She looked at me, and then she looked at Scrog. She didn't say anything.

'It's late,' Scrog said. 'You girls must be tired. You need to go to sleep. Tomorrow will be a big day. Special things doing tomorrow.' He reached under the bed and pulled out another length of chain with a shackle attached. 'I'll just clamp this onto your ankle,' he said to me, 'and then I can unlock the handcuffs.'

He reached for my ankle, and I kicked him in the head as hard as I could. I booted him back about three feet. He landed on his ass, and I went after him, catching him in the side with another kick. He managed to scoot away from me; he reached behind him, his hand moved toward me, and I got another jolt from the stun gun.

Twenty-one

When I came around I was on my back on the grungy floor in the bedroom. My shoes and socks had been removed, and the ankle shackle was locked in place. I waited for the noise to go away in my head and for everything to stop tingling before I tried to stand.

Julie was sitting up in bed, watching me. 'Good one,' she said.

That knocked me over. Good one. Julie Martine had grit. Maybe more than me at this point. I did a head roll and shrugged off the muscle cramps that come with taking a bunch of volts and crashing to the floor.

'It was lame,' I told her. 'Your father would have finished him off.'

'Do you mean Ranger? I don't know him real well.'

'He's very special.'

Julie lowered her voice. 'He's going to kill him. That's what he meant by tomorrow being a big day. Chuck says he can't be whole until Ranger is dead.'

'Who's Chuck?'

'That man. He wants me to call him Dad, but I won't do it. I call him Chuck. I don't think he even cares about you and me so much. I think it's Ranger he really wants.'

I wasn't completely surprised. It had crossed my mind that eventually Scrog would feel the need to eliminate Ranger.

'Chuck's crazy, isn't he?' Julie asked. 'He told me he's killed people. Like he was bragging about it. Has he really killed people?'

'I think he might have.'

That's so horrible,' Julie said.

'Has he treated you okay?'

'Yeah. I mean, I'm chained in here like an animal but he hasn't, you know, done anything to me. And my chain can reach to the bathroom.'

The sound of snoring carried from the other room. Murder and kidnapping obviously didn't weigh on Scrog's conscience. No tossing and turning trying to sleep. No late-night pacing.

So now what? Now you suck it up and look for a way out, I told myself. You do what Ranger told you to do. Focus on the goal. Push unproductive emotion away.

I got down on my hands and knees and looked to see how the chains were fastened. 'The bed is bolted to the floor and the chains are padlocked around the steel frame,' I told Julie.

'I know. I looked. I couldn't find a way to get free.'

I took the lantern and prowled the bedroom, looking for something that might be helpful, not finding anything.

'Tomorrow I'll look again when there's daylight,' I said to Julie.

'There's no daylight,' she said. 'He's blacked out all the windows. Half the time I don't know if it's night or day.'

'Rise and shine, ladies,' Scrog said, throwing a couple bags onto the bed. 'Breakfast is here.'

I looked in one of the bags. Twinkies, Ring Dings, Hostess pies, tiny bags of salted nuts, little boxes of raisins, candy bars. More of the same in the second bag.

'He robs convenience stores,' Julie said, selecting a box of raisins.

'It's an easy hit if you get there when they're opening up,' Scrog said. 'Problem is, they never have a lot of money. I need more money.'

'Where's the coffee?' I asked him.

'There's no coffee.'

'I can't get through the morning without coffee,' I told him. 'Do you have any idea how nuts I'm going to be without caffeine? I need coffee in the morning!'

Julie made a big pretense of opening a package of peanuts, but I could see she was enjoying my show.

'Jeez, don't go all PMS on me,' Scrog said. 'How was I supposed to know?'

I narrowed my eyes at him. 'Are you going to get me coffee?'

'No. I haven't got the time. I'm in the middle of something here. Boy, you think you're doing something nice for people and all you get is yelled at. I didn't have to rob that store, you know. I did it for you and the kid.'

He went back to the living area, leaving the bedroom door open. I heard him raise a shade, and some light filtered in to the bedroom.

'What are you doing out there?' I asked him.

'I'm building a bomb.'

Julie and I looked at each other, mouths open wide.

'What kind of bomb?' I asked Scrog.

'What do you mean? It's a bomb, for crissake. I got it off the Internet.'

'You have a computer here?'

'No. I went to the library. They have computers you can use.'

'So, what are you going to do with the bomb?'

'Shut up. I can't concentrate with you yammering. I'm almost done. I just have to connect a couple things. Eat a goddamn doughnut or something.'

'I already ate a doughnut and now I'm thirsty.'

'There's water in the bathroom. And anyway, we're going out, and you can get something to drink then.'

'Where are we going?'

'We're going to get money. I need more money.'

Scrog came into the bedroom carrying a packet that was about four inches by four inches and maybe an inch thick and entirely wrapped in duct tape. 'I'm gonna toss this onto the bed real gentle, along with the tape, and you're gonna strap it onto yourself,' he said.

'Is that the bomb?'

'Yeah. It's supposed to be pretty stable,' he said. 'It's not supposed to go off unless I push the button.'

'Not supposed to?'

'Hey cut me some slack. This is my first bomb.'

'I'm not strapping a bomb to myself,' I said.

'Well great, then how about I shoot the kid in the foot?'

'You wouldn't do that. You wouldn't shoot your kid.'

'I would if I had to. I'd shoot her in the foot, so she wouldn't die, and maybe she'd walk with a limp, but she'd get over it. It's in everyone's best interest. I need more money, and I don't trust you to just go out with me yet.'

'Why do you need all this money?' I asked him.

'I got a plan. I figure now that we're together we'll escape to Australia. No one will find us there. And we can all be bounty hunters. All we have to do is lay low for a while and everybody will forget about us. Like, while we're laying low we can drive to California. Then we get on a plane and next thing, we're in Australia.'

'Yeah, that's a good plan,' I said. 'What about passports?'

'Passports?'

'You can't move between countries without a passport.'

'Are you sure? Even Australia?'

'Duh-uh,' Julie whispered.

'Shit. I didn't think about passports. Okay, we'll just change the plan a little. We'll go to Mexico. Hell, we could go to Mexico in a little boat. Just sneak in after dark. Or we could probably just walk across in Texas. It would be cheaper, too. I wouldn't have to risk robbing a bank. I could keep robbing these little stores. I've already got a couple hundred saved up.'

'I know how we can get some money,' I told him. 'There's a high-risk bond that I just got a line on. If we could capture him my BEA fee would be around five thousand dollars. But there's a catch. If I get the money for you, you have to let us go.'

Not for a single minute did I think Scrog would let us go. What I thought was that he'd use me to get the money and in the process feed his ego and fulfill his bounty hunter fantasy. I figured if he had his way, he'd come back to this piece-of-shit motor home, lure Ranger here, and then kill us all.