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survival instinct urged her to fight, she forced herself to remain pliant. He wouldn't really kill her. Once his anger was spent he'd cry and apologize and be as sweet as ever. Tomorrow, he'd be putting salve on her wounds.
    At last, he dropped his hands from her neck. But he wasn't finished.
    He still had that look on his face. He drew back his fist, but she raised a hand to stop him while gulping for the air to speak. "Wait...don't hurt me 32

    again." She sucked another breath into her burning lungs. "I--I have a present for you."
    Curiosity made him hesitate, but his eyes were still razor-sharp with cruelty. "What is it? If it's the promise of your lousy body, I'm tired of it."
    "D-don't say that. I--I love you."
    "You love me, but you can't follow simple directions?"
    "Rover doesn't know anything." Now that she could breathe, she was thinking more clearly. "You--you brought him home in your trunk. He was blindfolded. He doesn't know who we are or where we live."
    He slugged her anyway, which he was usually careful never to do.
    She'd have to call in sick tomorrow.
    "What do you have for me?" he demanded. "It better be good."
    Dazed from his latest blow, she scrambled to organize her scattered thoughts. What had she been trying to tell him? It was something good, something that would stop all this....
    She had Sam. Samantha Duncan. That was it!
    "You--you know the girl who lives next door?" She dashed a hand across her wet cheeks. "The one you've been admiring?"
    She had his attention now. She could feel the alertness in his body.
    He'd always been intrigued by Sam's mother, probably because Zoe Duncan hardly seemed to notice him. "Yes?"
    "I have her locked in Rover's old room upstairs."
    Releasing her, he staggered to his feet. "You're kidding."
    "No. And--" she swallowed hard, hoping it would be enough "--she's all yours, your new pet. I won't...I won't complain or...or try to stop you...no matter what you want to do with her."
    "You snatched her?"
    She tasted blood at the corner of her mouth. Dabbing at it with her tongue, she nodded.
    "What, are you crazy? Our neighbor's kid?"
    Fear paralyzed her. Had she misread his many references to Zoe and how pretty she was, how pretty her daughter, Samantha, would be when she grew up? Would this only make him angrier? "It--it doesn't matter where she's from if no one knows she's here," she whispered.
    Rubbing his chin, he paced to the couch and back. "But now we can't let her go. Ever."
    "Do you want to let her go?" Tiffany's whole body hurt--her shoulder, head, back and legs--but she was so afraid of what the next few minutes might bring she could scarcely feel it. "You said it was too much risk. Isn't that why you're upset about Rover?"
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    He didn't answer. "Did anyone see you?" he asked, his tone tempered with caution.
    "No one," she said. "I swear it."
    Stepping over her, he hurried to the stairs and took them two at a time.
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Chapter 5
    Heavy footsteps pounded down the hall. Sam heard them, knew instinctively they weren't Tiffany's. Tiffany wasn't much bigger than she was.
    It had to be Colin. He was finally home.
    She tried to feel some relief, some of the hope and confidence that had sustained her all afternoon. He'd get her out of here and have his crazy wife committed. That was what she'd told herself. But the longer she sat in her urine-soaked bikini on the wooden floor of a room that had no windows, the more she began to doubt that the help she'd been counting on would arrive.
    Why was there a mattress in here? And what was that stain in the middle of it?
    Sam hadn't ventured close; she didn't really want to know. But avoiding it meant sitting on a hard floor without so much as a blanket or a pillow. And although it had been warm during the day, it was cool in the evenings. Being wet made it worse. She was chilled to the bone.
    The bolt slid on the door.
    Braced for whatever might happen, she watched Colin open the door and block the empty space with his