Survivor

August 2, 1998

Southern California

One

They had set off at noon that day, heading north from Al- iso Viejo on Interstate 5 toward Cambria, where they were planning on visiting Hearst Castle in San Simeon. They stopped in North Hollywood for lunch around two P.M. at a Coco's restaurant that they spotted from the freeway. It was their first real vacation in over a year, they had been looking forward to it for two months, ever since Brad began to make the plans. Lisa was looking forward to it. She knew it was going to be a romantic weekend, and she was going to use the opportunity to tell her husband that she had just found out this morning that she was pregnant.

They had been married for five years and had been trying to get pregnant for the past two. After a year of no results from their attempts, they had sought the help of a fertility doctor. After a series of tests, it was concluded that: a) Brad had a low sperm count, and b) Lisa's irregular periods made conception much more difficult. So be gan a nearly yearlong quest to correct the problem with modern medicine. Numerous drugs and injections were undertaken, and then once a month, when Lisa ovulated, they both went into her ob-gyn for an IUI. Of course, they tried on their own every chance they had; for six months nothing happened, and then she had her last insemination two weeks ago. And with that came the news she had been hoping and praying for.

It was hard to keep the news a secret. She had taken a home pregnancy test Monday, and had gone into her doctor's on Wednesday for a more definitive test. The doctor's office had called this morning with the results. "Congratulations!" the receptionist had said. "You are definitely pregnant." When Lisa heard the news she allowed herself a small cry, and then quickly gained control of her emotions. Brad had gone into the office briefly to finish some paperwork on a case, and she decided to tell him over dinner tonight, in Cambria. She wanted to be with him when she told him, letting her emotions convey her happiness; she wanted the setting of a nice romantic dinner to relay this wonderful news.

As they made small talk at the restaurant, Lisa played out the scenario she had in mind for telling Brad, and reflected on the last few years of their married life. She had felt a sense of despair during the past year they had been trying to have a baby. There were thousands of women who had babies that didn't appreciate the life they had helped to create. She grew angry whenever she heard a news story about a baby being abandoned in a trash can. What the hell was wrong with people? There were thousands of couples that would give anything to adopt a child, and these selfish bitches dump their kids like so much trash. It was pathetic. And then there were children that grew up in disadvantaged homes. She knew that she and Brad would be able to provide for their child above and beyond providing food and shelter. As lawyers, they both had a combined yearly salary of just under three hundred thousand dollars; their child would never have to worry about being hungry. She knew that any child she and Brad had would be well taken care of, both in love and in security.

While Lisa usually didn't like to discuss personal stuff at work, she had let it slip to her coworker, Danielle, that she and Brad had reservations for Hearst Castle this weekend. "San Simeon?" Danielle had said, smiling. "How romantic!"

One of the senior partners had been walking to his office, and he'd turned to Lisa and Danielle. "Did I hear somebody mention San Simeon? If you're going to Cambria, may I recommend Bonito's? It's right on the main drag, across the street from the post office. It has a very elegant atmosphere and great food." "

"I'll have to keep that in mind," Lisa said, grinning.

*When are you leaving?" The senior partner had approached her, his features open and friendly. He had been one of the partners responsible for her recent promotion to junior partner, and his office was directly behind hers. They usually traded good-mornings in the coffee room, and lately they'd been working together on a case. His name was George Brooks.

"Tomorrow morning," she said, looking up at George. "My husband and I had been planning this off and on for a few months. We finally locked in the reservations last month.*

"Sounds wonderful," George said, his features sunny, carefree. He looked immaculate in his white shirt and blue satin vest. "You driving up 101? It's a beautiful drive.

"Yes, it is," Lisa had agreed. "We're going to take a nice, leisurely drive up"

"How long does it take to get up there?" Danielle had asked.

"Four hours," Lisa had said. "Brad has a few things to do tomorrow morning, then we'll probably leave from there, around ten or so."

"Sounds like you're going to have a good weekend," George had said, nodding at her."Have a good time." He had turned and headed to his office.

Of course, Lisa had been bursting at the seams to tell Danielle about her impending pregnancy, but she didn't want to jinx it. So she had kept it to herself and somehow found the strength to not let that little secret out.

Thanks to George Brooks's suggestion, she made reservations at Bonito's in Cambria that afternoon for the following evening. She found out the restaurant had an elegant setting, with a fireplace, soft music, and candlelight. She was going to give Brad the news there. The anticipation she was feeling was nerve-racking. She knew Brad was going to be ecstatic. But she wanted the right setting to tell him; she wanted to surprise him.

