Wednesday, 12:03 p.m. PST

RAINIE COULDN ’T FIND DOUGIE. She waded frantically into the cold, dark waters, calling his name, churning the depths with her arms. She shivered uncontrollably, shorn wet hair plastered to her skull, T-shirt glued to her body.

“Dougie! Dougie, Dougie, Dougie!”

Her leg bumped something hard. She dove down, discovered the leg of the workbench. She was moving in the wrong direction. He’d been to the left of the bottom of the stairs. At least that’s what she’d thought. It was hard to get her bearings down in the endless dark.

She heard a gasp, a gurgle. Dougie burst up from the water, gasping for air.

“No, no, no!” he cried, then sank down again.

“Dammit!” She pushed off from the workbench, water now so deep it was easier to swim. She felt a hand flail against her hip. She dove down, looped her bound arms around the boy’s waist, and dragged him to the surface.

“Let me go! I don’t want to live! I don’t want to live!” Dougie pushed against her shoulders, flailing at her head, scratching her face.

Rainie let him go. Then she drew back her hands, knotted them into a fist, and slugged Dougie across the jaw. The boy went limp. She dragged his unconscious form over to the steps.

She had to climb up seven steps to get out of the steadily growing flood. Then she collapsed next to Dougie, coughing uncontrollably, while chills raced up and down her body.

Her temples screamed with pain. She wanted to clutch her head, beat it against the wooden step. Instead, she staggered to the side of the stairs and vomited violently.

Her left leg wouldn’t stop shaking. Red-hot bolts of pain ebbed and flowed. Her leg shook against the steps. She kicked Dougie twice, not meaning to, and his eyes opened.

He looked at her, realized she had dragged him from the water, and scowled.

Rainie took a deep breath. “Dougie Jones,” she told him with all the force she could muster, “I have been angry at you, and I have been frustrated with you, but never, ever have I been disappointed in you! You weak, cowardly little boy, don’t you ever do that again! You hear me? Never!”

Dougie remained staring at her, jaw set stubbornly. “I got out of bed,” he said suddenly. “My mommy told me not to. But I got up. I undid all the locks, I opened the front door, which is a Very Bad Thing. ‘Dougie,’ my mommy said, ‘you can’t keep disappearing outside. Someone’s going to get hurt.’ But I did it. And she died. Now you’re trying to be like my mommy and you’re going to die, too.”

“Oh, Dougie. You did not kill your mother.”

“Yes, I did. I opened the front door. I did a Very Bad Thing. I killed her.” Dougie’s lower lip had started to tremble. His shoulders hunched, his chin folding into his chest, as if, by sheer force of will, he could cease to exist.

Rainie couldn’t help herself; she reached out her hands. But at first contact, Dougie flinched.

“You didn’t kill your mother, Dougie,” she stated firmly. “She went to get milk, which is what mothers do. And you woke up and went looking for her. Sometimes that’s what four-year-olds do. But what killed your mother that night was a drunk driver. He hit her shortly after she left the apartment complex, before she ever knew you had gotten out of bed. It wasn’t your fault. It wasn’t her fault. It was simply a tragedy. I know, sweetheart, I’ve read the police report.”

“I left the room.”

“She didn’t know, honey. She was still walking to the grocery store.”

“I did a Very Bad Thing.”

“But that’s not what hurt your mommy, sweetheart. It was a drunk driver who killed your mother. Not you, Dougie. Someone else.”

A long pause. “Someone else?”

“Yes, Dougie. Someone else.”

“Rainie,” Dougie said quietly, “I want my mommy back.” Then Dougie started to cry.

This time, Rainie curled her arms around him. She pulled his wet, trembling form onto her lap. Dougie sobbed harder, face buried into the crook of her shoulder. He cried angrily. He cried noisily. He cried himself into a series of small, pathetic hiccups that hurt more than real tears.

“Shhhh, Dougie. Shhhh, it’s going to be all right. Everything’s going to be all right.”

But she knew she lied as soon as she said the words. For the water was already at their feet, and they had only seven more steps on the staircase to go.

Wednesday, 12:18 p.m. PST

WHEN THE WORST OF DOUGIE ’S SOBBING had stopped, Rainie very carefully pulled away. Her hands were still bound; any chance of cutting the plastic ties had probably disappeared with the glass shard somewhere in the dark churning water. She didn’t worry about that anymore.

“Dougie,” she said firmly. “We’re going to get out of here.”

The boy sniffled, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, while staring at her uncertainly.

“You remember the light above the door? The one where you broke the bulb?”

“Yeah.”

“We’re going to put you on my shoulders again, except this time, you’re going to tear down the grille surrounding the light.”

“It’s metal.”

