I suppress a shudder. “If I die tonight, the cops are going to be all over this. They’ll figure it out. They’ll know Jonas Hershberger isn’t the killer.”

“Keep talking, Kate. I like the sound of your voice.”

My breaths rush between my teeth. Too fast. Too shallow. I’m scared. So damn scared.

Kneeling, he moves toward me. I recoil, but he snags my hair in his fist and yanks me toward him. “I’m going to take off your pants. You’re going to lay there like a good little bitch and let me. Or I’ll hit you with the stun gun. You got that?”

He pushes me onto my back. My elbows and hands grind into the floor beneath me, but I don’t fight him. Not yet. Let him get distracted. Let him think I’m going to be easy.

I cringe when he moves my coat aside and unfastens my jeans. His hands are rough. For the first time they tremble. His breathing is elevated. Despite the cold, I see a sheen of sweat on his forehead.

“I’m going to hurt you. It’s going to be bad, Kate. Worse than anything you could ever imagine. You’re going to scream.”

He yanks my jeans down my hips, past my knees, then rips them from my ankles. The air is brutally cold against my bare legs. I sit up, trying to cover myself. The blow catches me off guard. Open-handed across my cheek. Hard enough to make me see stars. I fall back, then turn onto my side to keep the weight off my arms.

Snarling something I don’t understand, he yanks me up by my hair. Pain screeches across my scalp. The second blow is like a stick of dynamite going off in my head. I fall back, and lay still, my cheekbone aching.

Above me, Detrick unfastens his pants and jams them down to his knees. He’s looking down at me, his mouth pulled into a perpetual snarl. “You’re going to be the best one yet,” he whispers.

His erect penis bobs in front of him, purple-red and bulbous. Reaching into the breast pocket of his shirt, he removes a condom, rips it open. His hands shake as he covers himself. The sight of his clean-shaven groin shocks me, though it shouldn’t. I was right; that’s why the lab techs never found hairs. I see the lubricant glistening on the condom, and I think of the other women who suffered the same fate I face now.

Terror sits like a cold stone in my chest. Nausea seesaws in my gut. The rape will be bad, but I know it’s not the worst thing that will happen to me tonight. I try to think like a cop. I need to go on the offensive. Find his vulnerable point. But at this moment, I feel as if I’m fourteen years old again and paralyzed with terror.

Stuffing the condom wrapper into his shirt pocket, he kneels in front of me. He’s going to hit me again; I see it in his eyes. Wild thoughts rampage my brain. A thousand screams of outrage clog my throat. His pants sag at his ankles. A vulnerability. My legs are free. My quads are the strongest muscles I have. I have an instant to react.