Roy is thinking about Dug when he opens the cooler door and steps inside, flashlight roaming. Before he can react, something flies out of the darkest corner, something deeply furious, something with a long sharp claw that pierces the softest part of his throat, penetrating his esophagus.

As he falls to his knees, choking on his own blood, the furious thing flies past him, out the door and into the night.

9. Oof Says The Monster Man

Pure adrenaline carries her out of the steel prison, into the muggy darkness. Clawlike branches scratching at her face, tugging her hair, raking her bare arms. There’s no up or down, no direction home, just the explosive desire to get away.

Wherever she imagined she might be, it is not here, in the absolute wilderness. The steel box made her think of buildings, maybe a village near the remote airstrip where she had Seth had put the Beechcraft down, enjoying their big adventure. A real live Indian chief! What a kick, what a tale to tell her friends. The real thrill, though, had been piloting the aircraft all the way from New York. Seth finally taking control for the tricky landing on the narrow strip, but that was it. And then, of course, the dream flight turned into a total nightmare moments after they touched down.

Heedless of the branches and thorns and vines, Kelly crashes headlong through the stand of cypress, arms shielding her eyes as best she can.

Is he dead? Did she kill him? She’d been aiming for an eye—hours she’d waited, crouching in the corner like a taut-wound spring. Psyching herself up. Telling herself this was her one chance. Go for the eye. Blind him, kill him, whatever it takes.

Get out of the box or die trying. And then run for your life, girl. Run as long and as far as you can.

All of a sudden she stumbles into a clearing. An area large enough that the edges melt away into the night. She looks at her scratched and bleeding hands, realizes she no longer has the weapon she honed so carefully.

Hide. She must find a place to hide until the sun comes up, whenever that is. The man she attacked may be alive, or there may be others. She has formed a firm conviction that more than one man has been keeping her captive. Changing the foul bucket, leaving behind the bag of pasty, white-bread sandwiches and the jug of water that has kept her alive, barely. Two at least, maybe more.

At that very moment, heart slamming and lungs heaving, she imagines footsteps following her.

Run!

Weakened by her captivity, half-starved, the adrenaline takes over, making her legs pump furiously. Kelly sprints through the clearing, then through grass up to her knees. Runs like a madwoman until the rough ground reaches up, catches a foot, sends her sprawling facedown.

Wham. Knocks the breath out of her.

Lying in the rough grass she manages to roll over, searching the sky for stars. Fearful that if she doesn’t find something to judge direction she’ll end up running in circles. Her eyes detect a few faint stars intermittently obscured by low clouds, and somehow that calms her slightly. Her breathing returns to something like normal.

Stay where you are, she decides, until you get your bearings. Then choose which way to run.

Gradually her heart slows to match her breathing and she begins to discern sounds. Insects buzzing. A bird squawking some distance away. Heron? Owl? Something wild that’s for sure. The low-pitched bellow of something far away—could that be an alligator? Does that mean she’s close to the Everglades? Miles from where they landed, if true. Crickets, very close, mere inches away. And then another sound that pours like chilled water through her veins.

A human voice.

“Move along, you little shit!”

Kelly flattens herself, trying to blend into the ground. Is the grass deep enough to hide her? In a panic she tries to dig herself into the rough ground. Impossible, too hard.

Lie still, her instinct urges. Be quiet. Be small.

“I ain’t carryin’ no full-growed man,” the voice says. “Walk or be dragged, them is your choice.”

“My legs don’t work,” says another voice. Faint and obviously in a lot of pain.

Seth!

Kelly lifts her head until her eyes just barely clear the grass. At first she can’t see anything. Gradually her vision adjusts and she can make out what looks like a dark, humpbacked creature slowly making its way along the edge of the clearing, barely visible.

The humpbacked thing becomes two men, one of them hobbled, barely able to walk.

“That just cramps in your legs. Walk ‘em off.”

The hobbled man—it has to be Seth—is tied up somehow, hands bound, a rope around his waist. The other man, medium size but strong looking, is all coiled impatience. Jerking the rope as if he enjoys the grunt of pain it produces.

“You want me to chop off another finger? I can do that, you want.”

Eyes narrowing, Kelly begins to search the ground for a weapon. Hands encountering nothing but hard dirt beneath the blades of grass.

Having convinced herself that Seth’s oppressor is focused on tormenting his victim, Kelly crawls and slithers until she reaches the edge of the clearing. Has to be something, a branch or a stick, something to poke the monster in the eye.

What she finds, belly flat to the ground, is a chunk of rock about the size of her head. Charred and smelling of a campfire.

Her hands explore the weapon, finding it very rough and not quite as heavy as expected.

Whatever, it will have to do.

Gathering the meaty rock into her hands, she waits for her moment. That’s the hardest part as her fury rises, waiting as the monster continues to torment her friend.

“What are you,” the monster demands, “some kind of fag? There’s nothing wrong with your legs! You tryin’ a trick me, huh? We’ll see about that!”

The monster does something and Seth collapses.

“Get up and walk like a man! We ain’t got all night!”

The monster bends over Seth, a fist raised.

Kelly explodes across the clearing, the hefty chunk of limestone raised high. And as the monster turns, astonished—the thing has human eyes, is that possible?—Kelly brings the rock down on his head with every ounce of her adrenaline-charged strength.

“Oof!” says the monster man, falling backward.

A moment later she and Seth Manning are running for their lives.

10. Eyes That Couldn’t Care Less

The Irish have their wakes, the Jews sit shiva. At the Glades Motorcourt Inn there are no kegs of whiskey, no mirrors to cover, unless you count the cracked glass over the medicine cabinet. Nevertheless, the sense of mourning, of loss that has yet to catch up, seems as deep and insidious as the black specks of mold on the walls. Whatever flush of excitement came with our little triumph at the Hunt Club has been erased by the long wait for Leo Fish.

Please. I’m supposed to put my faith in a stranger with a ridiculous name? Some hermit who lives in a swamp? Talk about grasping at straws! Other than Fern leaving a pep-talk message, no one has phoned my cell with news of the search. Not the FBI, not the local cops, nobody. Despite Randall Shane’s encouraging words about not giving up, I’m taking the lack of news as a bad sign. The man Shane surprised in Cable Grove has had plenty of time to return to wherever he kept my daughter, and to eliminate her as a witness. Isn’t that what mad kidnappers do? Snuff out their victims? I’ve seen the movie, read the tabloid version. I know how this ends, with the poor mother weeping and the media vultures shedding glycerin tears.

Shane is in the next room, his television faint but discernible through the thin walls, tuned, as mine is, to local news. Bright eyed and bushy tailed, the man who never sleeps has encouraged me to do so. As if. My exhausted brain seems determined to clock each passing second. Waiting, waiting. Two hours have ticked by since Mr. Ponytail zoomed away in his airboat—sounded like a plane taking off, frankly—and each minute has been soaked in molasses.