Nope, Vivi was on her own, as usual. Not that she begrudged her sisters their good fortune. They both deserved to have a foxy guy worshipping at their shrines. In fact, those men still didn’t know how lucky they were. They would be discovering it for the rest of their lives.

Thank God, her sisters were as safe with Duncan and Liam as they could possibly be in these strange days. But she was feeling very unworshipped these days. Truth to tell, she’d been feeling that way even before Ulf Haupt and John the Fiend started attacking the D’Onofrio women.

Both her sisters and their men had tried to persuade her to stay with them, but that struck her as nonproductive and embarrassing. How long could a woman realistically sit around like a bump on a log in someone’s home, bored out of her mind, not working, being a financial drain and a big fat fifth wheel? And besides, she really missed her dog.

Nah, she just had to muddle on with her life. Fiend and all.

Vivi stroked Edna’s floppy, velvety soft ears and tried to avoid the hot cloud of dog breath from Edna’s panting mouth. She looked up at the heavy, swollen gray sky. She could call her new landlord, but how embarrassing was that? She checked her phone. Ah. No coverage anyway. She was in the ass end of nowhere. That was the idea. To hide out where the Fiend would never find her.

She’d made it to the town of Silverfish around two in the afternoon, if one could call it a town. Through the torrents of rain, all she had seen was a convenience store, a gas pump, and a boarded-up Dairy Queen. She had followed the directions to progressively smaller roads, arriving at a dirt track with a hand-painted sign that read MOFFAT’S WAY. The last detail scribbled on the envelope.

But Moffat’s Way wasn’t a driveway, but an old logging road, deeply rutted and steep. By the time she realized how rough the road was, the ruts were streams, no place wide enough to turn around. She made a turn into a puddle, sank into the mud, and that was that.

Vivi leaned her hot cheek against the cool window. Edna stuck her nose into Vivi’s hand and gave it a comforting lick. Who knew how much farther this road went on before it came to Jack Kendrick’s land? She hadn’t bothered to inform herself about the nitpicky details.

She spun the tires, just to torture herself, and pondered her options. Time for action. Self-sufficient, proactive Vivi D’Onofrio rises to any occasion, she affirmed bracingly to herself. Psychopathic kidnappers assholes? Bring ’em on.

A long shudder racked her body. Um, maybe not.

She flung open the door of the van, looked in vain for a solid place to put her feet. Edna crawled over her lap, and Vivi clutched the dog’s collar. “Oh, no! That’s all I need,” she said. “Get back in. In!”

Edna shrank back, looking reproachful. Vivi rolled her pants up, looked at her cheerful, bright-green high-tops regretfully, and jumped out.

Cold, sucking mud swallowed her feet. She slogged around the van. The tires were half buried. Chilly rain plastered her hair to her scalp and the green T-shirt to her body. She let loose with a stream of explicit profanity, the kind she’d learned in the Bronx as a child, and punctuated it by kicking a slimy tire. Pain shot up her leg.

That’s right, she thought. Very impressive, Viv. Very mature.

Farther back, she’d seen what looked like a collapsed shack. Maybe planks laid down in front of the tires would give them purchase to get out of the muck. Beyond the puddle, the road looked driveable.

She’d exhaust every possibility before limping to Jack Kendrick’s house on foot like a cat left out in the rain. Fine first impression that would be, she fumed. She knew only what Duncan had told her. Kendrick was some sort of ex-spy commando who’d been on some top-secret intelligence gathering task force with Duncan years ago. Now, unaccountably, he grew flowers. Duncan had been somewhat vague about the details of that career change, his brain being deep-fried from being insanely in love with Nell.

So this mysterious Kendrick lived in the woods, had an apartment in his barn, and was willing to let her huddle in his flowery bower and hide like a quivering, nose-twitching bunny until they all figured out what the hell to do about these art-hungry psychopaths. Nice of him.

Seriously, though. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. Duncan assured her that Kendrick knew the score, had agreed to the plan. It had sounded perfect, back in NYC. Too perfect, actually.

Finally. There it was, a stack of gray, weathered planks, rusty nails sticking through them at crazy angles. She wrestled and yanked until she’d extricated a few boards, along with some ugly splinters. Negotiated the slippery boards through the fir thickets. Arrived at the van, soggy, scratched, and panting, issuing a stream of profanity. She hauled out her toolbox, hammered the nails flat, and got down to wrestle them into place. Mud oozed over the tops of the boards, and she was slimed from chest to feet, when she heard the deep voice from behind her.

“I don’t think that’s going to work.”

She started violently, knocking her head on the bumper. “Who is that?” She scrambled to her feet. There was no one there that she could see.

Vivi scanned the trees and reached for the tire iron stowed under the seat, groping until her fingers closed over cold, hard metal. “Where are you?” she called out. She was starting to shake.

“Over here.”

She spun, brandishing the tire iron. A tall man, stood there, half hidden in the trees. He was shrouded in a dull-green hooded rain poncho, dripping with rain. She would never have seen him if he had not spoken. Adrenaline zinged through her. She gave the tire iron an experimental heft.

“What do you think you’re doing, sneaking up on me like that?”

He took a step forward. She raised the tire iron. He stopped. Edna whined.

“Stay, Edna,” she snapped. “Who are you?”

“I’m not going to attack you,” he said, pushing back his hood.

Light, silver-gray eyes, cool and unreadable. His face was brown, lean. High cheekbones, a hooked nose. A scar on one temple slashed down into one of his straight, dark eyebrows, leaving a white line. He had a short beard, or maybe long beard stubble. Dark hair, long and shaggy. He regarded her steadily. Drops of rain beaded his face. He did not look like the Fiend, as Nancy and Nell had described him. This guy was not loathsome, pig eyed, or malodorous.

By no means. This guy was oh-my-God fine looking. She tried to breathe. Her terror was transmuting itself into utter embarrassment.

“Put it down.” A small smile crinkled up the skin around his eyes.

“What?” She realized that her mouth was hanging open.

“The tire iron.” He glanced at her white-knuckled hand.

“Oh.” She felt foolish, panicked. Acutely conscious of the mud on her clothes, the hair stuck to her face, of the way her wet, muddy shirt clung to her tits. Of how incredibly tall he was. Even if he wasn’t the Fiend, he was a complete stranger, and there was nobody around here for miles. Just her. And Edna, the world’s friendliest dog. She looked at the hand that clutched the tire iron. It was shaking.

“The boards won’t work,” he said gently. “It was a good idea, but the mud is too wet and deep.” He took a step closer. She backed away.

He sighed, silently, and picked up a stick, walking away from her around the back of the van, prodding the mud.

Released from the spell of his eyes, she finally managed to exhale. Get a grip. He was not going to leap on her like a mad dog. He didn’t look like a killer. Try to be civil. Her face felt so hot, raindrops should be skittering on it like water on a griddle. Insane. She never blushed. “I asked what you were doing here,” she said, trying to sound authoritative.

“This is my land,” he said.