When they were finished eating lunch, Brad paid the bill and Lisa went to the ladies'room. When she came out and joined Brad outside near the entrance, she found him talking to a tall blond woman dressed in blue jeans and a cream-colored blouse; both garments looked stained with dirt. The woman looked like she had been crying recently, tearstains had tracked rough furrows in the remnants of her makeup and made her mascara run. Resting on a small concrete ledge by the woman was a travel bag, a diaper bag, and a baby seat with an infant swaddled in a blanket. The infant was awake, its eyes staring upward, making cooing sounds. Brad turned to Lisa as she stepped out. "Do you have any change?" Brad said. "I've only got large bills and-"

"Sure," Lisa said, reaching to her wallet automatically. She looked curiously at the woman. "What fort

The woman turned toward Lisa, her features pleading. "1'm sorry to bother you, ma'am, but… I… I asked your husband if he could spare some change. I'm..

Homeless, Lisa thought. Her fingers dosed over her wallet. She hesitated, her eyes meeting Brad's. She normally didn't give money to homeless people. All they did was buy booze or drugs with it anyway. Besides, there were shelters and organizations designed to help those legitimately in need. If this woman was really homeless, why didn't she just go to a shelter? "Let me see what I have" Lisa said, opening her wallet.

'I really appreciate it," the woman said. She looked defeated, ragged and tired. "I've… I'm so sorry to have bothered you.. "She sounded on the verge on tears.

"It's okay," Lisa said, flipping through her bills. Something about the woman's tone of voice spiked through her emotions. The baby started to cry.

"Shhh, it's okay, Mandy," the woman said to the infant, crooning to her. "Mommy will feed you in a minute."

Lisa flipped through ones, fives, a few tens, and rested on a twenty. She glanced at Brad; she knew Brad had twenties, but knew he was apprehensive about giving homeless people such large sums of money, too. However, this woman seemed different. She truly looked like she was in a desperate situation.

Lisa pulled the twenty out and handed it to the woman. "Here. I hope this can help"

At the sight of the bill, the woman's eyes widened. "Oh, thank you! This is-I don't know how to thank you. I've… I've never… I never thought this would happen to me and-" She burst into sudden tears.

Brad shuffled awkwardly, looking uncomfortable. Lisa felt uncomfortable, too. "Everything will be okay," she said. She sounded stupid saying it. Obviously, the way the woman was crying indicated that everything was not okay in her world.

"1'm sorry." The tears suddenly stopped and the woman pulled a ragged Kleenex from her purse and dried her eyes with it. She struggled to hold the tears in. "I'm sorry, it's just that… I never thought this would happen to me. 'Fwo weeks ago I wasn't homeless and I had a job and now.. " Her features screwed up, threatening to unleash a flood of tears again, but she fought them down. She looked at them through tear-filled eyes. "I'm sorry. You don't need to hear my sob story."

"It's okay," Brad said, embarrassed. He reached into his wallet and rifled through it. He handed her another twenty. "Here, maybe you can get a motel room for the night."

The woman looked at the offered twenty, then slowly took it. "'Thank you," she whispered.

Lisa couldn't help but be affected by the woman's plight. Homeless and with a small infant, she didn't appear to be the typical homeless person she encountered from time to time when she had to drive into downtown Los Angeles or Santa Ana for court appearances. The homeless people she encountered there were dirty, ugly, smelly, and lazy. This woman reminded Lisa of herself in a way; she appeared intelligent and headstrong. The fact that she mentioned that she had once held a job told Lisa that the woman had the ability to earn a living. She wondered if drugs had caused her downfall. She glanced at the infant, who had reduced her crying back down to simple mewling. The baby seemed fine, not the kind of baby she thought would have been born to a drugaddicted mother.

"There's YWCA centers all over the place," Lisa heard herself say. "% can help you find one if you want!

"No, that's okay.' The woman shook her head. She had gotten herself under control now She shoved the two twenties into her purse. "I've already tried them, but… they're all filled up. I've been doing okay, really. I've only had to sleep in my car for the past two nights. I was staying with a friend, but her husband told her that she didn't want Mandy and me to stay with them anymore, and I ran out of money three days ago."

"I'm sorry," Lisa said, softly.

The woman looked at Lisa with a strong resolve. "It's okay. I… he's a jerk anyway. He's friends with my former boyfriend. He's the one that kicked us out of the house and fired me. He was cheating on me the whole time I was pregnant with our daughter. I didn't find out until three weeks ago. When I confronted him with it, he got angry and had me fired, then he threw us out of the house.'

