By degrees, I register that I’m in my own bed. The windows are dark, my bedside clock glows four-fifteen. I start to relax, then realize I can’t feel my arms and legs.

In a fresh rush of panic, I try to sit up.

And immediately understand the problem. My arms are tied behind my back. My legs are tied at the ankles. I am trussed up, like a Thanksgiving turkey. But I’m in my own home, in my own bed….

It comes back to me. Waking up in the hospital. My determined desire to see Evan on the eighth-floor pediatric unit.

I’d made it to the elevator banks. I can remember my hand reaching for the button. I can remember thinking that I was going to make it.

Then Andrew appeared. His presence confused me. We didn’t have that kind of relationship. He used my body for sex, and I let him.

And, Saturday’s interlude aside, he hadn’t wanted to see me at all. He needed to prepare something, he’d told me. A Monday surprise.

It comes to me. Today is Monday.

And when I’d met Andrew at the elevator banks, he’d hit me with some kind of electrical charge. A bone-deep, searing pain. And then…

My lover deliberately incapacitated me, and now here I am, alone in the dark.

I hear a groan, coming from downstairs.

No, not alone.

Michael is here, too.

What in the world?

Suddenly, I remember two recent cases in the news: families, both with troubled kids, murdered in their own homes.

We’re missing Evan, I understand now. Andrew will bring Evan. Then the killing will begin.

Furiously, I work my hands against my plastic bindings. No time for the pain in my side. No time for the pain in my head. Have to get out. Have to get us all out. Michael, Evan. I have made such a terrible, terrible mistake.

But before I have a chance to get started, it all ends. I hear the door open downstairs. I hear footsteps in the foyer.

“Honey,” Andrew’s voice croons. “I’m home.”

Chapter Forty

CHAPTER
FORTY

DANIELLE

My fucking head. That was my first thought. Next came awareness of shooting pains down my arms, muscles cramping in my right shoulder. I needed to move, stretch out, sit up….

I was tied up.

The realization stunned me. I froze, trying to figure out what the hell had happened. I’d been carrying Evan, working my way down the stairwell. A door opened. Andrew stepped out.

The bastard had tasered me. The realization was so shocking, I tried to sit up again, and promptly whacked my head against a hard metal surface. Sagging, I honed in on the sound of tires on pavement, the scent of exhaust fumes, the stifling heat of a closed-in space, and the next piece of the puzzle struck me.