of snow adding to the accumulation of several feet of fine white powder. Icy crystals that help me with my mission.
“Please, help me…”
I hear the desperation in her cries and it’s soothing to me even as it breaks my concentration.
Ninety-six. Ninety-seven.
My form is military perfect, my back level, my muscles gleaming with perspiration, my shoulders and arms screaming, but the pain feels good, the sweet torment of my muscles straining, of mind over matter.
Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine.
She’s crying now. Mewling and whimpering in the small bedroom. Like a lost kitten whose eyes have not yet opened, searching in the darkness, calling out to the mother cat.
How perfect.
I pause, but only for a second as I savor the last push-up, slowly, painstakingly lowering my body until my chest nearly brushes the floor, then just as determinedly, inching my weight upward. I hold my body in the final, perfect, suspended position and study my reflection for a minute. Flawless, strident muscles, thick hair, a handsome face staring back at me, veins bulging with the effort.
One-fucking hundred.
“Someone, oh please…can anyone hear me?” she moans.
It’s time.
I release the pressure on my muscles and silently roll to my feet. From the back of a chair I retrieve my towel and dab away at the sweat as I listen to her cry. The longer she waits and worries, the more quickly she’ll learn to trust me.
I’m coming, I think, knowing I must respond, play my part, act as if I truly care. I’ll give her comfort and painkillers, offer her hot tea and a kind embrace, so that she will want more, will turn to me for comfort, to save her. She will be difficult, I know, a stubborn, intelligent woman not easily turned, but I’ll find a way to break her, to make her trust me, to give herself body and soul to me.
Not that I’ll accept it.
Still, she will beg for me to take her, to hold her, to whisper that I love her, when, of course, I will not. I imagine the hope in her eyes, the quiver of her full lips, the touch of her hand as it slides slowly down my body in seductive invitation.
But I’ll resist.
As I always do.
I add another log to the fire, sparks spraying, hungry flames licking the dry wood, coals glowing blood red and giving this primitive cabin a warmth, a coziness. I head to the small bathroom, walk quickly through the shower to soap off the evidence of my workout, then slip into jeans and a sweater. The casual mountain man.
She’s sobbing quietly in the other room as I walk barefoot to the tiny kitchen where hot water is already steaming on the wood stove.
Excellent.
I pour a cup, add a tea bag, and watch as the water turns the color of tobacco. A faint memory flits through my mind. It’s a picture of a woman long ago. Carefully, with silent calculation she’d dunked a tea bag into a chipped cup. She’d been pretty with her pillowy breasts and lips always colored a shimmering peach, lips that had forever been turned down at the corners, the aura of dissatisfaction hanging over her like a cloud. She’d smelled of cigarettes and perfume and had pretended to be my mother.
But she, like so many others, had been a fraud.
My hands are shaking. Trembling.
I hear her taunts.
“Idiot.”
“Moron.”
“Most likely to fail.”
The tea is nearly sloshing over the rim of the cup.
I let out my breath slowly. Then from practice, I quickly dispense with the ugly memory, and, calm once more, carry the cup through the living area where I’ve just finished my routine and down the hallway to my captive’s door. She’s quieter now, as if trying to disguise the fact that she’s been crying. As if she’s trying to pull herself together.
Which she never will.
I tap lightly on the panels and open the old door slowly, a crack of light cutting into the dark interior.
She’s lying on the bed. Frightened. Her eyes wide. Tears visibly tracking down her cheeks.
Am I a sinner or saint?
Her knight in shining armor?
A good Samaritan?
Or the embodiment of evil?
Soon, she’ll know.
Luke Pescoli answered the door himself.
All six feet of him, squarely blocking the entrance to his single-level home. In a long-sleeved T-shirt and sweatpants, his blond hair mussed, he looked as if he’d been logging in serious hours in front of the television that was flickering in the background. The local news was on, the top story being the arrest of a woman thought to be a serial killer, and Regan’s feisty little terrier was tearing through the house, growling and barking as he raced, paws clicking madly on hardwood, to the door.
“Cisco, hush!” Pescoli ordered, blocking the doorway as the scrappy little terrier tried to scramble outside.
She’d already determined she would conduct this interview in her most professional manner. She and Lucky had met before, but only in passing. “Hello, Mr. Pescoli. I’m Detective Selena Alvarez from the—”
“Yeah, yeah. Old news,” he interrupted. “What do you want?” he asked, trying to control the jumping dog.
“I’m looking for Regan.”
“Regan?”
Behind him she caught a glimpse of a flocked Christmas tree, pink and gooey-looking, standing guard over the flat screen as the warm smell of cinnamon curled from the interior. “Your ex-wife.”
“Yeah, I know. What’s with all the protocol? Regan’s not here. No way she would be.”
“She’s missing and she left me a message that said she had business with you and—”
“Missing?” he interrupted harshly. Wariness darkened his hazel eyes. “What do you mean, missing?”
“She didn’t show up for work today and she’s not at the house.”
“Are you shittin’ me?” he demanded, disbelieving.
“Lucky!” a female voice shrilled behind him. Michelle, his wife, a compact, curvy woman, was barreling through the living room toward the front door.
“Watch your language! Bianca’s here.”
“Oh, save me,” a girl said as Regan’s daughter pushed her way past her father and stared at Alvarez suspiciously. “What are you talking about? Mom can’t be missing. What’s
