The girls had stopped weeping when Mail opened the van door. He took them out, single file, through the side door of the old farm house and straight into the basement. The basement smelled wet, smelled of fresh dirt and disinfectant. Mail had cleaned it not long ago, she thought. A small spark of hope: he wasn't going to kill them. Not right away. If they had a little time, just a little time, she could work on him.

Then he locked them away. They listened for him, fearful, expecting him back at any moment, Genevieve asking, over and over, "Mom, what's he going to do? Mom, what's he going to do?" , A minute became ten minutes, and ten minutes an hour, and the girls finally slept while Andi put her back to the wall and tried to think…

Mail came for her at three in the morning, drunk, excited.

"Get out here," he growled at her. He had a beer can in his left hand. The girls woke at the sound of the latch, and they crawled across the mattress until they had their backs to the wall, but curled, like small animals in a den.

"What do you want?" Andi said. She kept looking at her watch, as if this were a normal conversation and she was on her way somewhere else. But the fear made her voice tremble, as much as she tried to control it. "You can't keep us here, John. It's not right."

"Fuck that," Mail said. "Now get out here, goddamnit."

He took a step toward her, his eyes dark and angry, and she could smell the beer.

"All right. Don't hurt us, just don't hurt us. Come on, girls…"

"Not them," Mail said. "Just you."

"Just me?" Her stomach clutched.

"That's right." He smiled at her and put his free hand on the door-sill, as though he needed help staying upright. Or maybe he was being cool. He'd teased his hair into bangs, and now she realized that in addition to the beer, she could smell aftershave or cologne.

Andi glanced at the girls, then at Mail, and at the girls again. "I'll be right back," she said. "John won't hurt me."

Neither of the girls said a word. Neither of them believed her.

Andi walked around him, as far away as she could. In the outer basement, the air was cooler and fresher, but the first thing she noticed was that he'd dragged another mattress down the stairs. She stepped toward the stairs as the steel door clanged shut behind her and Mail said, "Don't move."

She stopped, afraid to move, and he walked around her, until he was between her and the door. He stared at her for a moment, a little out of balance, she thought. He was seriously drunk, and his eyes looked closed in, heavy-lidded, and his lips curled in an ugly, contemptuous smile.

"They don't have any idea where you're at or who took you," he said. He nearly laughed, but somewhere, under there, he was a bit unsure of himself, she thought. "They been talking about it on the radio all night. They're running around like chickens with their heads cut off."

"John, they'll come sooner or later," Andi said. "Your best option, I believe…" She automatically fell into her academic voice, the slightly dry observational tone that she used when dealing with patients on a sensitive point. A tone that seemed educated and aristocratic at the same time, and often sold her viewpoint on its own.

Not this time.

Mail moved very quickly, shockingly quickly, like a middleweight boxer, and slapped her face hard, nearly knocking her down. An instant before, she'd been a Ph.D. applying psychology; now she was a wounded animal, trying to find its balance before it became simply meat.

Mail stepped close to her, close enough to smell, close enough to see the texture in his jeans, and he snarled, "Don't you ever talk that way. And they're never gonna find us. Never in this world. Now stand up straight. Stand the fuck up."

She had her hand to her face, nothing coherent in her head: her thoughts were like Scrabble pieces on a dropped board. There was a crunching sound and she looked toward Mail, who was watching her, still angry. He'd crushed the beer can in his hand, and now he threw it into a corner, where it clattered off the wall and then bounced back toward them.

"Let's see 'em," he said.

"What?" She had no idea.

"Let's see 'em," he said.

"What?" Stupidly, shaking her head.

"Your tits, let's see your tits."

She tried to back away, one step, two, but there was no place to go. Behind her, an old coal-burning furnace stood like an old, close-cropped oak, the coal door open and leaning to the left; and behind it, a dark space, a place she really didn't want to go. "John, you don't want to hurt me. John," she said. "I took care of you."

He thrust a finger at her. "You don't want to talk about that. You don't want to talk about that. You took care of me, all right, you sent me down to the fuckin' hospital. You took care of me, all right." He looked around wildly, then saw the beer can on the floor. He'd forgotten that he'd finished it. He came back at her. "Come on, let's see 'em."

She crossed her arms over her chest. "John, I can't…"

And as quickly as he had before, he hit her again, open-handed, not quite as hard. When she put her hands up, he hit her again, and then again. She couldn't block the blows, she couldn't stop, she couldn't even see them coming.

Then he was on her, slamming her back against the stone wall, ripping at her jacket, at her blouse. She screamed at him, "No, don't, John…"

And he swatted her again, knocked her down, pulling her hair, guiding her to the mattress, and landed on top of her, straddling her waist. She struck at him, flailed uselessly. He caught her hands, brought them together, took them in one of his, held them. She couldn't see him very well, realized that she was bleeding, that she had blood in one eye.

"John…" She began to weep, not believing that he could go on.

But he did.

When he was done, he was angrier than when he had started.

He made her dress, as best she could-her blouse was ripped nearly in half, and he took her bra away from her-and then thrust her back in the cell.

Both of the girls, even the small Genevieve, knew what had happened. When Andi dropped onto the mattress, they automatically curled around her and held her head, while the steel door clanged shut.

Andi couldn't cry.

Her eyes had dried, or something. When she thought of Mail-not his face, not his voice, but the smell of him-she wanted to gag, and sometimes did, a reflexive clutching of her throat and stomach.

But she couldn't cry.

She hurt, though. She was bruised, and felt small muscle pulls and tears, when she'd struggled and twisted against his strength. There wasn't any blood: she checked herself, and though she felt raw, he hadn't ripped anything.

She was dry-eyed, stunned, when Mail came back.

They felt something, a muffled part of the sound, vibrations from the floor above, and knew he was coming. They were all facing the door, sitting on the mattress, when the door opened. Andi tucked her skirt beneath her.

Mail was wearing jeans, a plaid shirt, and wrap-around sunglasses, and held a pistol. He stood in the open door for a moment, then said, "I can't keep all of you." He pointed at Genevieve. "Come on, I'm taking you out."

"No, no," Andi blurted. She caught Genevieve's arm, and the girl pulled into her side. "No, John, please, no, don't take her, I'll take care of her here, she won't be a problem, John…"

Mail looked away. "I'll take her out to the Wal-mart and drop her off. She's smart enough to call the cops and get back home."

Andi stood up, pleading. "John, I'll take care of her, honest to God, she won't be a problem."

"She is a problem. Just thinking about her in my head, she's a problem." He pointed the pistol at Grace, who flinched away. "I gotta keep her, because she's too old and she could bring the cops back. But the kid, here-I'll put a bag on her head and take her out to the van and drop her at Wal-Mart."