Maggie glanced at her watch. It’d taken them thirty-five to forty minutes to get up here. It might take another hour before the emergency unit reached them. She started tying the nylon rope around her waist, making a knot that would hold her.

“You guys can’t fit, but I should be able to.”

Both of them looked up at her as though they had forgotten she was there. In seconds they were helping to secure the other end of the nylon rope. As soon as Maggie swung her legs over the edge of the crack she felt the familiar cold sweat. Her mouth went dry and her pulse started to race. Tully handed her the flashlight and she shoved it into a pocket.

She held on to the rock edge as the men grasped the nylon rope. She took in greedy gulps of fresh air as if they would be her last, and she hadn’t even squeezed through the hole. Then she wiggled her torso between the cracked edges. Sharp rock stabbed her back. As she twisted to get away from it, she felt it cut through her shirt and her skin.

“Wait a minute,” Tully said. “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” And she continued, letting her body’s weight and gravity pull her down. The whole time she couldn’t stop thinking, How the hell am I going to get back out of here, let alone with an injured dog?

As much as Maggie hated to admit it, she was claustrophobic. An occupational hazard—ever since a madman stuffed her in a chest freezer and left her there to die. This was not as bad, she told herself as her head left the surface and the men slowly lowered her down. A musty scent of earth and damp rock immediately engulfed her. Her breathing became labored and triggered a fresh panic. Her heart galloped and she started to feel a bit dizzy.

She looked up and watched the sky spin and disappear, now only a sliver of blue. The cavern around her looked and felt like a tomb. And as she descended, she realized it even sounded as quiet as one. The men’s voices became muffled.

Her heartbeat echoed in her head. Sweat slithered down her back. The space grew darker and darker and it became harder to breathe. By the time her feet found the floor of the ravine she felt so weak-kneed that she wobbled to stand.

Then she heard Grace whimper a greeting somewhere behind her.

Maggie fumbled for the flashlight, turned it on, and avoided pointing it directly into Grace’s face. The dog was lying on the rock floor, but she raised her head, excited to see Maggie. Grace’s eyes found Maggie’s and held them, intense and unrelenting.

“Stay, Grace. Don’t move.” She didn’t know whether the dog was able to move but she didn’t want her bounding up out of instinct. That she could raise her head was hopefully a good sign.

There wasn’t any blood surrounding or under Grace. That was another good sign. But Maggie could see that her left hind leg was stretched out at an awkward angle. The other hind leg was tucked under so Maggie couldn’t see.

“How does she look?”

Maggie glanced up, startled to see Creed’s head hanging over the edge.

“No blood. I can’t tell if there are internal injuries. Both back legs might be broken.”

She heard his intake of air and the attempt to hold back his emotion. Instead of swearing he called out to Grace, “Hey girl. We’re gonna get you out of there.” Then added to Maggie, “Do you think we can move her?”

Maggie watched Grace as she walked closer to her. She squatted down beside her and the dog attempted a slow wag of her tail but ended up whimpering. Maggie ran a hand over the dog’s back as she told her what a good girl she was.

Grace licked her hand and again, stared directly into Maggie’s eyes. That’s when Maggie suddenly realized Grace was looking at her the same way she looked at Creed. It was her way to alert him—to tell him—that she’d found their target.

Maggie felt a new chill crawl over her body. She gripped the flashlight and slowly swiped the light over the rock walls. Then she turned around to do the same on the other side of the long and narrow ravine.

The beam found what looked like a heap of rags. That is, until she saw hands sticking out from under the pile. Two hands. Only nine fingers.

CHAPTER 43

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Gwen convinced Kunze and the others to come to her Georgetown condo for their task force meeting. Yes, it was totally unconventional and bordering on unprofessional, but after spending so much time breathing prison air, she didn’t want to go back to Quantico and be stuck in that BSU conference room sixty feet belowground.

She had played on Kunze’s vulnerability—probably also unprofessional of her. She knew he still felt guilty about putting her through yet another full-body search. But she had decided that if she was the outsider, she could make them meet on her terms. When she told Kunze she’d fix them all dinner, instead of arguing, he simply asked her what time she’d like them to be there.

Racine arrived early, of course, because she wasn’t coming from Quantico. As a District homicide detective, her precinct was less than fifteen minutes away. Gwen put her to work in the kitchen. For some crazy reason, preparing, experimenting, and creating gourmet meals had always been a stress reliever for Gwen. Her kitchen was her sanctuary. She often forgot that one woman’s sanctuary could be another’s hell. Julia Racine could not look more uncomfortable. She appeared to be strangling the asparagus as she washed it.

“I never noticed before how much these look like penises.”

Gwen rolled her eyes and took the bundle away in one swift motion. She exchanged it for a red onion.

“Chop,” she said and handed Racine a knife and a cutting board.

“Crap. Cutting onions always makes me cry. Isn’t there something else you need done?”

“Cut the top off first and do it under running water. Cold water.”

Racine regarded her suspiciously, as if she were expecting a trick.

“Seriously, it works,” Gwen told her as she turned back to deveining the shrimp.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Racine glance at the shrimp and wrinkle her nose. She must have decided chopping the onion wasn’t such a bad job. She went at the task without another complaint.

“I’m surprised not to see Harvey and Jake. Don’t you usually take care of Maggie’s dogs?”

“Ben has them. His backyard is much bigger.”

“Ben? I thought they broke up?”

Gwen stopped herself from saying that you couldn’t break up if you weren’t in a relationship in the first place. Maggie and Ben hadn’t even gotten there before they decided to “put the skids on,” as Maggie called it. But the two of them were still friends, good friends, and Gwen hoped that it might eventually be more. Instead of telling Racine any of this, Gwen shot her a warning look.

Maggie and Racine had forged a friendship in spite of their differences and in spite of the fact that Racine had hit on Maggie shortly after they’d met. As far as Gwen knew, Racine lived with a partner now, a journalist for the Washington Post, and she was even helping raise the woman’s daughter. Gwen didn’t need a degree in psychology to see that Julia Racine still had a thing for Maggie.

Racine noticed the look and raised an eyebrow. “What? I’m just asking. I thought the baby thing ended it for them.”

“I’m not gossiping about Maggie’s life.”

“I understand.”

But she was hesitating. She had something more to say.

“I know you know,” Racine said, one hand on her hip.

When Gwen met her eyes she noticed that Racine was biting her lower lip like this was a sort of confession. Oh, God, why did people always think they should be confessing to her? She was a psychologist, not a priest.

“I know Maggie probably told you about two years ago. It really was just one kiss.”