She took three steps in his direction, and Reece flinched away, so quick and clumsy he struck a wall stud, and made enough noise to freeze the girl where she stood. That was the tableau. Two seconds. Then she came straight for the place he hid. Reece wanted to run. He couldn’t stop watching. She smoothed a palm along the wall, then pressed her ear against it. He could see a bit of hair, the curve of her forehead. A foot to the left and she might find the hole he’d drilled into the base of a wall sconce.

So close!

If he held still …

If he was patient …

“Hey!”

Her palm struck the wall, and a sound escaped Reece’s mouth, something like, Yeep. She fell backward, said in the walls, then picked up a chair, and flung it. It hit like a bomb; crashed to the floor. Reece wanted to calm her down, wanted her to breathe, so they might one day dance.

It’s not too late.

It doesn’t have to be.

He watched in horror as she picked up the chair, and beat it to pieces on the wall that stood between them.

In the basement cage, Gibby tilted his head.

“Chance, do you hear that?”

A distant pounding. Hollow. Rhythmic.

“I hear it.”

Chance tried to sit up straight. He was stiff and hurting, though the bleeding had stopped.

“That way, I think.”

Gibby gestured toward the corner of the room, and both boys stared through the mesh, up at the floor joists. Not directly above them, but, Yeah, that way, and like the screaming, inside the house.

Gibby said, “Whatever that is, I don’t like it.”

Chance agreed. “Come on, man. Get us out of here.”

“Damn right.”

Gibby went back to work. It wasn’t easy. The clamp was small, and tended to slip. Half the bolts were rusted in place. He had five out, and needed to strip out three more along the bottom. He figured four more up the side and he could beat the corner into an opening.

“Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s make this happen.”

Gibby needed no convincing. He broke a bolt loose; twisted it out, and went back for the next. “Six more.”

That’s when the pounding stopped, and the screaming started.

For French, the night was a tribulation of body and soul. He was exhausted, desperate, and half-blind from the glare of a million headlights. He’d crossed the city a dozen times, lied to his wife on six occasions, and humiliated himself in front of Captain Martin’s entire family: midnight on the porch, and begging for information. But he was prepared to lie, steal, or cheat, to beat an informant half to death if he thought the guy was holding back.

Would he kill someone?