As Carol ate, she wondered, for a brief moment, if her abductor may have been her father. She had never met him before – she didn’t even know his name. Her mother referred to the man as ‘the donor’ and that was it.

If her father had abducted her – stories like that were all over the news, it did happen – he wouldn’t lock her up in a room with no lights. No, her father hadn’t brought her here. Someone else had.

Carol finished the rest of the Mountain Dew, wondering if there was a light switch on the wall.

The wall behind her had the same rough, sandpaper-like texture as the floor. Concrete, probably. She rubbed her hands up and down along the wall above her cot and failed to find a light switch. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t one in here.

Carol got her bearings. Okay, here was the end of the cot. Two choices: left or right. She decided to go left and started moving her hands across the wall, counting her steps as she searched for a light switch. She counted all the way to eighteen when the wall ended. No place to move but left.

Nine steps and her shin bumped into something hard. She reached down and felt something cool and smooth. She kept running her hands over the curves and then she felt water and it came to her: a toilet. Good. She wanted to pee but that could wait. Keep moving.

Ten steps and here was a sink.

Eight more steps and her hands were feeling around the controls for a shower. She turned the knob slightly, heard water run through the pipe and then felt it splash her head and face. She was locked in a small, cold room with a cot, a toilet, a sink and a shower. A light switch had to be close by. Her captor wouldn’t let her live in the dark, would he? Please God, please let me find a light switch.

Six more steps and the wall ended. Ten more steps. The wall turned left and Carol followed it with her hands, counting one, two, three, four – wait, here was something rough and hard and cold. It was metal. She kept moving her hands along the metal, up and down and across.

It was a door but not like any door she knew about. This door was very wide and made of steel. No doorknob or lever. If Tony were here, he would know what it was. When his father wasn’t busy being a drunk, he was a contractor, and a pretty good one –

Tony. Had he been brought here, too?

‘Tony? Tony, where are you?’

Carol stood in the cool dark, listening hard over the blood pounding in her ears.

A voice called out from far away, sounding garbled, as though it were traveling underneath water.

Carol yelled Tony’s name again, as loud as she could, and pressed her ear against the cold steel. Someone was trying to talk back to her. Someone was out there, but the voice was too far away.

An idea floated up from out of the depths of Carol’s mind, surprising her: Morse code. She had read about it in history class. She didn’t know Morse code, but she knew enough to work with it.

Carol knocked twice on the door. Listen.

Nothing.

Try again.

Two more knocks. Listen.

Two knocks came back, faint but clear.

A panel inside the door swung open to a burst of dim light. Staring at her from the other side was a face covered with dirty bandages, the eyes hidden behind pieces of black cloth.

Carol stumbled backward into the darkness, screaming as the steel door slid open.

Chapter 23

Boyle took out the gun, about to enter Carol’s room when his mother spoke to him for the first time in years:

You don’t have to kill her, Daniel. I can help you.

Boyle’s breath was hot and stale underneath the mask. Carol was bunkered underneath the cot, begging him not to hurt her. He didn’t want to lose Carol – he didn’t want to lose any of them, not now, not after all his hard work and planning.

You can keep her, Daniel. You can keep all of them.

How?

Why should I tell you? After what you and Richard did to me when you came back home? I kept your secret for all those years, and you repaid me by burying me alive out in the woods. I told you then you’d never get rid of me, and I was right. You kill all these women who remind you of me and I’m still with you – I’ll always be with you, Daniel. Maybe I’ll just let the police come and take you away.

They won’t find me. Everything leads to Earl Slavick. I’ve already planted the pictures on his computer. I’ve printed out the maps from his computer so the FBI can trace him. With one phone call I’ll lead them to Slavick’s doorstep.

But that doesn’t solve your problem with Rachel, does it?

She doesn’t know anything. She doesn’t –

She made her way into your office, remember? She went through your file cabinet. Who knows what she found in there?

She’s never seen my face. And I have Slavick’s blood. I slipped inside his house with the copy of the keys I made and I put the chloroform rag over his face while he was sleeping and I took his blood, the tan carpet fibers from his bedroom –

You’re very smart, Daniel, but you made a mistake with Rachel. She outsmarted you, and when she wakes up – and you know she will – she’ll tell the police everything she knows, and they’ll come and take you away. You’ll spend the rest of your life locked inside a small, dark room.

I won’t let that happen – I’ll kill myself, if I have to.

You don’t have to kill Carol, but you have to kill Rachel. You need to kill her before she wakes up. I know how to solve your problem with Rachel. Would you like me to tell you?

Yes.

Yes what?

Yes, please. Please help me.

Will you do what you’re told?

Yes.

Shut the door.

Boyle did.

Go back to your office.

Boyle did.

Take a seat. That’s a good boy. Now here’s what you need to do . ..

Boyle listened to his mother explain what needed to be done. He didn’t ask any questions because he knew she was right. She was always right.

When she finished, Boyle stood and paced the room, pausing several times to stare at the phone. He wanted to call Richard, but Richard had strict orders never to call him on his cell phone. Boyle knew he should wait until Richard arrived to tell him about the plan but he couldn’t wait. Boyle was too excited. He needed to talk to Richard now.

Boyle picked up the phone and dialed Richard’s cell. Richard didn’t pick up. Boyle hung and dialed again. Richard picked up on the fourth ring. He was angry.

‘I told you to never call this number –’

‘I need to talk to you,’ Boyle said. ‘It’s important.’

‘I’ll call you back.’

The wait was excruciating. Boyle rocked back and forth in his chair, staring at the phone, waiting for Richard to call back. Twenty minutes later, he did.

‘We can connect Rachel to Slavick,’ Boyle said.

‘How?’

‘Slavick’s a member of the Aryan Brotherhood. When he was living in Arkansas, at the compound for the Hand of the Lord, he tried to abduct an eighteen-year-old woman and failed – he would have gone to jail if the woman had been able to pick him out of a lineup. He also trained at their weapons facility, worked in their gun shop. And he fire-bombed black churches and synagogues.’

‘You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know.’

‘Slavick’s planning his own underground movement here in New Hampshire,’ Boyle said. ‘I’ve been inside his compound. He has fertilizer bombs in the shed, and in his basement there’s a batch of homemade explosives – plastic explosives. We can use them to create a diversion to get to Rachel.’

‘You want to bomb the hospital?’

‘When a bomb goes off, it creates instant chaos. People will think it’s a terrorist attack – they’ll be reliving nine-eleven all over again. While everyone’s running around, nobody will be paying attention to us. One of us can slip inside and kill Rachel, pump some air through her IV line and she’ll go into cardiac arrest. It will look like she died of natural causes.’