As often happened in stressful situations, Gabe's temples were beginning to throb—one howitzer shell burst for each heartbeat. What possible sanguine explanation could there be for Alison leaving the note she did, then not being available on her home phone or cell? It had to be something simple like a low battery or other malfunction of her damn phone. Back in Wyoming, he carried a cell phone because every doc on the hospital staff was expected to. But he didn't trust them—not in Tyler and not here. That had to be it, he tried to convince himself—her cell phone.

His jaws clenched against the frustration and concern.

Without any rummaging in his desk drawer that he was aware of, suddenly the vial of various pills was in his hand. It was like a number of patients with weight problems had told him over the years—the sad, recurrent tale of finding themselves standing in front of the open refrigerator and having absolutely no recollection of how they got there.

What in the hell was he, a supposedly sober alcoholic, doing with pills in his hand every time the going got difficult for him? He needed to face the fact that just as some people were functional active alcoholics, managing to hold down a job and maybe keep a marriage going despite their drinking, he was functioning despite the smoldering depression that had stunted his spirit for decades, since the nightmare of Fairhaven and the inestimable horror of having taken the lives of a woman and her unborn child.

One Valium. Five milligrams would take the edge off. It wasn't really that much. The manufacturer made a damn ten milligram.

He dialed both of Alison's numbers for a third time, leaving a concerned message with each. It was right there beside where he was sitting that she had tied his tie—right there where she had stood on her tiptoes, kissed him softly, and pleaded to let there be time for them. Now she was missing and he was preparing to respond to the crisis by taking yet another pill.

She deserved better. She deserved better, and so did he.

He took his secret stash into the bathroom, poured the pills into the toilet, and flushed them away.

Darkness . . . duct tape . . . and rats . . .

For some time after she regained consciousness, all Alison was aware of was the duct tape pulled tightly across her mouth and binding her wrists, elbows, ankles, and legs to some sort of heavy chair. Then, as the fog lifted from her senses, she became aware of the feet, scurrying from one side of the space she was in to another, and at least twice, she felt certain, brushing against her.