“Are you hurt?” she shouted.

One of the girls looked up, and even through the filth covering the glass, Susannah could see the devastation in her eyes. Slowly she shook her head. Then stopped, changing to an even slower nod as the tears began to stream down her cheeks.

The chain was padlocked, so Susannah ran around to the pickup’s cab and stopped, grimacing at what she saw. “Oh, hell,” she muttered. What was left of a man sat behind the wheel. Most of his head was sprayed over the cab. Grimacing, she pulled his keys from the ignition, then tried all the keys in the padlock until she felt it give.

Feeling triumphant, she yanked the chain from the back of the trailer, hearing it clank-clank-clank as each link hit the bumper, then the pavement. She threw open the doors and exhaled as ten pairs of terrified eyes sought hers. “Hi,” she said, breathless. “I’m Susannah. You’re all safe now.”

Interstate 75, Sunday, February 4, 6:20 a.m.

Luke walked up to the horse trailer in time to see Susannah shaming a man into shutting off his video camera. She stood in front of the unfortunate documentarian, fists on her hips, a petite prizefighter primed for a bout with the champ. Had he not just had his heart knocked down to his knees, he might have smiled.

In the thirty minutes he’d been gone, someone had freed the girls in the trailer. Now officers were gently moving them to waiting ambulances, two at a time.

It was triumph. And it was tragedy. In the thirty minutes he’d been gone Bobby had taken yet another life. And she’d gotten away. Too late. Too late.

“How could you?” Susannah was saying to the filmmaker as Luke got out of his car. “You’ve got kids in your car-daughters,” she went on. “How would you feel if some opportunist wanting to make a buck splashed your daughters’ pictures all over CNN? Give me that tape. Now,” she snarled when he would have argued.

The man popped the tape from the camera, then slunk away, sputtering apologies.

“Dumb ass,” she muttered under her breath.

Unsettled and needing her, Luke put his hands on her shoulders and she jumped. “Sshh,” he murmured, soothing himself as much as he soothed her. “It’s just me.”

Her frown disappeared when she saw him, a soft smile blooming. “You weren’t too late this time.” But she sobered when she realized he had not smiled back. “What happened, Luke? What took you so long? Where’s Bobby?”

“Bobby got in a car up at the end of the row. The engine was running with the passenger asleep. The driver hadn’t locked the door.”

“I knew she’d stolen the car, but she has another hostage?”

“No. She pushed the passenger out going about sixty. She knew I’d stop. Of course I did, but the passenger was dead. She’d shot him first.”

Her fingers closed over his arm, lightly. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” He looked to the end of the rest area to where a man sat in the back of a police car. “Now I get to tell that man his son isn’t coming home.”

“Let someone else do it. Chase will be here soon.”

“No. I’ll do what needs to be done.”

“Then I’ll go with you.”

He almost said no. But after everything, he needed someone to lean on. “Thanks.”

The man got out of the police car as he approached, the color draining from his face when he saw Luke’s expression. “No.” He shook his head. “No.”

“I’m sorry. Your son was shot by the woman who stole your car. He didn’t survive.”

The man took a step back, denial warring with horror. “But we’re going to Six Flags. It’s his birthday. He’s fourteen. He’s only fourteen.”

“I’m so sorry,” Luke said, his heart so heavy he wasn’t sure he could bear it. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

“My wife. I need to call my wife.” Stunned, numb, he stared ahead, his cell phone in his hand. “She’s home with the baby. This is going to kill her.”

The state trooper who’d been waiting with him gently took the phone from his hand. “I’ll take care of this, Agent Papadopoulos. You get back to your other victims.” The father’s shoulders were now heaving, the sound of his sobs like a knife in Luke’s gut.

Now Luke had one more face to add to all the others who haunted his mind.

Behind him, Susannah’s small hand came to rest on his back, tentatively at first, then with greater pressure. “You saved ten girls, Luke,” she whispered. “Ten.”

“All that father cares about is the child we didn’t save in time.”

“Don’t do this,” she said, urgency giving her voice strength. “Don’t you dare do this to yourself.” She grabbed his arm and swung him around. “In that trailer were ten girls who would have been forced into prostitution and death. Now they’re going home. You stop thinking about the one you didn’t save and you start counting the ten that you did.”

He nodded. She was right. “You’re right.”

“Damn straight I am.” Her eyes narrowed, full of purpose. “Now walk back to your car. You’re going to drive back to Atlanta, sit down with your team, and figure out how to catch Barbara Jean Davis. Then you can throw her into hell and throw away the key.”

He started walking, her arm around his waist. “I’m so tired.”

“I know,” she said, her voice gentle again. “Let me drive back. You can sleep.”

He leaned over until his cheek rested on her head as they walked. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I think I owed you before. Now we’re even.”

“We’re keeping score?” he asked soberly.

“Not anymore. I think you need somebody as much as I do.”

“You’re just now figuring that out?” he murmured.

Her arm tightened around him. “Don’t be smug, Agent Papadopoulos.”

Interstate 75, Sunday, February 4, 6:45 a.m.

Bobby finally drew a steady breath. The car from the rest stop was ditched. This car was a new one, stolen from a parking lot off the highway. What next? What next?

Tanner’s dead. It had been so much harder that she’d thought, pulling the trigger. I’m alone. I’m truly alone. There was Charles, but Charles had never been… family.

Tanner was my family. And now he was dead. But he never would have been able to run fast enough. She’d known it when she’d told him to trust her. Tanner had a fear of jail and he was too old to survive prison. He would’ve wanted it this way.

So now what? Susannah Vartanian. She was the only end left unsnipped. She’d been with Papadopoulos. She’d ruined everything. My business. My life. Now Charles would finally get what he wanted. For some reason he’d always hated Susannah, more than even Bobby had.

I could have killed her long ago. But putting it off had annoyed Charles-the only way Bobby had been able to control him when it was always the other way around.

Fine, Charles. You’re about to get what you want. I’ll kill her for you. Then I’m gone.

Atlanta, Sunday, February 4, 8:40 a.m.

They’d all regrouped around the conference room table, a strained mix of euphoria, exhaustion, and despair hanging over the team. Ed and Chloe, Pete and Nancy, Hank, Talia, and Mary McCrady. At Luke’s request, Susannah sat with them. Her quick thinking had led them to the girls tonight. She deserved to be in on the accolades.

“So we’re still not done,” Pete said when Chase finished. “Bobby’s still at large.”

“We got the girls, alive,” Chase said. “Not only the ones from the bunker, but Genie Cassidy and six others who had been lured from their homes. And that is huge.”

“We also recovered boxes of records from Bobby’s trailer,” Luke said, “showing proof of financial transactions between Bobby and her customers. Names and locations. We can prosecute dozens of perverts who bought children for sexual slavery.”

Chase’s smile had edge. “We provided the FBI with the locations of her truck stop whorehouses, which span from North Carolina into Florida. GBI agents right now are raiding ten different homes to rescue the girls Bobby’s most recently sold, including the girl sold to Darryl Haynes on Friday night.”