«Wait till we get her inside,» he ordered. «Goddamn mosquitoes are driving me nuts.»

The cabin looked abandoned. A tar-paper shack on stilts, it was the sort of place Serena had imagined Lucky living in before she'd seen his house. The yard was little more than mud and stringy grass. It was littered with junk-beer cans and bottles, tires, an old refrigerator with the door hanging open. There was a rusted car of indeterminate age sitting some distance away in a stand of weeds.

A car. That had to mean there was a road. But what good would a road do her if she was on foot? They would run her down just as they had before. Her only hope would be to lose herself in the woods.

What a hope-to lose herself in the dead of night, bound and gagged, in a wilderness that terrified her. Her old fear stirred strongly, but the new one was even worse. She had survived the swamp before; she would not survive what Willis and Perret had in store for her.

Willis had gone inside. Perret steered her across the yard, his fingers wound into the back of the gag again, pulling her hair. He was a small man, only about as tall as she was and thin, anemic-looking. His chest had a sunken look and his dirty jeans clung low on nonexistent hips. He wouldn't be nearly as strong as Willis, but he was quick. If she could manage to get free of him, she would have to do a better job of escaping than she had the first time.

Serena stepped up her pace toward the cabin so he was no longer shoving her along, but quickening his step.

«You in a hurry, chere?» he asked, laughing, displaying an alarming array of crooked rotten teeth. «Me too.»

Sticking her right foot out to trip Perret, Serena pulled up abruptly and twisted her upper body sharply away to the left. One second Perret was chortling like a fiend, enjoying his dominance over her, the next second he was on the ground, tangled among a mess of old tires and rusty chicken wire.

Serena wasted no time looking back to see if he was coming after her. She dashed into the woods and ran blindly, dodging trees at the last second, stumbling over roots. She zigzagged, cut back, turned again, and ran on. Branches cut at her face and tore at her clothes. There was no light, only darkness and the blacker shapes of trees. She slammed her shoulder into one and had to stop and double over while pain rocked through her.

Crouching there against the trunk of a persimmon tree, she took quick stock of her various aches, all of them renewed by this latest blow. Her hands had started to go numb behind her back, but she was very aware of her right forearm where Willis had struck to dislodge the can of Mace. It felt as if it had been hit with an ax handle. Her left shoulder had taken Willis's boot and now the tree trunk as well, and it throbbed relentlessly. Her muscles had started to cramp from the awkward position of her arms. There were a dozen other assorted pains, but at least she was alive and free. For the moment.

Her breath soughed in and out of her lungs, muffled by the gag. The cloth had loosened somewhat from Perret pulling on it, and Serena thought she might be able to work it free. She pressed her face against the trunk of the tree and rubbed her cheek against it, trying to work the bandanna down. The hard, scaly bark of the tree scraped her skin, but she persisted. Progress came gradually, but the gag finally fell free of her mouth. Still knotted into her hair in back, it hung like a noose around her neck. She leaned over and spat, trying in vain to get the taste of it out of her mouth.

Something slithered in the underbrush to her right, and Serena bolted, straining to see in the velvet darkness. She could hear the movement but couldn't tell what it was or precisely where it was. Memories crowded in her mind and tears rose up the back of her throat as she scanned the darkness all around, wondering wildly what awaited her. The swamp came alive at night, alive with hunters and the hunted.

«God, that's me,» she whispered, tears of despair stinging her eyes.

She didn't have the benefit of natural camouflage most animals of the swamp possessed. She had to stand out like a beacon in the night in her white blouse and khaki slacks.

Some distance behind her she could hear someone crashing through the growth. As she forced herself to press on, she wondered if Perret had come after her on his own or if Willis had joined him. She changed directions again and started running.

If only she could see. If only she had the use of her hands. If only she weren't so damned scared. If only Lucky were there.

Lucky. She wondered if she'd ever see him again. It seemed a stupid thing to think of, all things considered, but she wondered if he had any idea how much she loved him. She wondered if she'd had any idea herself before now. Running for her life put a lot of things into perspective, and she found herself making promises to God. If I get out of this, I'll patch things up with Shelby, I'll forgive Gifford, I'll give more to charity, I'll try harder to reach Lucky.

She would see him again if she kept running. She had to believe that. If she kept running, everything would turn out all right. She would be safe, Burke would get caught, she would see Lucky again. If she kept running. If she got away.

The night air was like fire in her lungs. She could no longer hear anything except her own breathing and the thunderous beating of her heart. Her head was pounding. The damp, musty scent of the forest filled her nostrils. The spongy ground seemed to dip and rise beneath her feet. She felt completely disoriented, almost dizzy, hanging somewhere between hysteria and delirium.

She thought that if she could somehow get to Lucky's house she could use his CB radio to call for help or maybe she could find his gun. But she didn't make it to Lucky's house. An exposed root caught the toe of her loafer and pitched her headlong into the blackness. She landed on her face at the booted feet of Mean Gene Willis.

«COME ON, SWEET STUFF, LET'S GO SOMEWHERE WE can have us a little private party.»

Lucky regarded the blonde draping herself over his left side with ill-concealed impatience. The woman had no self-control and less sense of danger. She had approached him the instant he'd settled himself behind the comer table at Mouton's, too stubborn or too stupid to notice that everyone else in the place was giving him a wide berth. As well-endowed as she was in other respects, she had obviously gotten severely short-changed in the brain department. The woman couldn't take a hint. He had snarled and snapped at her, but the efforts had bounced off her shield of stupidity, leaving her unmoved.

It was aggravating. He hadn't come looking for an easy lay; he'd come looking for trouble. He had come in to soak his temper in cheap booze and hope some big fool would strike a spark to it and pick a fight with him. He felt a need to hit something. It was what he'd done the night before, and it was what he planned to continue to do with his nights until he got it out of his system.

The blonde had other ideas.

She leaned against him, tilting her head back and squeezing her breasts together with her upper arms to best display her cleavage. The black tank top she wore seemed to have been intended for a flat-chested twelve-year-old. It rode up well above the waistband of her skin-tight jeans and made it abundantly clear to one and all that she found wearing a bra too restricting. She seemed to have difficulty keeping her eyes open, probably due to the thickness of her blue eye shadow and the weight of her false lashes. Her silvery-blond hair-brown at the roots-had been teased and tormented into a frightening confection and lacquered into place with enough spray to put a hole in the ozone the size of Lake Pontchartrain. The earrings dangling from her lobes looked like small chandeliers.