"How could he have you fired?" Brad asked.

"Easy; the woman said, turning to Brad. "He was my boss at my job. It was stupid of me to fall in love with the guy who hired me, but I did. I thought we had a good thing going, especially when I found out I was pregnant." She sighed. "1 was so stupid! He came across as so lonely and broke and… I helped pay his bills. I literally ran the limit of my credit cards up to help him out, and now… She shook her head. "He took me for a fool"

"What about your parents?" Lisa asked.

"My mom died ten years ago and my dad disowned me not long after,' she said. "He has his own problems. The chief one being he's a dosed-minded, bigoted preacher. I was married once before and left my hus band for the same reason that got me kicked out of Richard's house. My father sees marriage as this strict thing. If you leave your spouse, you're committing adultery if you remarry. I started dating right away and…" She shrugged. He disowned me. We haven't spoken in seven years. I called him when Mandy was born, but he refused to speak to me."

Lisa felt heartbroken over the woman's story. She joined Brad, feeling awkward and embarrassed.

The woman turned to them. She looked embarrassed. "I'm sorry I burdened you with this. Thank you for helping me out. I promise you that the money will be put to good use. I've got a little one that is more of a concern to me right now."

"Are you sure there's nothing else we can do?" Brad asked.

The woman shook her head. "I'll be fine. I'm sure I'll be able to get work soon, even though I don't have a permanent address. My friend Christie told me I could use their address for a reference, and I'm sure she'll pick up whatever mail I get there. If I can do that, I'll be able to get a job-even a temp job-and move into a motel or something until I can get back on my feet"

Lisa offered the woman a smile. "I'm glad we could help. Good luck to you."

The woman smiled for the first time; it was a beautiful smile." hank you"

"Your baby's name is Mandy?" Lisa asked.

"Yes" The woman nodded. "Amanda Jane." "

'That's a pretty name."

Mank you."

"What's your name?"

"Alicia."

Lisa smiled. "I'm Lisa, and this is my husband, Brad."

Brad smiled and offered his hand. Alicia shook it. "Thank you," she said. "Both of you." "

"Take care, okay?" Lisa said, taking Brad's hand.

"1 will.,

*Will you be able to get a place tonight?" Brad asked, glancing at the baby in the car seat. "There's a motel across the street, you know."

Alicia nodded. "1 think so. For the past two nights, Mandy and I have been sleeping in my car. It's that blue Datsun over there." She pointed and Lisa saw it, parked ten feet from them, the back of it filled with suitcases and clothes. "I've been parking on Douglas Street off Ventura Boulevard. Its nice and quiet there. Thank God it's summer."

"Yeah, really," Lisa said. She smiled at Alicia again. "Well, good luck to you, and take care of your baby.'

"I will," Alicia said. "Thank you."

Brad and Lisa turned and headed back toward their car.

They were silent on the drive back to the freeway. Once they had merged back into traffic, Lisa broke the silence. "'chat was so sad"

"I know."

'Part of me wishes that we had done something more to help her,' Lisa said. 'I felt so sorry for her.'

"Me too. I almost didn't want to at first, but… well…"

'She really needed help. You could tell."

"Yes" Brad kept his eyes on the road ahead of him, hands on the steering wheel.

Lisa thought about her own baby that was now growing inside her. The minute she had seen Alicia and her baby, she immediately thought of helping and protecting the baby more than the mother. But then she saw that Alicia was truly a woman who was down-and-out, a woman who, through circumstances beyond her control, had been dumped on the streets with no support and a baby to take care of. She hoped the money they gave Alicia today would help. "I hope they'll be okay," she said.

"Me too," Brad said.

They headed north, and after five minutes the plight of Alicia and her baby daughter were forgotten.

Two

They noticed the van shortly after they pulled out of the rest stop.

They had pulled over at the rest stop just inside the Ventura County limits for bathroom breaks and a quick rest before heading on the road again. The hour-anda-half drive from North Hollywood where they had met up with Alicia and her infant daughter had been spent mostly in silence.

The radio station they were listening to, alternative rock station KROQ, was now fizzling in static, so five minutes into arriving at the rest stop Lisa had put in a Blondie CD. Brad had thought about Alicia for about thirty minutes after leaving her and the baby, and for the last forty minutes or so had been thinking about the long weekend ahead of them. The bathroom breaks were a long time coming, and upon meeting outside the lavatories, they meandered over to a picnic area with tables and benches. They shot a couple of photos of each other for posterity, including one photograph of Lisa posing by a sign warning of the dangers of rattlesnakes, which were plentiful in the area. Then they got back into the Lexus and continued on toward their destination.

