She’d be safe. She had to be.

Ilse nodded to herself, checking the phone again.

Eleven twenty precisely.

Then she’d go pick up a pizza. Nothing more. Not a single thing.

***

She gripped the steering wheel to the Boat as she headed toward town, her eyes on the road, her breathing steady. Her knuckles were white against the leather, and she could feel the faint puff of her breath against her upper lip.

No one on the road behind her. No one in front.

She knew the drive by heart. She pulled to a red light in the dark of night. No other cars at the intersection. None on the road at all that she could see.

Samantha was back at the house, locked in. Safe, protected. Ilse had even passed the police officer who’d been sent to babysit the old, lonely road outside the lake.

She glanced to the right. There, down the street, she spotted the glowing, fluorescent sign for the late night pizza parlor. Her mouth watered briefly as she stared at the place.

The light turned green.

She didn’t move. For a moment, she sat idling in her car, beneath the bright green light, staring across the street. The pizza parlor was to the right…

Her eyes, though, trailed in the other direction.

Her fingers closed around the steering wheel, knuckles white and bunched much like a fist. Her breathing came more pronounced … more labored.

Only five minutes to get the food. Five minutes to get back…

Samantha was safe and sound. Watched by a cop…

What was another five minutes anyway? Just a bit longer out in the night… A bit longer…

Ilse could still hear Samantha’s trembling voice. The fear in her words. Her desperate regret at not having done anything. She hadn’t run. She hadn’t fought.

She’d simply been hunted down by her past and victimized a second time.

Ilse felt a jolt of fury at this very thought.

She refused to let it happen to her. Not again. The postcards… someone was sending the postcards. Someone was drawing nearer. Someone knew who she was… Knew her past.

She refused to be caught frozen. Not again. Not like at the top of those stairs back in the shack, frozen in place. Helpless, useless, desperate like some frightened little child. A victim.

Ilse could feel her breath quickening.

She knew what Donovan Mitchell would say. She knew what she would advise a client. She knew what she was about to do was very, very stupid.

But could she live with herself if she didn’t? She refused to live as a coward. She couldn’t do it. It would eat her to pieces if she did. Samantha’s killer was out there, hiding again. Hunting, stalking. Samantha was behind closed doors, safe.

But Ilse’s own history… the monster from her past…

He was out there somewhere too. Someone was, at the very least. Someone who knew.

And maybe… instead of waiting for him to come to her… Ilse swallowed, wetting her lips, feeling her throat dry all of a sudden.