“Then I’m glad I caught you. I’ll get Carrie Anne.”

“But Madison will be coming here to pick her up.”

“I’ll bring her over after we get an ice cream or something. Don’t worry.”

“But—”

“Kaila, what’s the matter with you? She’s my daughter. I’ll pick her up, and I’ll bring her here.” Aggravated, Darryl turned and got back into his car. Kaila got into her own car to pick up Justin. She wondered why she felt such a strange sense of unease.

She shivered.

“What’s the matter, Mommy?” Shelley asked.

“Nothing, baby, nothing.”

She started to drive.

At Justin’s school, she left the two little ones in their car seats and stood about ten feet away, waiting to wave to Justin’s teacher once she saw him coming out of the classroom.

Her son gave her a broad smile as he emerged. She smiled back. God, she loved her kids. She was so lucky, and she’d come so close to throwing it all away.

“Hey, kid!” she said, greeting him and tousling his hair. “How was school?”

“Good!” he said, and crawled into the back.

Kaila drove back to her house and got out of the car. “Justin, keep an eye on the other two one second while I open the door,” she told her son, walking to the house. “Damn!” she muttered then. She should have picked up some milk. And she had no snacks. If Madison was coming for Carrie Anne and ended up having to wait, maybe Kyle would come over, too, and she had nothing to offer anyone. She should just run back to the store.

She turned around and headed back to the car. Justin was giggling.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing!”

“Well, I thought we should go to the store.” As she slid behind the wheel, the kids started giggling wildly.

“What is it?” Kaila asked, putting the minivan in gear.

She turned around and saw for herself.

At first she wasn’t frightened. She was just puzzled.

Then the fear set in.

Somewhere along the way to Kaila’s, a feeling of unease and urgency began to haunt Madison. She told herself not to panic, that Kaila had picked up the kids and would be back at the house by now.

Still, she looked at her purse, on the passenger seat, then reached into it for her phone. She couldn’t get her fingers around it right away, so she dumped the contents of her purse on the seat. She picked up the phone and keyed in Kaila’s number. She was dismayed to get the answering machine. She was even more dismayed when she heard a warning beep.

She glanced at the phone and swore. Her batteries were dying.

She threw the phone on the seat, angry, and growing more alarmed.

She was perhaps two blocks from her sister’s house when she heard—or sensed—the taunting voice.

What could possibly be worse than fearing for your own life? Could it be fearing for your child’s life?

The voice was so real, so clear, that she started, pulling to the side of the road, slamming on the brakes and looking around the car.

She was alone. Completely alone.

Her sense of panic escalating, she jerked her car back on the road. The irate driver of a diaper-delivery van blew his horn, but she ignored him, stepping on the gas as she spun around the corner to Kaila’s house.

Kaila’s minivan was ahead of her, about to turn onto a road that would bring them out to the expressway entrance.

“Kaila!” Madison shouted out her window. She knew it was useless.

The van didn’t slow down. In fact, Kaila was driving like a madwoman. Madison sped after it. They left her sister’s residential neighborhood behind and were soon on the expressway. She zigzagged around cars to keep up, driving more recklessly than she had in all her life. She couldn’t believe that Kaila was taking so many chances with the kids in the minivan.

But then she knew. She heard the voice again.

What could be worse than fearing for your own life? Could it be fearing for the life of your child?

She’d seen it in her dream.

She knew long before they pulled off the westward extension that they would be driving along the Tamiami Trail, heading into the Everglades.

Dan Aubrey was standing in his driveway, scratching his chin, when Kyle pulled to a screeching halt. “Where are the girls?”

“I don’t know. Was Madison supposed to be here? I don’t even know where Kaila is. Jeez, just when I think we’re starting to get it together again, she pulls a vanishing act. I came home early, thought we might see you two for a bit tonight. But who the hell knows what she’s doing, huh?”

Staring at him, Kyle tried Jassy’s number. He got her machine. Swearing, he sank against the car.

“Hey, Kyle, man, what’s the matter? Want a beer? Can I do something.”

“Yeah, get in the car with me.”

“Why, what’s going on?”

“I know who the killer is,” Kyle said.

Kaila wondered how long he’d been hiding in the back of the minivan.

The kids thought it was a lark. Kaila was thankful that the kids were all in the back seats, Justin in the far rear, Shelley and Anthony in the middle, behind her.

Because he was next to her now.

His knife was in his lap. A switchblade. He’d opened it and closed it, opened it and closed it, over and over again.

“This isn’t funny,” she told him, trying for bravado.

“Not at all. Life is serious.”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

“I’m not doing anything to you. You know you want to sleep with me, and you are going to love me. You just chickened out. You’re not so much like her, you know.”

“Like who?”

“Your mother.”

A stab of pure panic ripped through Kaila’s heart. She glanced over at him. He didn’t look so handsome anymore. There was something in his eyes, in the angles of his face…

She moistened her lips. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lead you on. I made a mistake. I’m married.”

“That can be undone.”

“I have children.”

“I can love them. Or—” he smiled, fingering his knife “—I can get rid of them. In fact, I’m going to give you a chance to love me the way you always insinuated you could…and, well, their lives will depend on it. Now drive. Faster. We’ve got another fifteen miles to go, then you can pull off.”

She started shaking.

She was going to die, she told herself. She was going to die. She’d been a bad wife to a good man, and maybe God was getting even with her. She was so scared. She didn’t want to die like her mother.

She couldn’t die. The kids were in the car. She had to stay alive. No matter what happened to her, she had to stay alive until…

Until the kids were somehow safe.

The minivan turned off on an almost invisible road.

It would be insane to follow. She had to go back. Had to find a gas station, a phone.

But gas stations and phones were miles apart out here along the Trail. Miles and miles apart. If she didn’t follow the minivan, she might lose it. Her sister, her daughter and all her sister’s kids were in that van.

Oh, God.

She started shaking. It was just as it had been all those years ago. She had to go on. If she’d run down the hallway when she was afraid for her mother, she might have stopped the murderer. Now, if she left…she could lose her daughter. Her sister. Shelley, Justin, Anthony…

Oh, God…

She was so numb with fear that she nearly drove off the road. The minivan was barely visible ahead of her. Then it jerked to a stop. Quickly she slammed on her own brakes while swerving to the side. The Cherokee swung around in a complete half turn. But she didn’t go sliding into the pool to her left, and she was pretty sure she’d inadvertently managed to hide the Cherokee.

They were fairly deep in the swamp, and she realized that they had come down an old deserted road leading to some abandoned hunting shacks. Now she hurried through the underbrush, getting close enough to see and hear everything going on.