She imagined the horror of being trapped in a vehicle sitting in a public place like this with people all around and no one suspecting. Every moment that passed was a moment closer to the return of the monster who had taken you.

Lauren moved closer, her back to the van as she scanned the area for any sign of Ballencoa. She turned and looked in the passenger window. The cab was clean and empty, without so much as a piece of mail or a gum wrapper to be seen. A fabric curtain behind the bucket seats hid whatever—or whoever—might have been in the back.

Trying to look casual, she walked along the van, rapping her knuckles a couple of times on the side as she went, thinking if someone was trapped inside, they might try to make some kind of sound if they thought someone might hear and try to help. Or they might be too afraid, thinking it could be Ballencoa coming back.

No sound answered hers.

She went around to the back of the van and tried the handle on the back door. Locked.

It occurred to her that this might not be Ballencoa’s van at all. Yet the anxiety remained as she walked away from it and headed toward the tennis courts. She wanted Leah and Wendy off the courts and in the car as quickly as possible, before Ballencoa could spot them if he was here. He would recognize Leah. Even though she had grown up since he left Santa Barbara, she resembled Leslie more and more.

The idea of that bastard looking at her youngest brought Lauren’s anger and protective instincts boiling up. Her step quickened. She started scanning the busy tennis courts, looking for Leah and Wendy, spotting them on court four, working with Wendy’s instructor.

Leah saw her coming and lifted a hand. “Hi, Mom!”

Lauren raised a hand and forced a smile. She didn’t want to scare the girls, and at the same time she almost hoped to see Ballencoa so she could point him out, so they would recognize him and be aware of the danger.

And then she spotted him, standing off to the far side of court four with a serious professional’s camera slung around his neck and a baseball cap backward on his head.

She stopped dead, frozen for a moment. Leah’s smile vanished.

“Mom? What’s wrong?”

Ballencoa raised the camera deliberately. She could hear the motor drive whir and the shutter click-click-click-click as he photographed her and the girls standing there.

“Stay there,” Lauren snapped. Leah turned her head to see what her mother was fixed on, and gasped aloud.

Lauren’s feet were moving before she could even think what she would do next. Faster and faster, until she was running. Her purse slipped from her shoulder and dropped to the ground. She kept running straight for Roland Ballencoa.

“You son of a bitch!” she shouted.