Pia turned and retraced her steps, but then, to her dismay, the quiet of the woods was shattered by the raucous sound of an automobile engine starting. It was coming from outside the house she’d escaped from. The light from the headlights bounced as the van made its way quickly down the driveway. If the van turned right, she was a sitting duck. Pia swung around and ran down a driveway to her left, trying to make as little noise as possible on the gravel. Reaching the house, Pia made a detour on flagstones set into grass around the house, quickly coming upon a small sandy beach. Now she could see she was at the edge of a circular two- or three-hundred-yard-long cove with its relatively narrow neck to her left leading out to a large lake. At this point, the opposite shore was just a couple of hundred feet away and along the shore was the house with the light on.

Pia weighed her options. If she yelled, Pia knew the men in the van were more likely to hear her than anyone else. She could hide, but she would have to move eventually, and when it got light, for all she knew, she’d be plainly visible to the men who had taken her. Noticing a pile of rocks breaching the water’s surface in the middle of the narrow expanse between where she was standing and the opposite shore, Pia wondered if the water might be shallow all the way across. Although she knew the water would undoubtedly be freezing, she thought that crossing the cove represented her best chance.

Pia took off her shoes and her shirt and bunched them against her chest and stepped into the water. As she had expected, the water was numbingly cold, and Pia breathed in sharply. She looked behind her, but there was no sign of the van lights. There was sand on the bottom of the cove, then a slick mud and the occasional rock. As the water came up to her waist, there were mostly rocks and Pia slipped, exposing more of her skin to water. Regaining her balance, she continued forward. Suddenly, the headlights flashed across the water in front of her, then again, twenty feet to her right. Pia slowed as she reached the rock pile. Her legs and feet were totally numb and felt more like stilts than legs. Skirting the rocks, she had only fifty feet or so to go.