Rudy cocked his head at Liz.

She looked away and made her voice small, frightened. “You’re not going to slam my wrists up and down again, are you?”

“That’s an idea.” Setting the big knife on the floor beside the multigym, Rudy returned to the chest press. “You’re a mess. Even if we let you live, your boyfriend would never marry you now.” He gripped the handles and pushed his arms out and away from his body.

The weights lifted.

Her wrists jolted up.

Tears slid down her cheeks from the pain, but what Rudy didn’t know was that while he’d been torturing her, the mechanism had been pounding her zip-tie cuffs. Earlier, she’d centered the tie. Since then she’d pulled her wrists wide apart to make the plastic taut every time Rudy used the machine.

Her wrists oozed blood.

Again Rudy slammed the chest press.

Clenching her jaw, Liz pulled, stretching the cuff. She thought of the Rambo movie that Rudy had described, Rambo tied to upright bedsprings, electricity making him shudder and writhe with pain and rage, furiously twisting at the rope that held him.

With a snap, the zip-tie broke, freeing her hands.

She lunged for Rudy’s knife on the floor.

Her fingers were numb from lack of circulation. She needed both hands to grab the knife and keep from dropping it. Furious, she spun upward, slashing the blade across Rudy’s throat. A deep cartilage split.

Blood spurted over her.

She stepped back. Fuck you.

Rudy fell off the Nautilus machine. She quickly knelt, preparing to turn him and retrieve the .40 S&W from his shoulder holster.

Somewhere in the distance, a toilet flushed.

Liz’s numb right hand pulled Rudy onto his side. Her fingers seemed not to belong to her as she tugged at the pistol in his holster.

The pistol didn’t move.

“Rudy, is something wrong?” Max said.

She pulled harder with her senseless fingers, but the pistol was snagged on Rudy’s coat.

Heavy footsteps approached on the other side of the door.

No time.

Pressing the knife to her side to keep from dropping it, she rushed toward the iPhone on the desk and swept it into the pocket of her jogging jacket.

As if the dogs of hell were on her heels, she dashed up the stairs and through a huge room with an immense stone fireplace and antlered deer heads on the walls. Fumbling, she unbolted the front door and rushed outside. The van in which they’d brought her was still parked in front. But when she reached it, she saw that the keys weren’t in the ignition switch.

A thick mountain mist drifted around her.

Chilled, she raced into it.

• • •

“LET’S GO, ASSHOLE,” SIMON SAID. “Your sister’s waiting for you.”

Demidov clutched the gash in his cheek, as blood dripped past his fingers.

Simon tore a sheet of paper from a notepad, crumpled it, and shoved it into the pocket that held the nosy cell phone. Whenever he moved, the crumpled paper would scrape against the phone, sounding like bad reception, making it difficult for anyone to hear what he and Demidov said.