Kevin focused on the barnyard. A thick pole about six feet high had been erected in the far end of the clearing. Were those ropes encircling it? Goose flesh rippled up Kevin’s arms.

He glanced at Hunter. His son was sitting next to him, cross-legged, watching the blond man with the sunken, glazed-over eyes of a wild animal in a cage. Kevin reached for his son’s shoulders, drawing him closer to lean against Kevin’s chest. He wrapped his arms around him. A shudder passed through Hunter’s frail frame. Malnourished, sedated, overwhelmed by shock and fear, the boy was shutting down.

There wasn’t a damned thing Kevin could do about it. Impotence and rage flooded him, almost but not quite obliterating the terror hammered into his bones. He was also helpless to save his son from whatever their crazed captor was planning.

Fuzziness invaded him again. He closed his eyes. Visions stampeded into his head. No! He wrenched his eyelids up. The nightmares that came during his drugged sleep were of the Saw and Silence of the Lambs variety.

He reached for the wooden post behind him and fingered the notches he’d gouged in the wood with a fingernail, one for each night he was aware they’d passed in the barn. Four. They’d been imprisoned for at least four days and nights. Movement above him reminded him they were no longer alone. A slim hand reached down through the bars next to his shoulder. Kevin grabbed it and squeezed in silent support.

The blond man walked into the barn. He glanced at Kevin with eyes that were glassy, nearly opaque, blinking away without change in expression, as if he didn’t recognize him as human. Nobody was home. Kevin’s empty stomach heaved. His captor was beyond crazy.

He approached an old black steamer trunk. He lifted the lid and removed a shiny metal object, oval in shape and discolored with age. A shield? What on earth…? Their captor carried it outside, where it gleamed dull bronze. He set it in the center of the barnyard, then returned and repeated the process with several wooden boxes. He opened one. It was full of small pieces of metal, coins perhaps, like a pirate’s treasure chest.

What did he do, rob a museum?

The truth dawned brighter than the sun outside.

My God. He was building a shrine.

A sliver of bright yellow nestled amid the brown and green weeds a few yards ahead. Mandy turned toward it, but her strides slowed. A hand stuck out from under a pile of leaves and debris.

“Oh, no.” She couldn’t stop her body from moving closer, from squatting down, from lifting the branch and revealing Ashley’s dead face. A fly landed on a milky white eye. Mandy flew backward, crashing into a tree trunk. Pain shot through her back. Oddly, its sharp bite steadied her.

Danny reached her first. He leaned over the body.