“Is there anything you can tell me about him? His height, muscle tone, the sound of his voice.”

“He felt massive when he was on top of me. His chest and hands were smooth.”

Rawlings’s body was at the medical examiner’s office, and she would have Spencer check both descriptors, but Jordan did not connect Casey’s description to Rawlings.

“He shut the lights off after that day he hit you.”

“What do you mean?” She heard the vehicle accelerate as the car wove in and out of traffic.

“I can’t see anything,” Casey said.

“Why did he turn off the lights?”

“I don’t know.”

The killer had already hinted that he knew Jordan’s vision was impaired. “Okay.”

“We’re less than a minute out.” Spencer slowed the car and took a hard right. The new road was rougher, and she guessed narrower, as many of the side roads on the fringe of the county could be.

“What does your room feel like, Casey?” Jordan asked.

“The walls feel like cinder block. There’s a toilet in the room and a sink, but nothing else. No windows.”

“Seconds out,” Spencer said.

“Almost there, Casey,” Jordan said.

The wail of police sirens mingled with the odd flashes of lights as the other cops joined them. Spencer slowed and pulled sharply to the left before bringing the car to a stop.

“Where are we?” she asked.

“It’s another old house,” Spencer said. “One story, looks as if it were built in the nineteen forties. There are no other vehicles in the area. It’s within three miles of where we found you unconscious.”

“He has a favorite area,” Jordan said.

“We’re all creatures of habit,” Spencer said.

Jordan unlatched her seat belt and reached for her car door handle.

“Stay in the car,” Spencer ordered. “Keep talking to Casey.”

“I want to be there when you find her.”

“No. Your vision impairment makes you a liability. I wish it didn’t, but it does. The goal is to get Casey out of the house alive. Stay put. We haven’t confirmed that we’re even talking to Casey.”

She had dismissed all thoughts of a fraud when she’d heard the name Max. From then on, she’d been so focused on keeping the woman on the line her thoughts had narrowed, edging out the possibility that this was a fraud or a trap. “Understood.”

He was out of the car, and seconds after he slammed his door, he opened the SUV’s back hatch. Like many cops, he kept his tactical gear in the back for cases just like this. He slammed the hatch closed.

“My battery is—” Casey’s last words ended, and the line went silent.