Anger gnawed at Alex as she drove past the Balloon Field where hundreds of pilots blasted their burners inside the hot air balloons, setting the night aglow with color. Until he had stupidly kidnapped those girls and hidden them away, Adam had always gone to contortionist extremes to please her. She didn’t care that he acted more out of fear of retribution from her than of blind obedience. It had made manipulating him as easy as bending a plastic straw.

Alex banged both fists on the steering wheel, ceasing only when a crackling sound pierced her fog of fury, the jagged break across her dashboard a perfect representation of her disintegrating control over Adam. She’d had a plan, had everything under control until Adam had gone and royally screwed everything up, and now they were one misstep away from being caught. Not one to lie to herself, she admitted what had been speeding her direction for a while: Adam had become a liability, one she needed to eliminate before things got even worse. Inside the cab of her vehicle, she howled out her rage.

A maze of zigzagging lightning strikes zinged across the sky over the Sandias, nearly blinding her. Mountain weather was so often notoriously unpredictable with its out-of-nowhere thunderstorms and hard, driving rains, but where Alex thrived on the volatility, Adam dreaded it.

Just like that, she knew where he’d taken the girls. In fact, it was so obvious, she was surprised it had taken her this long to figure it out. Not considering the traffic around her, she jerked her steering wheel to the left and reversed course, ignoring the angry horns of drivers forced to slam on their brakes to avoid hitting her.

Getting to them this late would be tricky, but every second those girls were left alive was another second she risked exposure.

As she rocketed down the highway, she felt like she could float away. With the girls dead, she’d have tied up every loose end except Adam. But that was okay because she had big plans for him.

More than ninety minutes later, Alex bumped along a mountainous road, cursing each rut. A deer bounded in front of her, but she didn’t bother swerving to miss it, a little surprised it managed to escape her front bumper.

It took her a little longer than she’d expected since it had been so long since she’d last come here, so when she finally turned onto the correct primitive trail, she’d been relieved. She hadn’t quite believed she’d be able to locate it in the dark, and there was no way she was waiting until morning. Not now, when she was so close she could taste satisfaction.

Soon, all her problems would be solved.