Could anybody? Leslie had trusted the man who'd pulled her into this charade. Was the kidnapper the same man Leslie had said was her fiancé? That was the theory they'd been working under—assuming the fiancé was real. If he was, Nate had a strong suspicion he was the kidnapper. Otherwise, why hide his identity? Not a single photograph of him had been displayed at Leslie's house. Leslie must've believed he'd loved her, believed it enough to be convinced to betray her own sister. In those moments before the life seeped from her body, what had she felt? Fear? Shock? Regret?

Resignation?

Nate understood all of those. The memories came before he could stop them. His torturer's sudden, powerful blows. The realization that Nate's life was no longer in his control. That he would die in that crappy hotel room, in a pool of his own bodily fluids. He'd imagined the police finding him tied to the chair, imagined his father's face when he identified Nate's body. The hopelessness poured over him like thick tar.

Nate forced himself to look beyond the truck's dashboard to the street. A young woman with a child holding each hand skipped down the steps from a brownstone a few doors away. Probably a nanny. Folks in this neighborhood could certainly afford them. The little girl on her right was pointing at something, and Nate turned to see an old man walking a dog. The man stopped, and both the children fawned over the creature. One of those yappy little lapdogs with a bow on its head. A shih tzu, he thought.

Cars lined the street on both sides. Lots of luxury vehicles. A taxi idled in front of a house down the block.

Nate took a deep breath and blew out the memories of his own personal trauma, picturing the hopelessness dripping off of him and settling in a pool on the bottom of Brady's truck. A stupid visualization exercise his counselor had suggested. He'd never been willing to admit it worked. He rolled down his window, heard the birds singing and Marisa's rapid Spanish. He breathed in the air, safe for now. And Marisa was safe. They just had to get Ana home. Then he could get back to his real life and finish his move to New Hampshire.

And do what? Live alone, hide from the world? That had seemed a really good plan at one point, but now... He glanced at Marisa beside him. The thought of leaving her behind, of never seeing her again, was a whole different kind of torture.

But what if they weren't able to rescue Ana? Garrison had been right earlier. The FBI would have more resources and better instincts than he did. What did Nate know about chasing a killer? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Maybe he should insist they step back and let the FBI handle it.

He imagined how that conversation would go. Not well, he knew. But maybe the FBI could rescue Ana.