Nick’s index finger hovered just above the phone’s red-lettered End button, but he could not bring himself to disconnect the call. His mind was filled with the imagery and hideous screams of Jillian’s and Junie’s horrifying final moments. He pictured their blackened bodies in some landfill. He smelled their deaths.

“This offer has a limited shelf life, Doc. You know how Belle Coates died. I cut her a similar deal. A painless, peaceful end for her, and in exchange, sister Jillian got to live. I’m a man of my word. That you should know by now.”

Nick was hesitating, stalling as best he could, desperate for the sudden brilliant flash of an idea. Each turn in the maze led quickly to another dead end. Beaten, he bowed his head.

“The location of the DVD only after I know for certain that nobody suff ers. I have to see their deaths for myself. I can handle it so long as I know mine is next.”

It was Koller’s turn to think.

“My, my,” he said. “You are a source of constant surprises. I can always torture the information from you if you try and hold out on me. Okay, it’s a deal. You get to watch, I get the disc.”

Nick found it strange, but he believed Koller would keep his word. There were aspects of the monster that he had come to understand, including a twisted code of keeping his word, testified to by Jillian’s continued presence on the planet. What other option did Nick have? At least if he gave himself up, Jillian and Junie would be safe a while longer. Meanwhile, he would spend every moment searching for an opening. And in the end, if there was any chance, however small, of defeating Koller before he killed the women, he would take it.

“What now?” he asked.

“Give the phone back to the man you borrowed it from. Allow me to speak with him.”

Trembling, Nick handed the old man back his phone. Exhaustion, his wounds, and the battering his body had absorbed had him bracing himself on the front seat to remain upright.

“He wants to talk to you,” he said.

“Who is it?” the man asked.

“Better if you don’t know. But I really need you to talk to him.”

The man pressed the cell to his ear.

“Yes?… That would be exit thirteen, sir… Yes, I can do that… Okay, two and a half minutes, then… Yes, I understand.”

Nick could feel panic tightening his throat.

“What did he say?” he asked.

“I have two minutes and thirty seconds to get you down the highway and to drop you off at exit thirteen, or the deal’s off. That’s what he said.”

Nick leaped into the truck’s cab.

“Drive! Please drive! Two people’s lives are at stake.”

“Anything I can-?”

“Nothing! Just drive and drop me off, and then get as far away as possible.”

The old man’s weathered face blanched and he hit the gas pedal before Nick had even closed the door. His tires squealed on the wet pavement and the pickup skidded into oncoming traffic, nearly broadsiding a minivan.

“We got two minutes, but the exit ain’t that far. What sort of trouble are you in, son?”

“I’m dealing with a very bad, sick, dangerous man. It won’t concern you as soon as I’m gone, but take this card.” Nick worked his sodden wallet from his back pocket and fished out Don Reese’s limp business card. “When you’re far enough away, and I mean several miles down the road, call this man. He’s a detective. Tell him that Nick’s been taken somewhere. Leave a message if you get his voice mail.”

“Nick’s been taken. That all?”

“The less you know, the safer you’ll be.”

As it is he’s probably going to get a look at your license plate number.

Nick set Reese’s business card on the truck’s dash.

“We got a minute and a half,” the man said. “I ain’t got no wife anymore. Died some years back. Nowadays, I live for fixing up old trucks, driving new ones, and watching NASCAR with the boys. But I sure wish I could help you out more.”

“That makes two of us,” Nick said.

“Almost thirty seconds to spare.”

“Nice going. I really appreciate it.”

The man pulled the truck off the highway just past the exit thirteen cutoff. They peered out through the rain-dotted windows for another vehicle, but saw none that were parked.

“Doesn’t seem to be anybody here,” the old man said.

Suddenly, the driver’s side door flew open as if blown by the wind. Koller leaped inside, shoving the driver over as if he were a doll, sandwiching him between himself and Nick. Then, without uttering a word, Koller grabbed the man’s head between his hands, and in a single, powerful twist, snapped his neck with a sickening crack of bone. The cab instantly filled with a foul stench as his bowels and bladder let go.

“You fucking bastard!” Nick screamed.

Koller leveled his gun on him.

“Nothing you can do will save him now. But a deal’s a deal, Doc. And you just cut one with me you don’t want to go back on. That’s a promise.”

With the dead man riding between them, Koller eased the truck into the flow of traffic. The rain was falling harder now.

CHAPTER 48

“If you light up in here, young man,” Junie said, “I promise you I’m going to throw up.”

“Even with the door and windows open?”

“You could cut the roof off this bus with a giant can opener and I’d still vomit. It’s like an allergy. A person smokes around me indoors, I throw up. Just go outside. You’ll be looking right at us through the windows while you give yourself cancer and emphysema and heart disease. But what you won’t be looking at, darlin’, is this old lady getting violently ill.”

The guard, a handsome, well-built African-American man in his thirties, glanced about the RV, clearly pondering what problems could possibly arise from leaving the two women handcuff ed to the supports of the dining table while he smoked outside. Finally, he unfolded his six-foot frame from the passenger chair and stepped easily down to the dirt-covered floor of the barn.

“I’ve seen you smoke, Junie,” Jillian whispered.

“Only one a day. It’s a deal I made with Sam when we got married. I’ve never broken the deal, not once, but God, does that one Marlboro taste fine.”

“Junie, we can’t just sit here waiting for them to kill us. We’ve got to do something.”

“We’re not going to be as easy as I was when they hijacked the RV. The guy was already behind the curtain in the exam room, waiting for me when I left to go pick up Nick’s replacement for the night. Let’s vow right now we won’t go down without a fight.”

“Any sense of where Nick might be?”

“I’m worried, that’s for sure. But I’m also worried they might be using us to get at him.”

“All the more reason to fight. The question is, how do we deal with an armed guard while we’re handcuff ed?”

“You may not be able to tell yet, but I’m softening him up. I remind him of his mother.”

“How do you know that?”

“I remind every man of his mother.”

“What do we do after you’ve got him softened?”

“I’m counting on you for that one, sweetie. You’re the psych nurse.” It had been five uncomfortable hours since Paul Regis, or whatever his name was, had led Jillian to his car on the pretext of getting some papers for her to sign. Over coffee, he had been charming, worldly, funny, and complimentary, even after she had told him she had met someone, and so she was totally unprepared when he grabbed her wrist and viciously twisted her arm behind her back. In almost the same movement, he shoved her facedown onto the passenger side floor, hoisted her into the car by her belt, and demanded she hold her hands together behind her back. By the time they arrived at the farm-somewhere north and west of D.C., she guessed-her forehead and one cheek were rubbed raw by the carpet.

It was late afternoon when the car finally stopped and Regis opened the passenger’s side door. They were parked in a broad field, flat and verdant. Facing them, in parallel, were four large, weatherworn barns, the sort used for storing and curing tobacco. Some distance behind the barns was a small whitewashed house, but there was no farming equipment anywhere, and no corrals or other signs that livestock was about.