He had her secure one of Dude’s wrists, sent her back to the wall, ordered Dude bedside and then to the floor, and secured the other end of the cuff to the bed’s metal inner frame. One threat now less of a threat, he snatched a bathrobe from the closet, tossed it at Wilson, told her to put it on, and had her lead the way downstairs. Concerns he’d had about cameras were gone now, at least insofar as the bedroom, stairway, and kitchen were concerned.

Even a woman with balls the size of Wilson’s wouldn’t be brazen enough to bring a man under this roof while recording the evidence.

Either she’d shut the cameras off or they didn’t exist.

He directed her to the kitchen, grabbed her purse from off the island, used her phone to dial Jill’s pager, hurried a barefoot Wilson to the mudroom, had her reset the house alarm, and then pushed her onward, into the garage, and onto the backseat of the Range Rover. He kept her there, muzzle directed at her head.

Jaw clenched, nose flaring, she glared.

She’d tried to speak, first in the bedroom, with threats; and then on the stairs, with calculated calls for civility; and then the kitchen, with faux curiosity about what Jack wanted; and finally with pleas for help in the mudroom.

Each time he’d shut her down.

She’d gotten the point.

She was quiet now—murderously angry, but quiet—and he stood beyond arm’s reach outside the vehicle door, glaring right back and more angry than she could ever be, considering she was the one who ran the war room trying to hunt him dead.

The pager vibrated.

He used the vehicle remote to open the garage.

Jill strode in wearing a pantsuit, carrying an oversize purse, red hair up in a bun, facial features altered enough that she could easily pass for Wilson.

Like Jack, she wore high-dexterity gloves, and the wig did for her what the beanie did for him. She handed Jack a bundle of industrial zip ties and an earflap beanie. He handed her Wilson’s wallet and the vehicle key fob, then used the zip ties to secure Wilson’s hands and feet, shoved the hat atop her head, and stuffed loose strands of hair up beneath it. The house had no signs of forced entry. It’d be a cuffed naked man’s word against Wilson’s prints on the cuffs, and Wilson’s face behind the windshield for any cameras that caught the trip out of town. That was about all it took to disappear a person, at least for the short term.

Jill took them north along the interstate, out of Maryland and into Pennsylvania, then off the highway for the backcountry, and she stopped at the edge of a field.

Jack ordered Wilson out and onto the dirt.