“Yes, but you’re strong and you can do this. Then we’re going to take that grille and use it to break the basement windows.”

“They’re too high.”

“Not anymore, Dougie. We can swim right over.”

The boy turned, seeming to notice for the first time the steady advance of water, now licking at their toes. “It must take a long time to drown,” he said with a frown. “Water is more complicated than fire.”

“Trust me, honey, if we do things my way, we’re never going to have to find out.”

Rainie had him climb on her shoulders. It was just as awkward as last time, but in the good-news department, if she dropped him, he’d simply splash into the growing lake. And with both hands free, the boy could get a good grip on the grille.

Unfortunately, the metal refused to budge.

Dougie tried wrenching it three or four times. Then Rainie’s leg spasmed and they both went into the water. Dougie emerged gasping and shaking his head. Beside him, Rainie grabbed the railing to keep herself afloat while her hips jerked spasmodically. She felt like a wooden doll being controlled by a very bad puppeteer.

And then, out of nowhere, she thought of Quincy. She wondered what he was doing right now. She wondered what he was feeling. She wondered if she would ever see him again.

Dying wasn’t the ultimate cruelty; she understood that now. It was all the unfinished business a person’s death left behind. A mother died, and her son spent the rest of his life thinking it was his fault. A wife died, and her husband spent the end of his days never knowing how much she loved him, that she was sorry that her weakness hurt herself, but even sorrier for how much it hurt him.

Dying made a person realize how much she had squandered her life. Unfortunately, that knowledge was too little too late.

Rainie crawled her way back up the stairs. The water had advanced another three inches. They had six stairs left. Dougie sat at the very top, regarding her with solemn eyes.

“Rainie, I’m scared.”

And she lost it for a moment. She rushed the stairs, threw herself madly against the top door. The solid wood frame sent her reeling back down into the water, which felt warm and comforting given her sodden state. She tried one more time, really got her shoulder into it. She thought she heard something crack as she connected. Not the door, however, but her ribs.

She careened back into the water, gritting her teeth so that she wouldn’t scare Dougie by howling with rage. She didn’t want to die like this. Trapped like an animal in a pitch-black cellar, waiting for the water to close over her head. She wanted to run, wanted to fight. Wanted to lash out at the world because that’s what she did best.

It wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair, it wasn’t fair. Goddammit, it just wasn’t fair!

She ducked beneath the water. Swam to the right, swam to the left. Her bound hands moved in front of her, searching hopelessly for some mythical weapon that would magically appear.

But as always, the basement remained empty. The man had planned ahead.

She surfaced under the windows, the water high enough now so that she could reach them easily while treading water with her legs. She examined the thick glass, the metal edges around the high, narrow frames. The calking was old, peeling. Ironically enough, when the water got high enough, the windows would leak. Not enough to help them, of course.

She started to go to work on the edges, simply to have something to do. She heard a splash. Dougie swam over to join her.

“Do you have anything in your pockets, Dougie?”

“N-n-no,” the boy said through chattering teeth.

She patted briefly at her own, though she knew nothing was there. Her legs were starting to tire. She could feel the cold now, too. Her movements were growing more sluggish, a longer lag time occurring between her brain thinking and her muscles responding.

She returned to the staircase. Crawled up to the top step. Collapsed, coughing, her head against the door. Dougie climbed up beside her. He curled up against her back and the weight of his trust goaded her back into action.

So the metal grille was out. Breaking the windows was out. Smashing down the door was out. What did that leave them with?

Dougie wore jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt. She had on nearly the same-jeans, T-shirt, sneakers, bra, and panties. Was there something they could do with shoelaces? What about the underwire from her bra? Finally she had a thought:

“Dougie, are you wearing a belt?”

The boy lifted up his sweatshirt, looked down. “Yep.”

“All right, buddy. We got one chance left at this.”

Wednesday, 12:23 p.m. PST

KINCAID HAD TO PARK a quarter mile down the road from Hal Jenkins’s farm. The line of vehicles was so long-county investigators, crime scene technicians, the ME’s office, the sheriff’s department-he was amazed he’d gotten that close.

Word had already leaked out. A young officer, probably from the county, was directing traffic as news vans descended like locusts, cutting one another off and blocking law enforcement vehicles while they fought for the best view. Kincaid had to bleep his sirens numerous times, then finally went with the old-fashioned approach of leaning on the horn. He was tempted to throw the finger, but didn’t want to have that particular clip airing at eleven.

Finally parked, he trudged up the narrow road, passing a double-wide that had seen better days. A tall, gangly boy stood out in the yard, chain-smoking as he looked toward the activity. His gaze flickered toward Kincaid as the detective walked past. Neither of them said a word.