Releasing his tight muscles, Jim eased up his body and looked over his shoulder at the bureaus. Adrian was pulling open drawers in a methodical manner and rifling through whatever was in them—and there evidently was a lot given all the rattling.

“Fine,” Jim murmured. “Guess we should join in the Easter-egg hunt?”

“I know it’s hard,” Eddie said. “But you have to trust me.”

Eddie clapped him on the back and together they turned to head over to his buddy. Jim followed one footstep—

And wheeled around for the doorknob. As the fallen angel barked out a curse, Jim yanked open the slab of wood and jerked to a halt.

A young woman was hanging naked and upside down over the porcelain tub, her legs open in a V, her ankles bound with black rope to the circular rod that should have held a shower curtain. Her hands were tied together with the same black rope and pulled tautly up her body so that her fingers just barely touched the top of her sex. All around her belly there were deep cuts, arranged in a pattern of some kind, and red blood covered her white skin, running down her torso before splitting around the jut of her chin and jaw and flowing through her blond hair.

The tub was plugged and full.

Oh, Lord…about two inches above the pool she hung. Her eyes were open and fixed straight ahead, but her mouth was working ever so slightly….

“She’s alive!” Jim called out as he leaped forward.

Eddie caught him and yanked him back. “No, she’s not. And we’ve got to get out of here now, thanks to you.”

Jim thrashed free of the hold and rushed forward, raising his hands, ready to start on the complex series of knots—

A hard, heavy palm locked onto his shoulder. “She’s fucking dead, man, and we’ve got a problem now.” When Jim shook his head roughly and fought against the hold, Eddie’s voice rose. “She’s dead—those are autonomic spasms, not signs of life. See the cuts on either side of her throat?”

Jim’s eyes careened around her body, desperately looking for a shallow draw of breath or recognition in her face that she was going to be saved…something…anything….

“No!” He pointed to her fingers as they twitched ever so slightly. “She’s alive!”

As he strained until he roared, the scene changed before his eyes, flipping from current horror to remembered tragedy. He saw his mother surrounded by blood, her eyes blinking slowly, her mouth working to form the words necessary to get him to leave her.

Eddie’s calm voice came right into his ear, as if the guy weren’t so much speaking, but implanting the words: “Jim, we’ve got to get the fuck out of here.”

“We can’t leave her.” Was that his voice? That reedy croak?