I remember suddenly who found that awful video. Connor. It wasn’t an accident. It wasn’t Absalom. Melvin did that to our son. He did it deliberately. “You son of a bitch.”

“It’s not my fault you left him with strangers,” Melvin says. “You made him vulnerable. Easy to break, and I broke him. I was planning to have him here with us. I think that would have been fitting, for him to see you break, and then I could take him with me and teach him how to be strong. But it didn’t work. Instead of Brady, we got Lily.”

It’s coming too fast, and it’s too much. I don’t have time to feel the shocks. I’m drowning in them. “You mean Lanny?” I’ve said her name, and I wish I hadn’t, because he can see the cracks now. The fear. He feeds on it. “You don’t have her.”

“You’re right. I don’t. She got in the way when Absalom’s transport man went to get our son. By now she’s up in the hills, at another of our . . . special places.” He shrugs. “I told them to make some use out of her, one way or another. She’s not as marketable as she would have been younger, but—”

“Shut up!” I scream, and the raw edge to it surprises me. I feel heavy and cold, like my body is already giving up. I want my rage back. The fear is too hard. Too heavy. Lanny, oh my sweet precious girl, where are you, what’s he done . . .

I remind myself, somehow, that Melvin Royal is a liar. A deceiver. A manipulator. And he knows where my undefended weaknesses lie. My children are how he hurts me. I have to believe they’re safe. I have to.

“You’re a very bad mother,” he says into the weighted silence. “I’m going to get my son and make him mine again. I’ve already got your daughter. You think about that until I’m ready for you.”

He knows when to strike and retreat. He stands up and goes to the door, and for the first time I realize that this bedroom has other furniture in it—an old, leaning dresser, some framed prints half-eaten by mold. A cracked mirror that shows the world in two badly reflected pieces.

In it, I’m torn in half, as if he’s already started destroying me.

I know I should get myself free. I know I should fight. I have to fight.

But all I can do, as Melvin leaves me, is lie there, shuddering. I claw the sheet over me, because the cold seems so intense, despite the thick, tepid air. I need my anger back.

I wonder if anyone knows where I am. If Sam might be looking, or if he even cares to try.

Maybe this is how I end.

Maybe, before he destroys me completely, I’ll buy my children’s safety with my blood.

That’s all I can wish for now.

26

SAM

It costs Rivard three broken fingers, but he finally agrees to call the airfield and has them ready his private plane for us. That gets around the impossible tangle of canceled flights out of the commercial lines, but it throws us another curve: it takes time to get the plane fueled and ready, and when we board, we find that the pilot’s not there yet. He’s going to be another hour coming in.

I tell the flight attendant to take the day off with pay. We aren’t going to need drinks and dinner. She seems surprised, but nobody ever argues against an unexpected bonus, and her quick departure leaves us on the aircraft, alone.

Mike’s watching me as I check the time. It’s already eight o’clock central time. Flight time to Baton Rouge is about an hour and a half, but the weather between us means diverting around it, and that adds at least another half an hour. If we’re not wheels up until nine, that’s eleven on the ground, and no time to get to where Gwen’s being held. We should have tried having Rivard call it off. But I knew he’d screw us on that. It would be his only sure revenge.

Every second we waste now is blood in the water. “I’m taking the plane,” I tell him. He nods; he’s been expecting that. He knows I can fly it, and it’s fueled and ready. “Lock it up and let’s get in the air.”

I slide into the pilot’s chair and start preflight checks. The cockpit’s different—sleeker and more automated than most—but I’ve driven enough birds that everything’s clear at a glance. Tens of thousands of hours behind me. This plane’s a piece of cake. I plot the course and lock it in, and the onboard computer automatically loads the weather stats and adjusts. I was right. Two hours’ flight time.

I know how to clear the plane for takeoff, and I’m not surprised that the tower doesn’t notice the pilot change; small airfields like these, they thrive on people knowing their own business. I get on the com and tell Mike to take a seat, then taxi the plane out. Focusing on the work keeps the jitters at bay, and the images of what’s happening to Gwen a distance, at least for now.

Takeoff feels like victory, like speed, like we’re finally beating Absalom at their own game. But I know that’s an illusion. Being in the air is freedom to me, and the vibration of the plane is a familiar, soothing rhythm. It keeps the fear in check.

I lock in the autopilot and step away to talk to Mike. “Anything else we can do?”

“I called the FBI’s Baton Rouge resident office,” he says. “Both agents stationed there are coordinating with New Orleans. I’m trying Shreveport. We might have to go to the state police. Last resort, because I don’t know if they’ll take it seriously, but we’re running out of options.”

I leave him to make the calls. There’s nothing else I can do now but wait, and I’m not good at it.

Keep fighting, Gwen.

Keep fighting.

27

GWEN

The despair lasts until a ratty-looking, thin woman, arms pocked by a junkie’s scars, brings me water. The second I see it, I realize how desperately thirsty I am, and I take the bottle and guzzle it thirstily.

It’s a mistake, and I know that as soon as the drugs hit my system. In just a few minutes, I feel the chemical wave of them rushing through my veins, and though I try to pull my broken hand the rest of the way through the cuffs, I can’t seem to stay focused. The pain keeps holding me back, and no matter how much I try to concentrate, it’s like sand through a screen.

By the time the drugs take a real hold, I’m panting, sweating, moaning, and everything is smeared and blurred around me. Spiders in the sheets. Eyes on the ceiling. The terror is like something alive inside me, fighting to get out. I imagine it clawing through my skin, bursting through in thick, black streaks that choke and blind me.