm away, taking the rest of the stairs on her own, venturing out into the dimly lit basement.

She cradled her injured arm, using it as an excuse to bring her hands up against her chest, hidden from him. She held up two fingers. And then one. Please Jesus, let Tracy understand.

This was where he'd throw Tracy the keys to her shackles-except he didn't.

Instead, he threw a knife. A switchblade. It clattered on the concrete at Beth's feet, opening to reveal a long, deadly blade.

She turned to look at him, at the gun he still held on her. She could hear Tracy's fear in the sound of her breathing-rapid now.

"Finish her," he ordered.

"She's chained," Beth protested.

"You're weak," he said. "Just finish her." He paused. "Or leave her for me."

The sound of persistent ringing roused him. His cell phone.

Wow, it was cold-how long had he been out? The air bag had bent his glasses.

Dave deflated it and-Jesus.

The stump of a tree branch, its end pointed and jagged as if Mother Nature had fashioned a giant spear, had pierced the side window, pinning Decker to his seat.

Calling it a stump was probably misleading, since it was three feet long, with a diameter of at least twelve inches where it met the trunk of the fallen tree.

Dave reached both for his phone and for Decker's throat-to check for a pulse-and discovered that his right wrist was broken.

Holy Mother, it hurt.

The fact that Decker didn't move wasn't a good sign, since Dave had just shouted in his ear.

He cradled his wrist as he answered the phone-it was Sophia, of course-tucking it between his shoulder and right ear, as he reached across himself with his other hand, praying that he'd find Deck still alive.

"Dave! Where have you been?"

A pulse. Thank God. But it felt weak. How long had they been sitting here, with the wind and snow blowing through that broken window? Decker had snow on his right eyebrow and ear, his shoulder and...

The stump of the branch had smaller branches attached to it, and one of them had stabbed Decker in the side. Right through his jacket and his shirt. It had broken off, so he wasn't still attached to the tree, but...

And now Dave was thankful for that broken window and the cold that had surely stanched the flow of Deck's blood. As it was, he'd lost a lot, soaking his clothes and pooling on the floor at his feet.

"We've had an accident," Dave told Sophia, as he tried to get a better look at Deck's injuries. "A tree came down-it's blocking the road." He gave her their location-on Burlington Road, about a half mile from the intersection of Mt. Trent.

No, the branch pinning Deck in was only going to prove a logistical nightmare in getting him out of the truck-it hadn't hurt him. At least not in addition to the undetermined length of wood sticking into his gut. "The truck's totaled. Decker's badly hurt."

"Oh, my God," Sophia breathed as he described the injury. "I've called for help, but I don't know when they'll be able to get there."

"As long as we're asking for the impossible, we're going to need a medic," Dave said, as he looked at his map. "You might as well request that, too. As far as I can tell, the closest house is that of the Misses Rogers and Kittford." The pot ladies. Although their home was at least five miles back. Five miles, through a dead zone, where he'd have no contact, no chance to call for help. Which was moot, since there was no help to be had.

Apparently Sophia was looking at a map, too. "You're going to walk five miles through a blizzard, carrying an injured man?"

With a broken wrist, but she didn't need to know that.

"Who loves ya, baby?" Dave did his best Kojak, but of course she didn't recognize it. She was too young.

She said something back, but he couldn't make it out, not before their connection crackled and died. Which made the dead zone thing doubly moot.

Dave pocketed his phone-Decker's, too, grabbing it from the floor. "Okay, Deck," he said, taking several deep breaths, getting ready to take the unconscious man beneath his arms and pull him across the parking brake. There was no way he could do it without using his broken wrist. "I take comfort in knowing that this is going to hurt you as much as it hurts me."

"Finish her," the monster said, "or leave her for me."

Tracy could see indecision in Beth's eyes-the woman was actually considering it.

Two against one. Beth had been flashing hand signals to Tracy when she'd first come down here, two fingers and then one, but now she'd stopped. Now she looked at that knife as if she actually might use it. But then she looked back, hard, into Tracy's eyes.

"Look at her," Beth said. "She's terrified. Sure, she's standing there as if she's not, but I take one step toward her? She'll cower in the corner and cry."

Okay, there was a definite message there. Beth lifted her foot, took a deliberate step toward Tracy.

"Don't hurt me, don't hurt me," Tracy said, curling into herself. The tears were easy to produce, even while thinking, please dear God, let Beth have some kind of a plan. Two against one was well and good, but he had a gun. Of course, if they both attacked him, he could only shoot one of them at a time. Providing they were close enough to him...

"Let her have the keys," Beth told the monster.

"No," he said. "You have until ten, nine..."

Resignation replaced hope in Beth's feverish gaze. "I'm sorry," she whispered to Tracy. "I tried."

"Eight..."

"I'm so sorry. I'll make it quick, I promise." Beth advanced, holding that knife in a clearly practiced stance. "I can't let him take you."

"Seven..."

"Please don't," Tracy said, but Beth wasn't Beth anymore. She'd changed-into Number Five. Her eyes were feral, her face tight.

"I'll make it quick," she said again. "It'll be over, and you'll be free. Water will punch you, but you won't feel a thing."

Okay, now she sounded as well as looked crazy.

"Six..."

Tracy backed away from that blade, as far as her chains would allow her. "Don't do this," she said. Dear God, she didn't want to die. "Help! Someone help me!"

Lindsey couldn't do it.

