Lauren curled into herself to protect her ribs, and the mini-cassette recorder she had hidden in her bra pressed into her breast and rib cage. She moved onto her knees, tucked into a tight ball with her arms pulled in tight to her sides. Surreptitiously she pushed the Record button. For all the good it would do her.

Hewitt kicked her again. “Get up!”

“Bring her outside,” Ballencoa ordered.

Hewitt grabbed her roughly by the arm, yanked her to her feet, and pushed her toward the door.

Ballencoa had parked his van on the back side of the garage, out of sight from the road and about twenty feet from Lauren’s car. The back doors of the van stood open wide, waiting.

“The cops come by every half an hour,” Hewitt said. “We have to get out of here ASAP.”

A shiver went through his body. Lauren felt it as it came through his hand like an electrical shock. He seemed a little unsteady on his feet. The pressure he was exerting against her seemed more to utilize her as a cane than to intimidate her.

He marched her to her car and shoved her against it.

“Where are the journals?”

“They’re in the bag on the floor,” Lauren said.

“Then get the goddamn bag!” he snapped, steadying himself against the vehicle. His eyes were on the street.

Lauren opened the passenger-side door and retrieved the canvas tote, heavy with the journals and with the tools she had taken with her to Ballencoa’s house—a screwdriver, a box cutter, a hammer. If she could get her hands on any one of those things . . .

Ballencoa was nervous now. He kept his hold on Leah, but his attention was divided as he glanced toward the road again and again.

“We’ll put them in the van,” he said. “You can bring her car.”

“Where are you taking us?” Lauren asked.

“You’re going to have an accident,” Ballencoa said. He looked meaningfully from Lauren to Leah, his heavy dark eyes hungry. “After a while.”

A chill went through Lauren. She had wanted to know. Every day for the last four years she had wanted to know what he had done to Leslie. She was about to find out.

And so was Leah.

The horror of that realization was huge and terrible.

“I’m a little dizzy,” Hewitt remarked. A shudder went through him.

“You’re going into shock,” Lauren said quietly, relishing the idea. She spoke to him in the tone of a lover. “You’re probably dying.”

Hewitt glared at her. “Shut the fuck up!”

“You’re pale, Greg,” she whispered seductively, finding a perverse power in planting the seeds of fear in him. “Are you feeling weak?” she asked. “Cold?”

As if on cue, he shivered again.

“Put her in the van,” Ballencoa ordered. “Hurry up.”