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and the little Smith & Wesson, and stowed both in the
kitchen drawer.  Locating a box of garbage bags under the sink, he removed
three, and used one to reline the kitchen trashcan.  The other two bags he
took to the bathroom, where he filled one with toiletries.  There were no
prescription bottles in the medicine chest, although there was an asthma
inhaler.  He dropped that in the bag as well.
    From
there, he headed to the bedroom and filled the second bag with clothing. 
After removing the cell phone, he set her handbag on top of the clothes, and
pulled the drawstring closed.
    In
the living room, she was still on the sofa, exactly as he’d left her.  He
paused to take her pulse, pleased to find it steady and strong.
    Her
cell phone joined the two weapons in the kitchen drawer.  The sun was now
below the horizon.  Spotting no one at any of the neighboring houses, he
hurried through the dark yard to the alley.  The bag of trash went into a
trashcan five houses down, her belongings into the panel truck.
    He
made one last tour of the house, turning off lights and ensuring he hadn’t
overlooked anything.  He sprinkled a pinch of fish flakes into the
aquarium, hoping that when someone eventually arrived here to look for his
target, they’d feed the fish again.
    With
one last look around, he hoisted her onto his shoulder, grabbed her keys off
the kitchen counter, and eased out the back door, being careful not to bump her
against the doorframe.  After locking the door, he hurried through the
backyard and down the alley.  He eased her down onto the floor of the
cargo compartment, slid the panel door closed, and locked it.
    At
the end of the alley, he tugged off the ski mask and turned on the
headlights.  Several miles away, he stopped on a quiet residential street
and killed the engine.  Climbing awkwardly between the seats into the
back, he slipped a ball gag between her teeth and fastened the Velcro straps
behind her neck.  After blindfolding her, he rolled her onto her stomach
and fastened her hands and feet to the eyebolts he’d installed in the
floor.  Once she was secure, he climbed back into the front and drove off.

CHAPTER
5
     
     
     
    Larissa floated a thousand fathoms deep,
drifting wherever the current carried her through a pleasant but impenetrable
sea of blackness.
    Eventually,
the muffled hum of wheels on blacktop began slowly drawing her upwards but,
when she finally surfaced, her eyes refused to open.  Conversely, her
mouth refused to close and the blanket below her face was wet with
saliva.  Unable to solve the mystery, she surrendered herself once more to
the sweet solace of oblivion where all was still and safe and quiet.
    The
next time she surfaced, she drifted through a haze of pleasant somnolence
before again trying to open her eyes.   After the passage of a
considerable amount of time, during which she continually dozed on and off, she
finally determined that she was wearing a blindfold.
    Was
this a dream?
    Using
her tongue to explore the blockage in her mouth, she discovered a ball-shaped
object wedged behind her teeth.  What the hell?  No matter how hard
she tried, she couldn’t spit it out.
    She
fought to sit up, and failed.  Her arms were stretched forward, and an
unholy chill seized her with icy fingers of dread as she realized her wrists were
somehow fastened to the floor.  Her ankles seemed likewise secured. 
Now fully conscious, her mind frantically sought for some iota of logic and
understanding.  How had she come to be in this position?  She was
clearly in a moving vehicle.  But whose?  Where were they heading?
    Broken
bits of recollection began to filter in, slowly constructing a vague and
dreamlike memory of a masked man in her kitchen.  The sick premonition
that it had been Sparrow sent a jittering terror racing up and down her
spine.  However, judging by what foggy memory she was able to retrieve,
the man in her kitchen had seemed too tall to be Sparrow.  She