She did a good job of it for the most part. The average person looking at her would never have suspected she lived on the ragged edge of sanity much of the time. Just as the average person would never have looked at their neighbor and suspected his thoughts were full of dark desires of kidnapping, torture, murder . . .

He was such a quiet guy . . .

Watching the people of Oak Knoll go on about their business mesmerized her after a while, like watching ants come and go from an anthill. She turned her thoughts back to the fact that she still had to do something about dinner.

She couldn’t bring herself to go back into Pavilions. Ralphs market was just a few blocks away. Or maybe it would be wiser to simply call for a pizza or something. Retreat, regroup, have a drink or two, put this afternoon behind her. Maybe tomorrow she would be able to go out in public without attacking someone with a shopping cart.

She took a big deep breath and let it out with the idea of clearing her head. As she tried to let go the last of the tension, a van drove slowly past her. An unremarkable brown panel van. The driver turned his head and looked directly at her, and Lauren’s heart stopped as she met the hooded dark eyes of Roland Ballencoa.

The man who had taken her daughter.

Chapter 2

2

The van kept going. The driver didn’t stop, didn’t slow down, didn’t speed up. He seemed not to recognize her.

Lauren’s pulse was pounding in her ears, roaring in her ears. She felt like she had been suddenly submerged in water. She couldn’t speak. She couldn’t breathe. The imagined pressure threatened to crush her chest wall.

She didn’t trust herself to believe what she thought she’d seen. Was it really him this time? Or had her memory once again superimposed Roland Ballencoa’s face on another man’s body?

The van was waiting to pull out onto the street. She couldn’t see the driver from this angle.

What if it was him? What if he was on his way home with a six-pack of beer and a box of frozen lasagna, just like anybody else?

As the van rolled out of the parking lot and into traffic, Lauren threw her car in gear and pulled out, not noticing that she nearly hit a woman with a cart full of groceries.

She needed to know.

She turned in front of several teenagers on the sidewalk and hit the gas to make it onto the street before she could lose sight of the van.

He was at the intersection already, turning left.

Lauren pulled into the turn lane two cars behind him, and made the left turn after the light had already gone red. Horns blasted at her.