Culver, in Hancock County, Maine, is somewhere that you would normally struggle to find on a map, but the small town was where Rickard was headed. Following the assassination of the two cops in Tampa, he’d traveled to Bangor on a scheduled flight, but from Bangor had jumped to the coastline on a small seaplane. From Trenton, he’d then used a speedboat to cross the bay to Culver, where he’d collected the FedEx truck that was necessary to his ploy. His boat was moored in a disused boathouse ready for the return trip across the water. At Trenton, the plane was waiting for his return, but there wasn’t room in the cabin for the pilot and him plus an unconscious woman. But that was okay: he’d never intended for Imogen Ballard to leave Maine alive.

The car he’d appropriated after dumping Imogen’s Suburban would have to be torched to eliminate any trace evidence, but that was a task he’d see to prior to firing up the outboard motor on his boat.

“First we deal with you, Imogen,” he said. “Let’s see if we can raise a little fire in you, shall we?”

Imogen was incapable of replying. But that would be rectified within a minute or so.

The boathouse, once used to house a fishing boat, was not one of those fancy-type buildings you see in rich men’s playgrounds, but a wholly utilitarian affair of sun-bleached planks and wind-scoured shingles. It was like a small hanger, open to the bay at one end with a normal door on the side and another two doors where a truck with a winch could drag a boat out of the water on the landward side. Wooden walkways ran the inner length of both walls, while a beaten earth ramp down the center gave way to the cold North Atlantic. Rickard’s boat was moored on the right-hand side; the other walkway was clear.

Upright posts held the shell of the building together and supported the sagging roof. Rickard cuffed Imogen to one of the posts on the walkway opposite the boat. He fed the cuffs behind the post, then snapped her wrists into them. A horizontal rail held the cuffs from slipping down, forcing the unconscious woman to stand upright. If she awoke, her position would be torturous.