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tried to fit the fourth into its hole he cursed suddenly and grabbed her upper arm in a viselike grip. Summer gasped as with ruthless strength she was hauled to her feet.
    When she was standing, he shoved his face into hers. His one visible eye glittered. His breath stank. She cringed.
    „You are about one minute away from having your throat slit. Don’t think you can pull some kind of delaying crap on me. If you slow me down, I’ll kill you. I swear I will. Now get your ass moving. Go.“
    Acute terror can last only so long, Summer discovered as he pushed her in front of him back around the corner of the building toward where a white paneled van now waited beside her car. Despite her growing certainty that it wasn’t a matter of if but of when he would cut her throat, the edge of her fear had dulled to the point where it was more like a chronic, manageable ache than an immediate, stabbing pain. Numb best described how she felt as she was forced toward the van’s passenger-side door – until she saw the body.
    A man lay on the pavement not far from the mortuary’s front door. He was sprawled on his stomach, one arm stretched in a kind of pathetic appeal above his head. He was naked, motionless – and his head rested in a dark, sticky pool of liquid that Summer had no trouble guessing was blood.
    „You killed him!“ she gasped before she thought.
    „And if you don’t mind your p’s and q’s, you’ll be next,“ growled the voice in her ear. Head swiveling to stare at the body even as she was forced up and into the passenger side of the van, Summer shivered as her terror reawakened with all its earlier force. The icy frisson that exploded along her nerve endings felt almost familiar. Had there ever been a time when she was not afraid for her life?
    „Scoot over.“
    He was sliding in behind her, crowding her out of the seat nearest the door and into the driver’s seat. The van’s interior was black vinyl, and it had only the two bucket seats. The space in the back was given over to cargo. By the small overhead light that came on automatically as they entered, it was possible to see that quilted gray furniture blankets lay over whatever the van carried.
    The passenger-side door clicked shut, and the light went off. Summer was left alone in the smelly darkness with her captor, who casually draped his left arm along the back of her seat. The scalpel was in the fist that rested just below her left ear.
    „Behave yourself, you hear?“ The tip of the scalpel toyed with her earlobe while Summer stopped breathing. „Hear?“
    „Yes.“
    The arm around her shoulders was removed, and the scalpel went with it. Her breath escaped in an audible hiss as he settled back in his seat, the scalpel now held in his right fist, which rested negligently on his bare right knee. The threat had been withdrawn – for the moment. But his gaze never left her as he massaged his left thigh, seemingly trying to dig his fingers deep into muscles that pained him.
    Summer wondered how long it would be before she ended up like the man on the pavement. Bile rose in her throat.
    „Drive,“ her captor said, and handed her a set of keys.
    Summer took them without a word. Fortunately there were only four keys on the simple metal ring, and from the GM logo on the longest it was pretty obvious which one fit the ignition. Gripping the steering wheel with one hand, she bent, squinted, and tried to insert the key into the lock.
    Her hands were trembling so badly that she couldn’t quite do it. Casting fearful little sidelong glances at the man beside her, she jabbed at the ignition a second time, then a third, in vain. Panic assailed her as he quit massaging his leg. He leaned toward her; she could not prevent herself from looking at him. Just inches away, menace gleamed at her from the bloodshot slit that was his eye.
    „Get us the hell out of here now“
    His tone galvanized her. Summer willed her hands to steadiness and thrust the key at the