The man was going to kill her. Susan knew it. He was going to take her somewhere and kill her and they would never find the body.

“What’s your name?” she asked him.

His eyes were small and he blinked at her for a moment. “Roy,” he said.

She nodded. Now she was certain. She was going to die. He wouldn’t have told her his name if he’d planned on letting her live.

The boy returned, wearing an oversized black raincoat.

“Can I have a glass of water?” he asked the man.

It was the first sentence Susan had heard him speak.

“Hurry,” Roy said.

The boy went to the sink and got a glass from a dish drying rack on the counter, filled it with tap water, and drank a few sips. Then he poured the rest down the drain and set the glass on the counter in front of him.

“Come on,” Roy said. He opened the back door, cursed at the rain, and put up his hood. Then he put his hand on the back of Susan’s neck and led her outside, behind the house, into the night. There was an unattached garage back there, and a car parked in the driveway in front of it. A sedan. Dark-colored. Nondescript. Even looking right at it, Susan couldn’t have described it.

The rain hissed all around them.

“Where are we going?” Susan asked. Raindrops pelted her bare head and stung her hands.

“To get supplies.”

Roy opened the back door and shoved her, shivering, in the backseat. The boy got in after her, and she slid over to the other side to make room, leaving a damp stain in her wake. She noticed he didn’t have the Star Wars figure anymore.

Roy got in the front seat and fingered a switch, and the chrome lock on Susan’s door snapped down with a deadening finality.

As they pulled out onto Division, Susan saw the blue and red glow of police lights straight ahead at a distant intersection.

They had found her car.

Chapter 50

CHAPTER

50

Archie hunched against the weather. The patrol cop who’d found Susan’s car was closing off the intersection, setting up reflective sawhorses so other drivers wouldn’t make the same mistake that Susan had. The pool of standing water was a vast glassy black and deeper than it looked. The raindrops exploded as they hit it, making the water look almost like it was simmering.

Archie had checked the abandoned vehicle report after he’d gotten Susan’s messages. Her Saab, which had drifted into the middle of Twelfth Avenue, had just been called in.

So much for the nap that he’d been planning.