Any normal person would give up chase at this point, but Zoe couldn’t be certain how the freak would act. So she let the current carry her on farther downstream all the while trying not to think of the alligators that lived in these murky waters. It would be awful to have escaped the naked pervert only to become gator bait.

Don’t go there.

Don’t freak out.

You’ve come this far, just keep going!

When she considered her ordeal, she felt safer facing gators than him. To think that she and Chloe has actually been kidnapped and stripped naked and held by a madman for some bizarre birthday ritual . . . it was crazy. But they’d thwarted him. Well, at least for now. Since she and Chloe could identify the psycho, he would probably keep hunting them down.

No, the ordeal was far from over.

She’d never make it; not without rest. A cold-blooded chill pervaded her body and every muscle ached. She fantasized about a warm bath, her own bed. As she rounded a bend in the river, she spied lights in the distance. Hope glimmered in those lights—a town on the shores of the river. There, she hoped, she would find a Good Samaritan to call the police. She would tell the authorities what had happened to her, reconnect with Chloe, and hopefully end this madness. She headed toward civilization. She hoped.

Oh, God, please, she silently prayed as she felt something slithery and wet slide through her legs.

For the love of Mary. She brushed at the object, kicked away from it, and tried to maintain a steady stroke in the water. Her ankle was throbbing, her muscles beginning to weaken, but she kept swimming, putting distance between herself and the freak’s lair as she eased closer to the town.

Just a few more strokes.

She stretched her arm forward and felt something slimy and wet just before the heavy object struck her head.

Bam!

Pain slammed through her brain.

She slid under the surface as a fat, rough log rolled over her, threatening to pin her down.

Frantically she thrashed in the darkness.

The air in her lungs came out in streams of bubbles as she shielded her head and pushed away from the log. She managed to free herself, but which way was up? She needed air. She gasped, taking in river water as she tried to surface.

Her lungs recoiled and she shot upward, barely missing the heavy log again.

Fight, Zoe, fight!

Sputtering and coughing, she tried to expel the water in her lungs as she gasped for air.

The world spun.

She didn’t know up from down, night sky from inky black water.