No door.

She dropped to her knees and dug through the straw, sweeping it away until her fingers scraped cold, damp earth.

She was underground.

Daniel checked out the phone number he’d gotten from Willie and found it had a Seattle prefix. Now, in his office, he tried the number again. This time Adrian Tyler answered.

“This is Daniel Sinclair,” he began. “I’m a police officer in Egypt, Missouri.”

“Cleo,” the man said immediately, almost as if he’d been expecting Daniel’s call. “Something’s happened to Cleo.”

“Nothing’s happened,” Daniel said quickly, hoping to reassure him. “Are you her brother?”

“Yeah.” The panic was still heavy in the man’s voice. “What’s going on? Is Cleo all right?”

“It looks like your sister left town before fulfilling her obligations, but I’m just making sure that’s all there is to it. Have you heard from her?”

“Not for several days. What do you mean, left town? You’re talking about my sister as if she’s running some kind of scam. Tell me what you know, tell me what’s going on.”

Daniel told him about the empty motel room, leaving out the blood and syringe cap since he didn’t know if there was any connection.

“Cleo wouldn’t just leave without good reason. There had to be some reason. Something you’re not telling me.”

Daniel thought about the night before, about how upset Cleo had been when she’d left his house. He should have gone after her. “There were some reasons, things I won’t go into right now, but I know she wanted to leave. It was no surprise to find her room empty.”

“She would have called. She always leaves a number where she can be reached.”

“If you hear from her, call me,” Daniel told him. He gave him three different phone numbers, then hung up.

Cleo heard scraping, like the sound of wood being dragged across wood. Suddenly the hatch above her head creaked open and light seeped into the small, underground room. Her heart beating frantically in her chest, Cleo played dead as she lay on the floor, watching from under her arm as a ladder was lowered.

Burton Campbell climbed down the ladder. He wore the same shiny shoes he’d worn in the motel room, the same dark jeans. He bounced a little when his feet hit the straw, and he made a rustling sound as he approached.

“Cleo?” The voice was near, just a few inches away. He shook her arm. He slapped the side of her face. He rolled her to her back.

She moaned, but didn’t open her eyes.

Let him do something stupid. Let him make a mistake.

“I brought you some clothes.”

She heard the rustle of a paper bag.

“And something to drink.”

She heard the hiss of a plastic twist cap. A second later, water hit her face and she gasped and choked on the fluid, her body racked with spasms. When she could finally breathe again, she shoved herself to a sitting position and stared at him through watery eyes. “What…do you want?” she asked.

“I want you to shut up.” He managed to retain his pleasant voice, speaking as if they were discussing dental care.

“You think I know something about you, but I don’t know anything. Why don’t you let me go? I’ll leave. I’ll go far from here.”

“And not tell anybody about me?”

“I don’t know anything about you!”

He stroked his fingers down the side of her face. “You know everything about me.”

He sat in the straw and leaned back on one elbow, crossing his ankles. “Here.” He reached into the paper bag. “I brought something for you.” He pulled out a black nylon slip and tossed it at her.

She fingered the slick fabric. “This isn’t mine.”

“Put it on.”

She dropped it.

He picked up the slip and shoved it at her. “Put it on. Now.”

“No.” She threw it back at him.

“You want to know what’s funny?” he asked. “Nobody’s looking for you. Did I tell you that? Nobody. In fact, everybody’s glad you’re gone. Guess who I saw just a few hours ago? Ol’ Sheriff Sinclair. You know what he told me? He said, and these were his exact words, ‘I’m glad the bitch is gone.’ That’s what he said. ‘I’m glad the bitch is gone.’ So I guess what I’m getting at is that it’s just you and me. And you’d better be nice to me, you’d better do what I say, because I’m the one in control here. Now put on the slip.”

She picked up the piece of lingerie, then got shakily to her feet. With her back to him, she removed her top.

“Everything,” he said. “Take off everything.”

Hoping to buy herself time, she removed her bra, then slid the black fabric over her head. She reached under the hem to remove her jeans and panties, sliding them down her hips and stepping free, then she slowly turned around, arms at her sides.

“Nice.” He nodded then checked his watch. “I have an appointment in forty-five minutes.”

“Then I guess you’d better be on your way,” she said. When he was on the ladder, she would grab his ankle and knock him off balance. He would fall. She would get away. But he didn’t move toward the ladder. He moved toward her.

I can overpower him, she tried to tell herself.

He pulled something from the pocket of his jacket. A syringe.

He snapped off the cap and moved closer.

She fought him, but he was too strong. The needle plunged into her arm. While she still had strength, she swung and kicked. But soon the room tilted. Warmth seeped into her limbs, and she slumped to the ground.

She felt his hands stroking her legs, her thighs, moving higher. She wanted to push him away, but she couldn’t lift her arms.

He unzipped his pants while she tried to remove herself, tried to fly away.

Fly away, fly away.

She braced herself for the pain of his forced penetration.

Waiting, waiting.

He hit her. Hard, against the side of the face, the blow bringing her around. And then he was shoving himself away from her as if she had some disease, as if she were some sickening, rotten thing.

Open your eyes. You have to open your eyes.

Somehow she managed to open her eyes a crack, enough to see Campbell standing over her, zipping up his pants. He must not have been able to perform.

“Sinclair was right,” he said. “You are a bitch.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Inside room six of The Palms, the air conditioner had conked out. It had to be ninety degrees, the heat intensifying the smell of ancient body odor. Daniel was searching the space again, looking for any clues he might have missed the first time through.

He dumped the wastebasket on the bed, mentally cataloging the items. A couple of smashed paper cups, a straw, the magazine she’d asked to borrow that first day.

The used rubber.

He cringed at the memory of that night, but knew he had to stay focused.

The magazine was full of holes where pictures or articles had been removed.

Why?

He held the wastebasket to the edge of the bed and scooped the trash inside, the magazine hitting the bottom with a metallic thud.

On the wall was a dime-store landscape, the frame warped, colors faded. He lifted it from the wall, disgusted to find that it covered a peephole. He ripped the sheets from the bed then pulled off the stained mattress. Lying on the box spring was a yellowed piece of stationery with The Palms in faded green print across the top. Glued to the paper were pictures cut from the magazine.

Pictures of barns. It looked as though she’d cut out every barn image she could find, gluing them down, overlapping them.

Why the hell had she cut out pictures of barns? To convince any remaining skeptics of her validity? Or was there more to it than that?

He rubbed the back of his neck. He was probably the biggest sucker of all. He’d accused Jo of being scammed, but he was the one who in the end had refused to believe that Cleo had walked out on them. One mind-blowing night and he was suddenly one of her followers.