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Positive. I was in control of something.
    I was so stiff it hurt to breathe, but I couldn’t afford to worry about pain anymore. Or let it stop me.
    I had to get up. See if I was being watched and what to do about it if I was. I had to get out. Find something to eat and drink. Somehow. I had to pee again.
    And then I could worry about where I was. How I’d come to be there. Who’d brought me. What plans my captors had for me.
    And figure out how I could thwart those plans.
    One thing was becoming abundantly clear—if I was going to live, I’d have to save myself. No one had found me.
    I lifted my head. I could tell that I was alone in my prison. Some kind of cave but not entirely in its natural state. There was cement on the floor. And the opening—indicated by the glimmer of light in the distance—was mostly blocked.
    My shoulders, twisted behind me, throbbed. But my hands had gone numb. I welcomed the lack of pain even as I worried about my circulation. About losing the use of my fingers and toes.
    I tried to sit up and was consumed by a wave of nausea. Waiting, holding myself suspended, I made up my mind that I was not going to lie back down.
    I was not going to die lying down.
    With that thought pushing me, I shifted my weight and shifted again. Several minutes later I was on my butt, leaning against a rock wall.
    At which point I did the only thing I could.
    I started to cry.
    Â 
    â€œAn Ohio psychologist is missing this morning.”
    The man standing at the old, greasy, two-burner stove frying bacon turned toward the small television set.
    â€œKelly Chapman left her office in Chandler, Ohio, to go in-line skating yesterday and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”
    The bacon sizzled, cracked, spitting grease over his arm. The man noticed, but didn’t care, his attention focused one hundred percent on the local news.
    â€œThe vehicle she was driving, a 2009 dark blue Dodge Nitro, was found last night here in Knoxville….”
    The man stared at the picture on the screen.
    His whole wasted life, this hole he lived in, the booze, it was all because of her.
    â€œIf anyone has seen this woman, or saw the vehicle yesterday, or knows anything about the whereabouts of Kelly Chapman, please call the number on your screen.”
    He glanced at the number. He wasn’t going to call. He wasn’t stupid.
    â€œThe FBI and Chandler police are offering a ten thousand dollar reward to anyone with information….”
    So she was worth that much. He wasn’t surprised.
    Putting the spraying pan on the back burner, the man grabbed the control that had come with the free box the government had offered the public when the national television signals had gone to digital. He could get twice the channels now.
    Which meant there’d be more news.
    He wanted to hear it all. From every source. Every opinion. Every supposition. He’d stay a step ahead of them. Show every one of those legal eagles just how much power he had.
    He’d show her. No more begging.
    Yeah, he had a plan. His ship was finally coming in.
    But first, he needed to eat. He took a long, gratifying swig of the beer he’d opened as soon as he’d stumbled out of bed.
    A man had to keep his strength up.
    Rubbing the gut protruding from the tails of a flannel shirt he’d found in someone’s trash a couple of years ago—a perfectly good shirt except for the fact that it had been a size too small even then—the man grinned, his blackened and broken teeth a sign of his past.
    A sign that didn’t matter anymore. He was looking forward to the coming days. And a future that was shining bright.
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    The SUV gave him nothing. Not one goddamned thing. No fingerprints. No blood. Not even a smudge of dirt.
    Whatever had been there was now gone.
    Clay needed the girl. Maggie. Needed to know if Kelly Chapman was obsessive about keeping her vehicle spotless or if the evidence he was