I reached out toward her, wondering if she was dead. But she flinched as I pulled the blanket away.

“Come on. Get out of there.”

I offered my hand and she took it. Her fingers were like icicles. She started to cry as I pulled her from the closet. Wrapped in a long terry robe, she was trembling so hard she could hardly stand and, in fact, crumpled to the floor, curled into a ball, and started coughing-a hard, deep, rattling cough.

I knelt beside her.

“Lisbeth, have you been raped?” I asked bluntly.

She shook her head but cried harder; the sounds from her throat were raw and hoarse.

“Tell me the truth.”

She shook her head again and mouthed the word no.

I didn’t believe her. She’d been strangled. I could see the ligature mark on her neck where her hair had fallen out of the way. She’d been strangled so hard the blood vessels in her eyes had burst.

“I’m going to call an ambulance,” I said.

She grabbed hold of my arm. “No. Please,” she croaked, touching off another fit of coughing.

“Then I’m taking you myself. You need to go to the hospital.”

She squeezed my arm so hard, I imagined there would be bruises later.

I pulled the coverlet from the bed and put it around her. I didn’t know what had happened to her, but I recognized what she was feeling now-fear, shame, disbelief. She wanted to wake up and realize she’d been in the middle of a terrible nightmare.

I reached down and stroked a hand over her hair. Lisbeth tried to push herself up into a sitting position.

“… so… scared…” she whispered.

She fell against me, shaking and sobbing, and I put my arms around her and just held her for I don’t know how long, thinking how many times in my younger life I wished someone had done that for me. How nice it would have been just to have someone there, offering support and a safe place to fall.

“You’re safe,” I said quietly. “You’re safe now, Lisbeth. No one is going to hurt you again.”

As we sat there on Jim Brody’s property, I hoped to God what I said would prove true.

“Who did this to you?” I asked.

She shook her head.

“You have to tell me, Lisbeth. He can’t hurt you now.”

“… don’t know…” she said, and started coughing again.

“You didn’t see him?”

She didn’t answer me but pulled away, falling onto her hands and knees and coughing until she choked and gagged. I rested my hand on her back and waited for the fit to pass.

When she quieted, I said, “I’ll be right back, and then we’re going to the hospital.”

I grabbed her purse off the dresser, then went into the bathroom and dug her wet clothing out of the garbage in the bathroom and stuffed it into a laundry bag that hung on the back of the door. I took the stuff downstairs, went and got my car, and pulled it around the side of the barn, parking at the base of the stairs.

A couple of stable hands watched me. One dropped what he vas doing and walked toward the other end of the barn.

I took the keys, grabbed my gun out of the box in the door, and ran back upstairs.

Someone had attacked this girl, brutally, viciously. And the odds of this being a random act, all things considered, were long. She had been involved with Brody’s club, friends with Irina; she had been seen talking to me, and I was not to be trusted.

Brody had tried to give me the bum’s rush, had tried to tell me Lisbeth was gone even while we stood beside her car. I had to get her out of there. Certainly Brody hadn’t attacked Lisbeth himself, he wouldn’t be that careless, but there was no reason not to think he might have paid one of the barn hands to do it.

For all I knew, whoever had done this to her might have believed he had left her for dead. God knew she looked like she shouldn’t have survived.

When I got back to her room, Lisbeth was curled up, chin on her knees, leaning against the foot of the bed.

“Come on, Lisbeth.”

She didn’t respond, just stared at the floor.

“Come on!”

She shook her head slowly. “No,” she whispered. “Leave me alone.”

“That’s not happening, Lisbeth. You can get up and come with me, or I can drag you out of here by your hair. Get up.”

She said something so softly, I couldn’t make it out. She said it again, and again.

I should die? I should have died? I could die? I wasn’t sure.

“I don’t know what you’re saying,” I told her. “But it’s not happening on my watch.”

I grabbed her by the upper arm and started toward the door, dragging her.

“Goddammit, Lisbeth. Get up!” I shouted. A strong sense of urgency began to fill me, like a balloon growing larger and larger.

She started to cry again and pulled against me.

“Stop it!” I snapped.

I could hear voices outside. Two men speaking Spanish. I glanced out the window and caught a glimpse of two men down by my car.

As threatened, I wrapped a hand in Lisbeth’s thick wet hair, my fingernails biting into her scalp, and yanked her toward the door.

She cried out but stumbled along beside me. Tears streamed down her swollen face as I marched her down the stairs.

The men looked up at me.

“Hey! What you doin‘ with her?” one shouted at me. He was stocky, neatly dressed in pressed jeans and a Western shirt. He wore a cowboy hat and a Fu Manchu. The barn manager, I assumed.

“I’m taking her to a hospital,” I said.

“She don‘ wanna go with you.”

“That’s too bad,” I said. “I’m not going to let her die. Are you?”

“I think you better let her go,” he said, bringing up some attitude, trying to block the passenger door of my car.

“I think you better get the hell out of my way.”

“I’m callin‘ Mr. Brody,” he said, pulling out his cell phone.

“Yeah? You call Mr. Brody. You do that. How about I call the sheriff’s office? And they can call the INS. How about that?”

The other guy got nervous at that.

“How about I tell the detectives you did this to her?” I said.

“I didn’t‘ do nothin’ to her!” he shouted.

“Yeah,? Who do you think the cops will believe? You or me?”

The nervous one had taken a couple of steps to my left, to Lisbeth’s left. He took a couple more, angling over but edging in toward the girl. The boss took a step in the other direction.

I reached behind my back, curved my hand around the butt of my gun.

“Back off!” I shouted at the one closest to Lisbeth, drawing my weapon and pointing it at his face. His eyes went wide.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the boss make his move toward me. Without letting go of Lisbeth, I swung my arm around and backhanded him across the face with the gun. He dropped to his knees, putting his hand to his cheekbone, where the gun’s sight had cut him.

The nervous one ran as I swung back toward him. Off to get reinforcements.

I yanked the car door open and shoved Lisbeth into the passenger seat, then ran around to the driver’s side, got in, dropped the gun, started the engine.

Dust flying, gravel spewing, the BMW fishtailed around the end of the barn. A horse being hand-walked toward me reared and bolted sideways, kicking out at the groom. The horse got away. The groom shouted obscenities at me as I roared past.

Rubber squealed and burned as I swung out of the driveway onto the road and put the pedal down. I was past the white Escalade coming from the other direction so fast, Jim Brody’s face didn’t register until a half mile later.