“We split up,” Waters murmured.

“Finesse job,” Griffin said. “David's armed and he won't hesitate to use Meg as a shield. Basically, it's a hostage situation that, given the neighborhood, could rapidly grow worse.”

“Contain him,” Fitz muttered.

“Yeah. Meg is bad enough. We don't want him to end up in another home, with an entire family to torment.”

No one asked the next logical question-at what point did they sacrifice Meg to contain Price? They had to hope it wouldn't come down to that.

“All right,” Griffin said.

They got out of the car, got out their firearms, and one by one disappeared into the fiery dusk.

The doctors poured in. Kids, really, in oversized lab coats raced into Carol's room and surrounded Dan's wife. Her left leg was twitching, her right arm thrashing. The machine beeped and the doctors shouted strange codes to the nurses, who were already pushing Dan aside as they scrambled for more equipment and one helluva big syringe.

“Carol, Carol, Carol…”

“You need to leave, sir.”

“My wife…”

“A doctor will be with you shortly, sir.”

“Carol-”

The nurse shut him firmly out of the room. He stood outside, alone in the hallway, while the doctors yelled, the machine beeped and his wife's body convulsed on the bed.

David touched her. His fingers stroked Meg's cheek and gently feathered back her hair. She tried to turn away, but she couldn't escape. He had taken off her blindfold first thing. All the better to see you, my dear, he'd crooned. The sudden glare of the bare overhead light hurt her eyes.

“You grew up,” David said now. “Pity.”

He ran one finger up her arm, then raised it to his lips and sucked her blood off his fingertip.

“You've been busy, my dear. Look at the mess you've made. It didn't help you at all, but it's sweet that you tried. Did Ronnie tell you I was coming, Meg? Did you work yourself into such a state, simply for me?”

She still had the gag in her mouth, so she didn't bother to reply.

“Well, I really can't delay too long,” David said briskly. “So let's get you unhooked and down to business.”

Meg eyed him warily. She could see the butt of a gun sticking up from the waistband of his pants. One side of his shirt carried a red stain, and his right cheek was flecked with blood. He reeked of gunpowder and death. She had no illusions what that meant.

He slipped his hand behind his back. It emerged with an ugly, black-sheathed knife.

“Courtesy of Jerry,” he told her, though she didn't understand whom he meant.

She watched him unsnap the leather sheath. She watched the large, serrated hunting knife slide into view, the overhead light caressing the menacing edge. She should've worked the wall anchor more. She should've tried harder. Who cares that her arms and shoulders had ached. Whatever David did to her now was going to hurt far, far worse.

He rested the tip of the blade against her collarbone. It felt cool and sharp against her sweat-soaked skin.

She closed her eyes, pressed her back against the wall and tried to tell herself it couldn't hurt forever. Everything, even pain, had to end. Poor Molly. Poor Mom and Dad. Poor Jillian and Carol… Poor Meg. She had been getting things together. Really, even without a memory, she had been looking forward to getting on with her life. And now… The knife moved. She whimpered helplessly…

And David cut her down.

Her arms fell forward abruptly, her bound hands hitting her stomach like a rock. In the next instant, blood flow returned to her strained limbs, prickling nerve endings to sudden life, and she nearly screamed at the sudden whomp of pain.

Watching her, David laughed. “Yeah, sometimes the recovery is worse than the injury. You know, I've spent the last year getting into yoga. Take it from me, if you had conditioned your muscles properly to begin with, it wouldn't hurt so much now. Jesus, Meg, did you wet your pants?”

She wanted to hit him. She couldn't move her arms. They felt strange and rubbery, as if they no longer belonged to her. And her shoulders felt different, overly loose. Parts were assembled, but someone hadn't done the wiring right.

“I had planned on playing here for a while,” David announced matter-of-factly, “but the fact that Ronnie's absent leads me to believe he might have been detained, and if Ronnie's been detained, then this house is no longer safe. In the good-news department, I see he's already procured a car. What do you say, Meg? Let's go for a ride. For no reason at all, I'm going to have you start the engine first.”

He stepped toward the stairs and when she didn't automatically follow, he looked back at her with a frown. “Come on, don't be shy.” Then his gaze fell and he finally noticed her bound ankles. “Well, well, looks like Ronnie didn't like to leave anything to chance. Believe me when I say I know exactly how you feel. Come on, I need you to walk.”

David got the knife back out. He bent and started sawing through the latex ties. The material finally snapped free. He looked up at her with a smile.

Meg smiled back. And then she drove her knee as hard as she could into the underside of his chin. His jaw cracked sharply. His face went bone-white as the pain ricocheted up to his forehead. David stumbled back, still gripping the knife.

Don't give him time to recover, their self-defense instructor had told them. Don't give your attacker time to think.

Meg lashed her foot out at David's groin; he blocked her with his thigh. She drove her foot down into his tender instep. He made a funny noise in the back of his throat. She went after the side of his kneecap and he finally went down.

She wanted his gun. She wanted his knife. She wanted to stick her fingers in his eye sockets and dig for his brain. But her fingers wouldn't move, her arms wouldn't obey.

Meg whirled toward the wooden staircase with her useless, bloody arms. She started to run.

Behind her, David yelled, “One more step, you fucking bitch, and I will blow you away!”

Meg didn't stop.

David opened fire.

Griffin was easing along the front of the house, approaching the front door, when he heard the first gunshot. It was quickly followed by many more. He ducked low, grabbed the doorknob with his left hand while holding his Beretta with his right. Twist, turn, he rolled into the front entryway and came up in time to see David Price standing at the top of the basement stairs only four feet away. David was bellowing, “I'M GONNA KILL YOU, BITCH!” and brandishing a gun that matched Griffin's own-apparently David had armed himself courtesy of his state police escorts.

Griffin squeezed the trigger just as David spotted him, dodged right and returned fire. Shit! Griffin hurtled himself into the room on the left, getting off a few wild shots while David splintered the floorboards at his feet. Another shape suddenly appeared on Griffin's left-Fitz, emerging through the side patio door.

Griffin yelled: “Down!”

David raised the barrel and squeezed off another shot as Fitz hit the ground.

Griffin fired again. David whirled around the corner into the kitchen, where he had access to the next flight of stairs.

“Damn!” Fitz swore into Griffin's ear, crawling to his feet. “I think he took out the last of my hair.”

“Where's Meg?”

“I don't know, but he shot the hell out of something in the basement.”

“You go down, I go up.”

“And let you have all the fun?”

“You get the girl.”

“Oh yeah. Enough said.”

Griffin scrambled across the floor, on his hands and knees now and finding the shattered flooring the hard way. He drove four splinters into his forearms before he finally arrived at the entranceway to the kitchen. He reached in with one hand, toppled a small table onto its side and dove behind it for cover.