Something in her didn’t want to present her back to that closed door and all those windows. To Seth.

Her instincts screamed in her brain, demanding that she admit why.

And suddenly she did. The shocking possibility took shape and flashed in her head.

Ridiculous. But not impossible.

Her steps slowed as she walked down the driveway, to Seth’s covered pickup. An American-made one. Late-model.

She didn’t touch it, just peered through the driver’s-side window into the cab. Nothing.

Walking to the back, she looked in that window. And saw something that turned her blood to a river of ice.

It was a backpack. A child’s ninja-warrior backpack, the type a seven- or eight-year-old boy might like, lay on the floor of the truck. A few boyish toys spilled out of it.

“Oh, fuck,” she whispered, slowly backing away from the window, her hand rising to her mouth.

It couldn’t be, could it? Seth Covey? Quiet, unassuming, twenty-year-old Seth?

The wheels turned, the gears clicking into place in her head. That night at Dick’s, his father had feared his son had been there and had left early. Had he, in truth, seen him or his truck lurking around the tavern?

The video and computer equipment-of course Randy would steal it for his son.

Tim had said Seth used to do the ride-alongs with Randy. Perhaps to the very mall where the last victim had been snatched?

He didn’t seem to care about his father’s accident, wanting to stay inside his dark, empty home. Quiet, secretive, secluded. Her father’s house was the only other one for two miles. Nobody would hear anything while his grandmother and father were out.

The pieces continued to fall into place.

The mother who’d walked out. The grandmother who was so bitter, possibly even abusive. She had hated Randy’s teenage wife, Seth’s mom, had called her dirty even in the presence of others. Good God, how many times had Seth heard that growing up?

Dirty.

Quiet, soft-spoken Seth who had always been so incredibly bright as a kid. Smarter than anyone else his age, yet had shown no interest in going to college or doing anything with himself. He just wanted to play… “Video games,” she whispered.

She darted for her car, yanking the door open, grabbing her phone out of her pocket and the handset off her radio at the same time. She punched in Dean’s number, getting his voice mail. “It’s me. Get to the Covey house now. It’s Seth. I think Seth’s the Reaper. And I think he already has a little boy inside the house.”

She cut the call, lifted the handset, and put out a call for backup. The deputy handling dispatch promised to get help out there right away, within fifteen minutes at the most.

Not good enough. Seth knew she was here; he was spooked. That child might not have fifteen minutes.

She checked her Glock, got out of the car, and ducked behind Seth’s truck, trying to keep out of sight of the house. Front door? Back? Maybe even the Bilco access doors for the basement, just visible on the side of the house?

Before she could decide, she heard a car coming up the driveway. No way could her backup be here so fast.

Only it was. The best damn backup she’d ever seen in her life.

“Stacey!” Dean said as he jumped out of the sedan. Darting over, he joined her behind the truck, both of them instinctively taking cover. “I heard on the radio about a little boy who went missing fifty miles south of here last night. Local yokels tried to handle it themselves and didn’t go public for hours.”

“You came back to tell me?” she asked, knowing he had to have been almost here when she’d left the phone message.

“That, and I had a bad feeling. I was calling Wyatt to tell him about the report when you called. Couldn’t click over in time. Jesus, I just heard your voice mail as I pulled into the driveway and almost had a heart attack until I saw you were okay.”

Staying low, she gestured toward the rear window of the truck.

He glanced in and saw. Tension sizzled off his hard form as he growled, “The description of the kid mentioned that backpack.”

“That’s called probable cause.”

“Damn right it is.”

They both peered around the side of the truck at the house. “He came up from the basement. The window on the east side goes into the kitchen; basement door is about six feet from it, on the right.”

“Got it.”

With matched gaits, they darted toward the house, staying low. They certainly wouldn’t fool Seth into a sense of security if he looked out the window and saw the vehicles. But he might not be expecting them to go on the offensive so soon. Especially not just the two of them.

If they were lucky, he hadn’t looked outside. He might not even know Dean was here.

Reaching the end of the porch, they climbed up over the rails onto it, avoiding the steps. With weapons upraised, they positioned themselves on either side of the window. Dean silently counted down, then jabbed his elbow sharply toward the center pane just below the lock. Glass tinkled, but the blow was precise and only the one pane broke.

He reached in, unlocked the window, and slid it up, both of them watching the closed basement door. It remained closed.

Dean climbed in first; she followed. Slowly crossing the kitchen, they eased open the door, peering down into the dimly lit stairwell, which, as she recalled, ended outside the rec room Randy had finished. A sharp turn led down a short hallway to a series of other small, finished rooms, one of which was Seth’s.

They crept down, covering each other. Dean faced the bottom, Stacey backing step by step with her weapon pointing up in case Seth had hidden upstairs, lying in wait for them.

Her feet had just hit the floor when she heard the slam. It came from down the narrow hallway, in one of the back rooms.

“The Bilco doors,” she snapped, immediately recognizing the metallic clang and squeal.

They both hurried toward the sound, hoping to stop Seth from escaping. But as they skidded into the last room, with its low-hanging ceiling and uneven, damp cement floor, they realized they were too late. Sunlight poured from the open doors that led from the darkness up into the day.

Neither of them raced up the steps, however. Because they were both entirely focused on the small cot in the center of the room. And the nightmare that had been taking place down here in the hellish dark.

“Oh, my God, is he…?”

Dean fell to his knees beside the cot, touching the boy who lay there, still, pale, silent. He listened to his chest, touched the tips of his fingers to his throat. It seemed like an eternity before he finally muttered, “He has a pulse. It’s slow and thready, but he’s alive.”

So relieved she almost cried, Stacey knelt, too. Using her pocketknife, she cut through the duct tape binding the child’s hands and feet. He remained utterly motionless, and she surmised that he had been drugged.

Seeing a towel on the floor, covered with a few tools and implements, she shook it empty and dragged it over the boy, trying to keep him warm and protected from the cold, damp air of the basement. “It’s okay, honey. It’s okay; you’re going to be fine. We’re not going to leave you.”

He didn’t groan or whimper; in fact he barely even breathed as she gently wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Now that they thought they’d saved him from certain death, she prayed that whatever Seth had given the child to knock him out didn’t kill him anyway.

As Dean called 911, she looked around and immediately saw the tripod. It stood at the foot of the cot, set low to the ground. It was empty, but had a camera been attached, it would have been level with the boy.

At its base were wires that had been quickly disconnected. They ran to a state-of-the-art desktop computer, which was turned on. The screen was awash with odd, vivid colors. Toys, swings, grass, a blue sky.