I don’t want to answer, but her mind has not yet allowed her to face the final extremity. “It’s for you now,” I tell her. “Not them. Do you understand?”

In some terrible fraction of time, confusion becomes comprehension, and her head begins shaking as though from a nerve tremor.

“No,” she whispers, but it’s only a token denial. At last she has glimpsed what the end might be, what she might have to do to find a humane death.

Before I can speak again, our guards jerk open the doors and heave the dead cop out of the van. Then they slash the tape binding our ankles, drag us out by the feet—past the prone policeman—and stand us up beside a brick wall.

We seem to be in a closed residential garage. A blue Range Rover is parked beside the van. Prodding us with pistols, they force us through a door and into a spacious pantry, which leads to a kitchen gleaming with stainless steel and granite. Caitlin and I share quick glances, but I can tell she’s never been to this house, either. Just past the kitchen is a door that opens onto a staircase.

“What’s down there?” I ask, stopping at the head of the stairs with a pistol jammed into my back.

“A basement,” says the older guard behind me. “What’s it to you?”

As an assistant DA in Houston, I visited dozens of murder scenes and saw hundreds more on police videotape. The majority involved journeys like this one: a walk into a basement, an industrial freezer, or a rented storeroom where screams could not be heard, smells would not be noticed, and cleanup could be carried out in peace. This terrible knowledge compels me to repeatedly warn both Caitlin and my daughter: If a man ever tries to get you into a vehicle, run, even if he has a gun. The odds are, he won’t hit you. Even if he does, he probably won’t hit a vital organ. But if he ever gets control of you … if he ever takes you to some isolated place … you’re dead. Or worse—

“Don’t even think about it,” says the man behind me, sensing rebellion. “I’ll shoot you in the spine. Start walking. You first, then her.”

We descend the stairs single file, me leading the way. The steps end at yet another door.

“Open it,” says the man behind me.

Few homes in this part of the country have basements. I have no idea what I might find beyond this door. When I open it, I see an oak-floored room furnished like a British gentlemen’s club. Glass-fronted display cases line three walls, within which hang an astonishing assortment of military weapons. At the center of the room, Brody Royal and Randall Regan sit on a leather sofa, watching us expectantly.

“Well, well,” Brody says with a sly smile. “We have company.”

CHAPTER 91