She thought about that. Tried to replay all that had happened since that moment, when Carl had dragged her away from the window.

It hadn’t been long at all.

Ninety seconds, tops.

Still, help was coming. Soon.

Please.

She kept the gun leveled. Cocked her head and listened for any hint of movement.

She heard something. A faint scrape against wood. Something being moved on one of the plywood shelves. The sound was so soft she couldn’t pinpoint it. It might have been anywhere.

A second later it stopped, as suddenly as it had begun.

Silence.

Then came an explosion of sound, ten feet away from her, something like a toolbox bursting open against the wall.

She cried out, the sound involuntary as a flinch, realizing in the same instant what she’d done. What the attacker had meant for her to do.

Move. Now. Be anywhere but right here.

She threw herself forward—too late.

The man crashed into her, slammed her body against the corner of the furnace. She felt the air driven out of her lungs. Heard her gun skitter away on the concrete somewhere nearby. Then he was on top of her, a knee pressing down in her back, her arms being wrenched behind her. She realized she was screaming, loud and incoherent, an animal sound full of panic. He was screaming back at her, telling her to shut up. She felt an open hand smack the side of her head, rocking it sideways and making her ears ring. A second later she heard the tearing sound of duct tape coming off a roll. Felt him looping it around her wrists, again and again, working by feel in the darkness, binding them painfully together behind her.

He let go of her and clambered to his feet, and then the flame of a cigarette lighter cut through the dark. She craned her neck and looked up. It was the bald man from the front yard. He held the lighter out ahead of him, seemed to get his bearings, then sprinted away across the basement.

She heard him thud up the stairs as quickly as he had come down them. He opened the door at the top and flipped the light back on. Danica blinked a few times and then he was standing over her again, leaning down and gripping her upper arms.

“Get up. Come on.”

She made no move to do so.

“Get the fuck up!”

She screwed her eyes shut. Waited for him to hit her again.

But all he did was clamp her arms tighter and begin to drag her across the concrete floor. She opened her eyes and saw his tennis shoes in front of her, pointed toward her as he walked. He was moving backward, leaning down and hauling her toward the stairs. He was halfway there when a gunshot sounded, loud as a bomb blast in the enclosed space.