She couldn't leave, not without checking the barn to see if another car was inside.

And sure enough, as she went through the side door, she could see it there, in the gloom. It was covered with a tarp. She lifted the heavy canvas and...

A dark blue Impala. New Hampshire plates. Complete with a nine.

She should have called Tom Paoletti right then and there. Except he would have ordered her back to her car, to wait for the freaking backup.

Instead, she made the decision to approach the house. Just to walk around the outside. Quietly. Stealthily. Maybe look in a window or two. Get as much information as she possibly could.

The wind was howling, and the snow was blowing. No one would see her or hear her. And even if they did, she'd do her so-called ninja thing and get herself to safety.

The shades were down in the front of the house.

Lindsey saw the security system that Sophia had told her about. Drat, she should have asked for more details. Although, with this wind, any motion detectors would have to be off, or the system would be tripped every ten seconds.

She rounded the back of the house. There was a little porch, and a back door that led into a drab kitchen, where a single light was on.

It was there, as she looked into the window, that she heard it.

Someone help me!

And then no words, just screams. Long, piercing, high-pitched screams.

She had her phone out and dialing. First Sophia. Then Tom Paoletti. Both times, she was bumped straight to voice mail.

She called Jenk. Same thing.

She left him a message: "Please don't be mad. And please, God, I hope you're close. I'm still here at the Thorntons'. There's an Impala in the barn, with a nine in the plate. I've heard screaming from the house-a female who sounds like Tracy begging for help. I can't wait for backup-I'm going in."

Lindsey pocketed her phone and looked more closely at the security system. No way was she getting into the house without Richard Eulie knowing about it.

Which meant that there was only one thing to do.

When the news came in about Dave and Decker's accident, Jenk asked Lopez, who was taking the call, to find out if Lindsey was with them.

"No," Lopez reported, "and Sophia says she hasn't heard from her in a while."

Those were not the words Jenk wanted to hear.

"We're approaching from a different direction," Lopez continued his phone conversation, "so we don't need to worry about the downed tree, but Danny's marking it on the map."

"Can't we go any faster?" Izzy fretted from the backseat.

"I'm going as fast as I can," Jenk told him. "Visibility's about eighteen inches. If I get up too much speed, same thing that happened to Dave and Deck could happen to us."

"I could fucking run faster than this," Izzy said. "Even in knee-deep snow."

Yeah, Jenk could, too. In fact...He jammed his hat onto his head, and zipped up his jacket. But stopping on these roads was a four-ring circus. Even if they didn't slide into a ditch, getting started again would be another whole event.

But at this speed, they didn't have to stop.

"Gillman, take the wheel," Jenk ordered. "Right now. Just slide over."

Gillman thrust the map he was holding back to Lopez, as Jenk opened the window. The wind was blowing too hard to open the door.

A boatload of snow swirled into the car, and the wind pushed the map up into Lopez's face. "Hey, I'm trying to talk on the phone! It's hard enough to hear..."

Jenk hoisted himself up so that he was sitting on the open window, with the SUV still in motion. Before he pulled his legs out, he turned on the brights, which, with the whiteout from the snow, brought visibility down to even less than eighteen inches. That, however, was going to change.

"Dude!" In the back, Izzy had rolled down his window, too. "You're the balls! I'll relieve you in ten."

Jenk nodded, and ran-easily-past the SUV. Without the glare from the windshield, his visibility increased-not by much, but by enough. Of course, it was a lot colder out here. Not that he felt it. He positioned himself about twenty feet in front of the vehicle, right where the headlights reflected off his jacket, and hauled ass.

Gillman, driving behind him, picked up speed.

Was there a good way to die?

Tracy had always thought that dying in her sleep would be the best way to go. To just go to bed one night and never wake up. It would be peaceful and painless.

Now, however, her two choices were both violent and painful-quick, via Beth's knife, or slow, with the monster in his death-kitchen.

"Just close your eyes and it'll all be over soon," Beth said, over Tracy's screams for help, as the monster droned on, "Six...Five..."

No. She couldn't. She wouldn't. If she was going to die, she would die fighting.

Tracy stopped screaming and kicked at Beth with her best Tae Bo roundhouse, knowing full well that she was probably going to get stabbed. Tae Bo was about muscle toning, not self-defense. But she couldn't just stand there and be slaughtered.

She missed the knife, instead hitting Beth's other arm-the injured one.

Beth cried out, fumbling with the knife. Tracy kicked her again-damn this chain that jerked her back! But the knife fell to the floor with a clatter.

Her opponent was sick and injured-which was at least as big a handicap as Tracy's chain-possibly more so. She tried to land a third kick, but this time Beth was ready for her, grabbing her leg and knocking her off-balance.

Tracy landed on the concrete, on her back, all the air forced from her lungs. Beth leaped on top of her, her hands around Tracy's throat.

Dear God, no! Now she really couldn't breathe.

But then, as she fought to throw Beth off of her, she could breathe. Beth's grip had loosened, yet she still held on to her.

"Die!" Beth told her, shaking Tracy as if she were still squeezing the life from her. "Die!"

And Tracy understood. She jerked and thrashed. And then went limp. As Beth's hands left her throat, she forced herself not to move, not to gasp for air. She could hear Beth breathing hard.

She heard the monster speak. Chidingly, churlishly. "You said you'd use the knife."

"She overpowered me," Beth told him. "I'm not as well as I'd...oh..."