“You can’t be a cop,” Lang muses. “Cops always come in pairs.”

“My name is Randall Shane. I’m former FBI. I consult on missing children.”

Lang finds this interesting. “No shit? A former Fed? So what, they fired you? Caught you going through underwear drawers, vamoosed your sorry ass?”

“Something like that.”

Lang shakes his head, vastly amused. “This is good. I’m out in my boat, changing the oil? I hear this footstep, real soft, on the patio? Take a peek and there you are, big as a linebacker, breaking and entering into my bedroom.”

“The door was unlocked,” Shane points out. “My colleagues have my location. They’ll respond soon.”

“Yeah? I’d like to meet ‘em. Except you said you were fired.”

“Resigned.”

“Uh-huh. So what you doin’ here, Randall?”

Moment of truth, Shane thinks and decides he doesn’t care to die with a lie on his lips. “I’m looking for Seth Manning and Kelly Garner.”

Ricky Lang smiles and nods. “The pilot and his girl. It’s about time,” he says. “What took you guys so long?”

There are lots of things going on with Shane physically, from the wicked throb of his freshly broken nose to the ache of his hamstrings, but nothing so bad it overwhelms the flesh-crawling chill that runs up his spine.

He did it. He found the perp.

Now if only he can live long enough to do something about it.

“You a hero, man,” Ricky Lang is saying, sounding genuinely pleased for him. “Just this morning I’m trying to figure, should I kill ‘em or let ‘em go? You know, like weighing it on my mind? And then along comes you.”

“Easy decision,” Shane encourages. “Let them go.”

The disturbing thing, other than the unwavering Glock, is the way Ricky Lang’s smile flashes on and off like a neon sign with a bad connection. Like he’s all there one moment and gone the next.

“Want to know how I got you, man? Pow through the door? Because I can be invisible. I can make it so you can’t see or hear me, like a blindfold on your mind. Then boom! nailed you through the door. Because also I’ve got X-ray vision, like Superman.”

“You saw me through the louvers.”

“Nah, man, I sensed you. I got the magic, man. I got the power.”

“But you’ll let them go.”

“Sure,” Ricky Lang says with a shrug. “Why not?”

He stands up, tucks the Glock in his waist. “Let’s get you that cold washcloth, then I’ll take you to them.”

20. What Gods Provide

Live or die.

The choice has become that simple. During the dark and endless hours she has come to understand that dying would be easy. Just give up, let go. Stop drinking from the jug of water. Stop eating the ridiculous peanut butter sandwiches her captor left in a plastic bread bag.

Famished, she had demolished several of the awful sandwiches, gagging with every bite, the soft white bread tasting of greasy fingers. Worse than any of those icky hospital meals because it has been touched by the unclean hands of her tormentors. And yet she had consumed the awful things because to refuse would have been to become weaker. Again, very like the conscious choice she’d made as a nine-year-old. Deciding to be strong and resolute and not give in to her illness. Summoning all of her strength, willing her body to overcome the ravages of radiation treatments and chemotherapy. Fighting for her life by refusing to die.

Kelly had been a voracious reader, even at her sickest. Partly because books were an escape, entry into another world where she could, if she wanted, be a warrior princess fighting dragons, or Harry Potter’s friend Hermione, or just a normal healthy girl having fun with her friends. An early chapter book stuck in her mind because of the vivid illustrations. Myths of The Ancient World. All about the battles between gods and heroes.

Especially resonant with Kelly was the way gods liked to play tricks on the heroes and punish them horribly for what seemed like small infractions of rules. Lying in her hospital bed, weak from whatever the nurses and technicians had inflicted on her small body, she could readily identify with the fire-giver Prometheus, chained to the ground so a vulture could eat his liver. And then overnight his liver would grow back and the vulture would come again, its great beak gleaming like steel. Or poor Sisyphus, being made to push a giant rock up a steep hill for all eternity, only to have it roll down, having to start all over, shoving and pushing forever and ever.

She invented her own tormented hero. The great, tragic and stunningly beautiful Chemo, trapped in her bed, held down with tubes and bags of fluids, having to endure the torments administered by the gods of Sloan-Kettering. Striving to be good and brave and true so the miserable disease would give up and leave her alone.

Chemo the Brave, Chemo the Magnificent. Chemo who fought death to a standstill and won back her life. Hadn’t thought about her in a long time. No need. But now in the muggy darkness of her little prison, Kelly summons her back. Not to suffer tragically, but to fight and win.

First requirement, a weapon. Other than her hands, teeth and fingernails, what is there? She numbers the objects in her mind.

1. Plastic water jug.

2. Small plastic lantern.

3. Five-gallon bucket. Three things, and none of them is exactly a loaded gun.

She decides to examine each object, with the aim of devising a weapon. The water jug is smooth and flimsy. She rejects it. The battery-filled lantern is fairly heavy, it feels sort of substantial, but the shape makes it awkward to throw. Leaving the bucket. She loathes the bucket, the humiliation of having to use it for a toilet. Could it become a weapon? Fling it hard enough at her captor’s head, the next time the door opened, maybe it would stun him, give her time to slip past him.

Gingerly touching the bucket, her hand encounters the handle, reclined against the side. The handle is nothing more than a curved piece of stiff metal rod, with ends that hook into the side of the bucket. Exploring the handle inch by inch, she discovers that the hooked end is sharp. Not razor sharp by any means, but she can feel the edge.

Her hands shaking slightly with excitement, Kelly unhooks the handle. Straightening it as best she can, she begins to rub the sharp end of the handle against the floor of her prison. Steel against steel.

After a few minutes the metal rod warms in her hands. It begins to have the feel of a weapon. Something sharp and strong. Something she can plunge into the heart of the next man who comes through the door.

21. Strictly Stiltsville

The Glock is within reach, Shane decides. Ricky Lang having nonchalantly tucked the weapon in the waistband of his cargo pants. As if, the issue of releasing his captives having been settled, there is no need for guns.

The only trouble, if Shane does manage to get his hands on the Glock he will undoubtedly have to shoot the guy, thereby complicating the task of recovering Kelly Garner. Not that Shane is convinced Ricky Lang is telling the truth about letting his captives go. Truth being a relative term to a man who believes he can make himself invisible. Probably thinks bullets won’t hurt him either, but Shane is pretty sure a.45 caliber slug, discharged at close range, will kill him. Rendering him useless in a search for the victims.

Shane decides to bide his time. Determine if Lang really intends to lead him to the captives, then take whatever action is necessary.

“You like boats?” Lang wants to know.

“Sure,” says Shane.

They’re detouring around the sapphire-blue pool, heading for the seawall. Shane would dearly love to get out his cell phone and make a few calls but he’s afraid of interrupting the flow, the insane rhythm of the man with the bowl-cut hair. If there had been any doubt as to his mental state, it was confirmed when Lang had ducked into what was obviously a child’s bedroom and waved bye-bye to the empty space.