It was a hopeless situation, made even worse because her whole world had been turned upside down. Everything she believed in had been shaken to its foundation. She had spent her life making what she thought were the right moves. She had worked hard and she had learned the rules of the game, the law. Studying the law had not only given order to the world; it had been her means of escape, escape from the chaotic uncertainty of growing up poor and unaccounted for by the world at large. But now, for the first time in her life, she was afraid that the law was nothing more than a useless facade. And if that were true, then couldn't the same be said for her entire existence?

What was happening to her now, this, was real. All her knowledge of the law and its noble purposes could do nothing to protect her. Hadn't the same laws been useless in protecting Marcia Sales and Frank Castle? For a victim, the law was a remote and unimportant counter to what was real. Suddenly, and for the first time, the law seemed to her an insignificant shell, fragile and weak when compared to the visceral realities of life and death.

This was reality. Her rich, handsome husband (who, she became suddenly and painfully certain, was off cavorting with another woman), her bank account, her expensive car, her elegant home, her reputation, what good were they here and now? They were useless. If she could run fast and far she might live. If she tired and lost her way… she would die. Her limbs grew heavy with the weight of her life's foolish mission.

Yet, when the sound of a snapping branch reached her ears from about a hundred yards up the tree-covered slope, Casey felt a burst of adrenaline. Survival instincts she'd never known she possessed took over. She was being pursued and she knew how to run. Like a gazelle, she skipped across the rocks, up the other bank of the stream, and plunged blindly into the woods beyond.

Casey moved steadily through the wilderness until cool evening shadows began to chill the surface of her skin. Twice she thought she recognized landmarks she'd seen before, but she couldn't be sure. She was exhausted and hungry. Even the fuel from her fear was beginning to ebb. As night came, she began to look for a place to lie down. The best thing she could come up with was to burrow beneath the soft mat of brown needles that encircled a massive pine tree.

Instinctively, she wrapped one arm around the thick root of the enormous tree. Her mind slipped unthinkingly into the habit of imagining that she was holding on to the iron limb of a protective man. It was silly. She had done the same thing as a girl, stacking up extra pillows in her bed and clinging tightly to them in the night. But she had no man, not really. She was alone in life, just as she'd always been. The man who was her husband didn't afford her protection from anything. He never had. To the world, Taylor Jordan might look like the perfect life's companion. But she was now painfully aware that in reality, he was nothing more than a stack of pillows or the twisted root of an ancient tree.

Casey knew she was as exhausted as she was delirious. She was so tired that within minutes, despite the dull throbbing of her feet and head, she was fading off to sleep. But while sleep was a blissful reprieve for her tortured body and mind, it gave her no warning of the ghostly beam of light swinging to and fro like a pendulum as it crept slowly toward her through the trees.

It was the first real sleep Sales had had in three days. So when he awoke, he came from the depths with the gasp of a man desperately breaking the surface of the ocean. His head snapped this way and that for a sign of Casey. She was gone. He yanked on his boots and stood. Without moving, he studied the faint signs in the dust on the stone floor. When he came to the place halfway to the cave's entrance where her skin opened up, a small smile grew from his frown. His racing heart settled. After sliding the knife into the back of his belt, he picked up his rifle and walked carefully out of the cave. By the strength of the light, he knew it was close to noon.

Out in the sun, the thin swatch of blood grew so faint on the rock that he had to crouch low to distinguish it from the various striations in the granite. When it disappeared completely, it took several minutes of casting about before Sales could pick up the trail again. He knew she must have rolled downhill. Even when her general direction became apparent, it was slow work tracking her on the rough ground.

Once he found her first mark in the pine needles, it became easy again. He was several yards away from the rock outcrop when he spotted the shiny gray remains of her bonds.

"Shit!" he said aloud, casting his eyes three hundred and sixty degrees, hoping to catch a sign of her dashing through the trees. He bent down over the spot where she'd cut through the tape. The sharp-edged stone was liberally decorated with her blood. He touched his finger to one of the larger spots and brought it to his lips. It was still sticky.

He stood slowly and carefully examined the scene. The scuffs in the dirt at the base of the tree, a bloody swatch on another rock, and the pattern of blood on the sharp stone told him the story of how she'd been able to break free from the tape. Her resourcefulness and determination were impressive. His brow grew dark as he considered the possibility of her escape. He had expected her to be formidable, even before her bold move to set off the alarm with a knife to her neck. But to have the energy and the will to free herself in this way after a night of being bound up on a cold stone floor? He squatted back down and began to search for the new trail. Only years of practice made it possible for him to follow her.

When her feet started to open up, he knew even an amateur could track her down. Once he had that clear trail, he began to jog through the trees, knowing now the line of her escape was the same as any wounded doe's. She would move downhill in as straight a line as she could, fleeing from him as fast and as far as her injured feet would take her. When a stick snapped under his feet, he cursed, somehow sensing the magnitude of the mistake, and began to move carefully again at a much slower pace.

At the creek, the spot where she'd stood to dry was still evident, although the watermarks were rapidly evaporating in the warm sun. He knew from the sudden distance between her bloody footprints that this was the place where she had stood when he'd spooked her. Sales cursed again, but pressed on, glad at least that she was heading farther into the wilderness and not in the direction of the old mining road where he had stashed her car.

Around noon, he topped a rise in the woods and caught sight of her running well below him through a clearing in the trees. He swung the rifle expertly up to his shoulder, and held her in his sights.

"Bang," he said, with a gleeful smile. Then as she disappeared, he put it down and scrambled to the place he'd seen her last. By three o'clock, he knew he wasn't going to be able to run her down. The harder he pressed, the more distance she covered. At four-thirty, her trail crossed back on itself, and he knew she was completely lost. Sales marked the spot well, took his bearings, and started back for the cave. He was famished.

He stopped at the stream to drink his fill, then climbed the hill to the cave, wary all the while for signs of danger. Although he doubted there was any possibility of his being followed, one never knew. If the alarm company showed up with the police and they had a key to the house, there was the outside chance that one of the cops was sharp enough to suspect that the bed didn't look made quite right. He might notice the cut screen and figure that instead of an electrical malfunction, Casey really had pushed the panic alarm. It would then be well within reason that they remembered the dark blue Mercedes leaving the community. With an APB out for the car, who knew? A kid on a dirt bike or a lost hunter could stumble into the Mercedes and the rest would be history. They'd have a SWAT team in the rocks above his cave waiting to welcome him back with a bullet in the brain.