The evening sky shone with unearthly clarity: Venus a hard diamond in the west, the mountains a black silhouette in the east. As he ran the four blocks to the motel, it was as if a world of questions spun in a universe without answers. Mere intuition did not drive him. His panic was the product of deep gestalt. Somehow, he knew the missing element in Kelly’s explanation of how she had found him had magically reappeared. He had no idea how it connected to his sudden fear, he only knew the association existed. Kelly had spoken of a bad man who had done bad things. She had said she had stopped him. But she had not sounded sure of herself.

Plus there was truth beyond subconscious links.

While they had unpacked, someone had parked in the motel lot.

In a white car. Funny how he had only just remembered.

With the walk up the road, and the frantic run back, he had been gone a total of ten minutes. In that time a monster had sprung. When he burst into the room, he found Amy tied to the bed. Roped to the four corners and spread like an animal that had been chosen for gutting. A circle of duct tape gagged her mouth. Her shirt and bra had been removed. The only light in the room was a weary glow from the bathroom. The sight of Amy’s bulging eyes and ashen face skewered his already tumbling brain. He registered the fact that Jimmy was still asleep on the other bed, and that there was a fourth person in the room. But he did not instantly react to the threat of the intruder. He could not move because he did not understand. A hooded figure held a vial above his girlfriend’s naked chest, a priest completing a sacrament. The vial was polished silver. It caught the feeble light from the bathroom and transformed it into a hypnotic spark usually glimpsed in celebratory moments. Even the cloth over the guy’s head did not immediately register as a disguise. The hood was white, very clean. Didn’t good guys wear white, Matt asked himself? He simply could not believe what was happening.

His paralysis lasted perhaps two seconds.

He rushed toward the hooded figure as the guy turned to toss the contents of the vial his way. An image of Kelly’s scarred abdomen flashed in his mind. The liquid in the container could not be healthy. Instinct told him to raise his hands to take the brunt of the concoction but he overrode it. Instead, he dropped to the floor—his momentum caused him to roll forward. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a steaming mist pass overhead. Even before the stuff hit the mirror attached to the chest of drawers, he knew it to be highly corrosive acid.

And the guy had been about to pour it on Amy’s chest.