“My pretty bitch,” came the voice from the foot of the mattress.

It was low, husky, and horrifyingly familiar.

“I’m going to enjoy you. And you’re going to enjoy me.”

She knew it was Sam.

“Melody, get me out of here. Your husband is a goddamn freak!”

There was no answer from Melody.

“It’s just you and me,” he said. “You’re the one I’ve been waiting for.”

He touched her inner thigh, and she screamed.

“I like a fighter. Carol was a fighter. Skye and the others, not so much.”

Serenity didn’t seek clarification. She knew who he was talking about. She started to speak to her sister, but she felt herself slipping into darkness. She fought it, but her strength failed her. As blackness came, she heard the sound of an electric drill pulse and saw the glint of a rhinestone tiara.

“She’ll have that crown on when they find her,” Sam said. She heard him fish for something in a box next to the mattress.

“I need two molly bolts, goddamn it,” he said. “Who has been messing with my stuff?”

Chapter Sixty

April 6, 2:40 p.m.

Key Peninsula

Kendall and Josh parked the SUV and BMW on the road outside the gate. They’d arrived at the location in the woods within moments of each other.

“The video cam is a phony,” Josh said, getting out if his BMW. “Serenity told me that Sam Castile is one of those guys who’s more into looks than reality. Wants the world to see him as some big deal instead of just an average guy.”

“Let’s leave the cars here,” she said.

The pair walked quietly along the bracken-fern-fringed driveway toward the log-built home. The scene was eerily quiet with the kind of heavy, oppressive stillness that comes in the spring when the Northwest’s cool marine air loses out to the season.

“Her car’s not here,” Josh said, looking around.

Kendall crept up to the glass panes of the garage door and peered inside.

“Oh,” she said in a whisper, “yes it is.”

The missing reporter’s familiar car was parked inside. Up in the rafters, Kendall caught a sliver of yellow.

Carol Godding’s canoe.

Inside the Fun House, a muted alarm had sounded.

Melody Castile peered out the window of the back bedroom, where she’d been reading a magazine. Sam had been firm in his demand that she should just sit and wait. He’d call her to the mattress when he was good and ready. No matter what she heard, the only command that she should heed would be his words to join him.

She looked through a hole scratched in the foil covering the window. She craned her neck. It was like peering through the scope of a rifle: She could see only what was directly ahead. There were no peripheral cues. She caught only a fleeting glimpse of the sheriff’s detectives and hurried down the hallway. She opened the door to the darkened room, where she found an oily and sweaty Sam next to her sister, now gagged with an athletic sock.

“Sam, someone’s here. The police, maybe-I don’t know. But someone’s here.”

The smell of the sex, oil, and sweat nearly made her vomit. For a second she felt a twinge of sorrow for Serenity.

But only for a second.

“Jesus, bitch!” Sam said, looking at her, then at Serenity and Paige. “Finish her!” He stood up, his penis erect and protruding from a leather getup, part jockstrap and part chaps, designed for the wearer’s pleasure alone.

“No,” she said.

“Prove your love to me, bitch.”

Melody hesitated, then took a step backward. “No, she’s my sister.”

“She’s a loser. You’re a loser. Deal with it. Do as I say! I’ll do the beauty queen.”

Melody stood frozen, no reaction on her face.

“Do you hear me?” He balled up a fist as if to strike her.

Not again. Not anymore.

There were three things she could do: She could run. She could fight him. She could do as she was told.

Serenity’s eyes were submerged in tears. She twisted her wrists and her feet, but she could hardly move. She was trapped. Her sister-her only sister-was standing over her with a box cutter in her hand.

“Cut me a piece of her,” he said.

“I…I…” Melody pushed the lever that extended the blade and dropped to her knees.

Chapter Sixty-one

April 6, 3 p.m.

Key Peninsula

There was a dark prescience, A sense of foreboding that frequently came with the job. Kendall had felt the fear of what they might find on the Castile property the instant she stepped out of her car. Guns drawn, she and Josh circled the rooms of the house in the woods. It looked so mundane. Hunting and fishing paraphernalia hung on the peeled-wood logs of the walls, but the rest of the décor seemed bland and so average. Like an average family lived there.

By then both investigators knew that Sam, Melody, and little Max were far from average.

They heard a crash coming from the mobile home on the side of the property, and they followed each other outside. Smoke streamed from a window.

“Calling for a fire unit,” Kendall said, making the notification.

“There’s no way any responders are getting out here,” Josh said, going for the garden hose. “Probably should let the dump burn,” he said.

Kendall went up the steps toward the door, which was ajar.

“Help me! Help me!”

The smoke roiled at her, and Kendall got down on her knees. She turned and called to Josh over her shoulder, “Someone’s trapped inside! I’m going in!”

Josh dropped the hose and ran in the direction of the mobile.

“Help!”

The voice belonged to Serenity.

As she made her way inside, Kendall heard the back door of the mobile slam against its cheap aluminum frame.

“Josh! Go around the back! Castile is making a run for it!”

Kendall began to cough from the smoke, but she crawled deeper into the mobile. Accelerant of some kind had been used to set the fire. The fumes were from gasoline or turpentine. She’d recalled the workbench she’d seen while peering into the garage: rows of paint, bales of wire, nails, cleaning solutions…She put her hand over her mouth and nose to stifle her choking, but the smoke was already inside her lungs. She was sure that if she started hacking, she’d have to stop, and whoever was trapped would surely die.

Where was the fire unit?

“We’re in here!”

This time the voice was not familiar.

Crawling on the floor under the blanket of black, acrid smoke, Kendall propelled herself in the direction of the back bedroom. In the dim light, she made out the figure of a woman frantically trying to free another from bondage.

“Dear God,” she said, “are you all right?”

“Please, get us out of here!” Serenity screamed.

Melody, whose face appeared bloodied, shouted, “Get all of us out of here!”

For the first time, Kendall noticed that Serenity was not alone on that mattress. The body of Paige Wilson, curled in a ball, was next to her.

“Oh, God,” she said. “Paige! Can you hear me?”

Kendall helped Melody undo the straps that pinned Serenity to the mattress. Finally free, the reporter got on her hands and knees, then pulled herself up and stood. Her mouth moved, but nothing came out at first-it just opened and closed without emitting a sound. Her body was red with blood, but she had not been cut. Dried tears streaked her cheeks.

Kendall, tears rolling down her cheeks, hooked her hands under Paige’s arms and started to drag her.

“Help me!” she said to Melody, who stood still in the thickening smoke.

“Oh, yes,” she said, grabbing Paige as Serenity stumbled in front of them.

The four made it outside, heaving and coughing, their eyes stinging from the fumes. Kendall removed her jacket and put it over Paige, checking her pulse.