The hammer striking another nail brought her mind back to the moment.

She scrambled to her feet and dived again into the darkness, getting to a crumbling concrete wall, feeling for another door, a light switch, anything—finding nothing, and then turning back and zigzagging in a new direction.

Her foot kicked something. It clattered on its side and rolled away on the floor and she fell to her knees and clamored after the sound. Her fingers connected with an object and she pulled it onto her lap. Plastic. The right size. She traced the hourglass shape with her hands, and moved a fingertip along the handle on top. Shaking with excitement, she moved her attention to the lantern’s base, fumbling around until her fingers located the nickel-sized button. Then she pressed it.

She squinted as the white LED bulb flickered to life. Her eyes watered. She cradled the lantern protectively in her arms, like it was a child. She knew this lantern. The sense of familiarity gave her comfort. It was a Coleman camp lantern, and it was green. Not just any green. It was the color green of sleeping bags and the Green Bay Packers and the Coleman cooler her dad had had when she was a kid. Bliss had bought a Coleman camp lantern at a yard sale to match it. They had given that lantern to her father for his birthday.

The hammering had stopped.

Susan didn’t move.

If she listened hard, she could hear the faint sound of some sort of fan and the distant thrum of water moving through pipes, though that might have just been the blood rushing through her head.

She was underground. She knew that much. She was someplace where no one would ever find her.

There was a mattress. Maybe there was water, too. Maybe Gretchen had left her a hot plate and a selection of Hungry Man soups. Susan lifted the Coleman by the handle to look around, but before she could even stand up, something made her stop. She pulled the lantern closer, to examine it. It could have been anything. It was dirty in there. She was dirty. The lantern was bound to be dirty, too.

The LED bulb illuminated every detail of the handprint on the lantern’s clear plastic globe. The specks of dirt, the whorls of fingertips, laugh line, life line, and the blood that stained the palm and several fingers.

Susan gagged and coughed and lowered the lantern to the floor, and snapped her hand away. Then she extended both her hands, palms down, in front of her, and very slowly, held her shaking hand a few inches in front of the clearest print. They were the same size.

She turned her hands over and held them in the light, knowing, already, what she would find. They were caked with blood and dirt.