As the machines began to fill, she grabbed the bolt cutters and studied the bins. They were each clearly marked and locked, one for each unit and two extras. One of the extra bins held gardening supplies and tools, obviously used for the apartment house, the other was filled with boxes. Kristi shined her flashlight through the mesh and saw Tara Atwater’s name scrawled across them, along with a date of November 13, over a month after the girl had been deemed missing.

“Good enough,” she said, and went to work.

Unfortunately Randy of the I-Man, You-Woman caveman mentality had been right. Using the bolt cutters proved difficult. She could get the blades over the shackle, the metal piece that attached the lock to the door, but then she didn’t have the strength to make the damned cutters snip through.

Which ticked her off.

“Come on,” she said, and tried again, pushing the handles together so hard that her arms ached, pain screaming down them, the muscles trembling with the pressure. “Wuss,” she muttered under her breath as the washers continued to fill, water rushing into the tubs.

Again she put all her strength behind it.

Again she failed, only managing to score the shackle with the cutters. “They must be dull,” she told herself, and twisted the cutters around, so that they were pressed against the side of the steel door. Setting her feet on the concrete floor she shoved against one handle with all of her weight, wedging the other into the door. Straining…straining…sweating…eyes squeezed…jaw set…

Click!

Oh, God, was that someone at the door?

Damn!

What idiot would be doing their laundry this late at night?

Just you.

Her heart, already pounding, soared into overdrive. Adrenaline shot through her bloodstream. With a grunt she shoved harder just as she heard the key turn and the upstairs door creak open over the changing of gears in the washers, then footsteps. Heavy tread descending.

No!

With all her strength she gave one final shove.

Snap!

The shackle broke.

Kristi didn’t check to see if it was cut through. She shoved the bolt cutters into her laundry bag and, sweating, though the temperature in the basement couldn’t have been over sixty, she bent over the dryer and opened the door as if checking on her wash.

Except someone else’s wash was already there. Still very wet.

Criminy! She hadn’t thought to check to see if there were clothes in the dryer. “Hell,” she muttered, straightening just as a huge shape hovered at the bottom of the stairs. Her insides turned to water. Dear God, could this be the abductor? Is this how the psycho found his victims, alone in a dark basement? Had Tara been down here when…

She was about to reach for the bolt cutters to use as a weapon when Hiram stepped beneath the weak light of one of the overhanging bulbs.