She wiggled out from under him and patted him down. His pockets were full of interesting items. She opened his wallet. His Nevada driver’s license said his name was Mick Arnette. She stuffed his wallet, knife, car key, and cell phone into her pockets. She pulled a few plastic strips from the front pocket of his jeans. “Zip ties. How handy.”

She used them to secure his wrists behind his back and bind his ankles together. Then she ran for the garage, visible through the trees. He’d be awake in a few minutes, and it was time to turn the tables on this scumbag. He was going to tell her what he did with Jewel. Was the girl still alive?

As she’d learned from her meeting with the prosecutor, criminals knew the law well enough to use it to their advantage. Once she called the police, Mick would clam up and demand a lawyer.

She opened her brother’s garage and scanned the walls of construction tools. She spied a coil of yellow nylon rope. Looping it over her shoulder, she spotted a come-along hand winch on a shelf. She read the label. The cable puller had a four-ton lifting capacity. That ought to do it. A short length of chain was coiled next to the hand winch. Perfect. Taking both, she jogged back to Mick.

Wrapping the chain around a nearby tree, she snapped the hook on one end of the come-along to two thick links. The nylon rope went around Mick’s ankles. Hannah looked up and located a sturdy tree limb about twelve feet overhead. A few tosses put the other end of the rope over the branch. She took up the slack in the rope, made a loop, and tied it off. Then she hooked the other end of the hand winch to the loop in the rope. She cranked the handle back and forth, ratcheting Mick’s feet off the ground. She worked the hoist until he was hanging upside down with his head about five feet off the ground. The blood rushing to his head would wake him up.

Her father’s survival drills had been crazy, but at that moment she was thankful for every brutal second.

He shook his head, his eyelids fluttering.

She smacked his cheek. “Wake up, Mick.”

He stirred and blinked at her. His eyes moved in wild arcs, and his body twisted like a worm on a hook. Hatred shone from his eyes, but there was also apprehension. Good.

“You and I need to have a conversation,” she said.

“You’re going to regret this.” He struggled, his body swaying. “Go fuck yourself.”