What if he's standing right on the other side of the door?

She rapped lightly on the door. "Mason?" she whispered. "Are you out there?" She paused, listening for an answer.

Silence.

Left alone in the dark with just her thoughts, she felt fear begin to grow.

He was different this morning.

He didn't like me this morning.

Even though he was a kidnapper and a killer, he seemed to be in awe of women in his own weird, twisted way. But this morning he'd been all business, hardly looking at her. She'd sensed disappointment in him. What had she done wrong? What had set him off?

Was he riding the downside of a manic episode? Now that the thrill of the capture was over, had the high evaporated, leaving him deflated and depressed?

She crossed her arms at her waist and pressed them to her empty stomach. It hurt. Her stomach hurt. She remembered the sandwich he'd dropped on the bed, along with the jar of water.

She couldn't inspect it with her eyes, couldn't examine it for bugs or anything else he may have decided to put inside. Even if she could see, she wouldn't be able to tell if he'd laced it with anything from rat poison to some kind of drug that would knock her out for the rest of the day.

Maybe that would be a good idea.

No, she decided, thinking of lying down on the filthy mattress, virtually unconscious for hours while roaches nibbled away at her. No, she couldn't make herself eat the sandwich or drink the water.

How much time had passed? Two hours? Five minutes? Impossible to tell.

She had to focus her mind on something solid. Think about getting out. Think about what she would say to Mason when he returned to convince him never to put her here again. Think about not doing anything wrong. Think about being good.

But thoughts of Mason's return increased her anxiety and made her more aware of the slow passing of time. She had to dwell on something else, had to think of something nice.

A picnic in the park.

Fried chicken.

No, can't think about food.

Still standing, she leaned her back against the door and closed her eyes. "Swimming," she whispered to herself. She'd always loved to swim. When she was in high school, she used to force the air from her lungs. Airless, her body lost all buoyancy and she would let herself sink to the bottom of the deep end. She would lie there, looking up at the surface from her skewed perspective. When her lungs could wait no longer for air, she'd fold herself, then push against the pool bottom, shooting up to the surface, flying into the sparkling light, feeling exhilarated because she'd flirted with death.

"What are you doing?" Mary would shout in a frantic voice from the edge of the pool.

"Pretending to be dead."

"Don't scare me like that! I was ready to dive in and pull you out!"

Mary rescued people. It was what she did.

Gillian used to be brave. She used to be tough. She used to be scared of nothing. But that was all a facade. A teenage facade.

Fear is a terrible thing. An awful, horrible thing.

Maybe the most terrible, awful, horrible thing. It made you rearrange yourself, made you willing to compromise all principles. Made you desperately want to please a sick man.

Mary pulled up in front of Gavin Hitchcock's house, turned off the ignition, and got out of the car. After Gillian's abduction and Holly's statement, Gavin's confession had been tossed out and he'd been released on bail, the rape charge still standing. Now Mary was after reassurance and information. Sometimes killers worked in pairs, and she needed to be absolutely certain Gavin wasn't in some way connected to the recent murders-and possibly to her sister's abduction.

He answered the door dressed in jeans and a flannel shirt, his hair clipped close to his head, his face clean-shaved, his eyes dark-rimmed and hostile. Evidence of his overdose clung to him. He was pale and thin, and he looked as if he'd dropped thirty pounds since the day Mary had seen him at the auto repair shop.

"What do you want?" He chose a pose of intimidation, chest out, one bent arm high on the doorframe, fingers dangling.

"May I come in?"

He stared at her a moment, then dropped his arm and backed up to let her pass. "Have you heard anything about Gillian?" he asked, his tone warring between resentment of Mary and desire for news of her sister.

Mary sat down on the couch. His house was clean and tidy, very different from the last time she'd been there.

He remained standing. "What do you want?"

"You love Gillian, don't you?" she asked, trying to establish a foundation for the questions that would follow.

"That's no big secret."

"And you'd like us to find her, wouldn't you?"

"Of course I would." He became animated, angry at the implication that he might not want Gillian to be found. "I'm going crazy here. If I find out who did this to her, I'll kill him." He began to pace. "I don't care if I go to prison for the rest of my life." He jabbed a finger in her direction. "I want that son of a bitch dead. If I find out he did anything to hurt Gillian-" He stopped, and his voice cracked. Emotions and energy spent, he collapsed into a chair and buried his face in his hands. When he looked up, his eyes were red. "She has to be okay," he said hoarsely. "She has to be okay."

Mary had never before seen a lack of sympathy as a handicap, but she wasn't sure anymore. "If you can't feel what they feel, how can you begin to understand them and what they might do next?" Anthony had once argued when she'd accused him of giving criminals too much soul.

"Gavin-I have to know if you had anything to do with the recent murders."

He frowned in concentration, and she could see the confusion on his face. "I have epilepsy, you know," he told her. "Sometimes I have fits and pass out, and when I wake up I can't remember what happened."

"Do you have any memory of any of the girls? Of ever seeing them? Talking to them?"

He thought about it, then slowly shook his head. "No. Nothing."

"But you said you murdered them." Her voice was low, conversational, inquisitive. "You confessed. Why would you confess to something you have no memory of?"

"There was that Cammie chick, who said I raped her. And I remember having a knife in my hand. I remember thinkin' about killing her."

"Thinking and doing are two different things."

"I know, I know." He picked up a plastic red lighter from the table and began nervously fiddling with it. Flicking it on and off, staring at the flame. "But then there was Gillian."

"Gillian?"

"Looking at me the way she was. Like I made her sick. Like I was some kind of monster. So I thought I must have killed them."

"Now what do you think?"

"I don't know." He tossed down the lighter. "My head is a mess. I can't even remember raping that college girl, but I must have done that too. I mean, I tied her up."

"Did she ask to be tied to the bed?"

"Oh, Christ." He looked at the ceiling, then rubbed his face again, clearly uncomfortable. "I think maybe she was passed out when I did it."

Mary was convinced he was in no way connected to the murders and Gillian's abduction. She didn't know about the rape. That would be for the court to decide. But now his innocence in the recent homicides brought up the other question, the main question, the question that had informed part of her life. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "Gavin, I have to know if you killed Fiona Portman." Her voice took on a softer, pleading quality. "You can tell the truth," she reasoned. "You've already served your time."

"You'd like for me to say yes, wouldn't you? Because then it would be over. You could quit thinking about it. But the truth is, it will never be over. Not for you. Not for me. Because I don't know if I killed her." Gavin rarely made eye contact, but he regarded her steadily as he said, "You maybe didn't know this, but Fiona used to meet me in the woods behind her house for sex."