Brad switched lanes to pass a slow-moving car towing a trailer in the slow lane. Lisa was consulting the map. 'Looks like we've got another two hours."

"Piece of cake," Brad said, as they climbed the hill.

"Its so nice up here. I wonder iI

"What the hell is this sonofabitch doing?"

Lisa looked over her shoulder. The entire rear window of their Lexus was filled with the metallic grille of a red van. Brad's grip on the steering wheel tightened. "What the fuck is wrong with people? I'm already doing seventy and this guy has the whole fucking road to pass me!"

"Let him pass us if he wants to get around."

"That's exactly what I'm going to do. I'm not speeding up for him.'

They reached the crest of the hill, and Brad took his foot off the accelerator as they wound down Interstate 5. They picked up speed, creeping to eighty. Some cars continued whizzing past at ninety or faster. Brad checked his rearview mirror, saw that it was dear, and moved back into the slow lane, his foot tapping the brake to slow down a little. The van stayed on his tail, moving to the slow lane right on his back bumper.

"You motherfucker." Brad's foot was riding the brake. His heart was pounding rapidly as his eyes darted from the rearview mirror to the road ahead of him. Their speed dropped gradually to seventy, then sixty. The van receded slightly, then sped up and tailgated them again. It was hard to see the driver through the tinted glass of his windshield, but Brad already had a mental image of him: Judging by the vehicle, he was probably another repressed, thirtysomething hothead with an ax to grind because Brad wasn't going fast enough to suit his needs. He can fuck off as far as I'm concerned. Brad thought.

"What is this guy's problem?" Lisa wondered, craning her neck to look out the rear window

"I don't know You have the cell phone with us?"

"Yeah. Think we should call the police?"

"I don't know. Let's see what he does first."

"Maybe we should pull over."

"Why? So he can pull up behind us and shoot us or something?"

Lisa opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked scared. Brad was scared himself. His mind retraced the last few minutes frantically, trying to reconnect with something that might explain why this guy was dogging their every step. Had he cut anybody off? No. When he'd passed the slow-moving car a few miles back, there hadn't been anybody in the lane next to him at all, otherwise he wouldn't have made the move. But then the guy had almost seemed to materialize out of nowhere right after he made the lane change. He must have been flying along at a hundred miles per hour, which would explain why Brad wouldn't have seen him when he checked his rear- and sideview mirrors. The guy had been coming up so fast that he hadn't been in the mirrors when Brad checked, then he was there the minute Brad made the lane change. Which means now the fuckhead behind the wheel was pissed off.

"Christ," Brad muttered, his knuckles white as his hands gripped the steering wheel. "Just what I need is some enraged asshole on my tail because he feels slighted over some stupid traffic dispute."

"He's pulling back," Lisa said.

Brad glanced in his rearview mirror. Sure enough, the van had pulled back to a more respectable distance. The afternoon sun glinted in the sky, reflecting off the van's windshield. Brad released a long sigh and felt better. "As long as he stays back there," he said.

They were silent for a moment as they reached the bottom of the hill and continued on, Interstate 5 stretching out before them like a long, black snake. It was a three lane highway, bisected by a median strip of grass that separated the north and southbound lanes. Traffic was moderate. Brad kept the Lexus at a safe and legal sixtyfive and stayed in his lane. No sense trying to play speed racer now. As long as they reached the hotel in one piece, that was all that mattered.

Lisa turned the Blondie CD back on. Debbie Harry began singing about being an X Offender.

They were relaxed enough now to make small talk. Lisa started talking about a transgression that had occurred at the office. Brad listened, wondering silently how his wife put up with those incompetent assholes at the law office. "So all they want to do is complain about all the work they have-like nobody else does? — and then they sit around and file their nails and gossip all day, and then complain about all the work they have and how they can never get anything done. George Brooks doesn't even notice what's going on. He spends all day in his office. And meanwhile, I'm trying to hold the department together, and Amy won't do anything to pare the deadweight down, and-"

Brad was listening, but he was monitoring the traffic behind him. The van was still behind them at a good distance. They were drawing dose to another slow-moving vehiclean old Ford piloted by a little old lady with blue hair and thick spectacles, barely tall enough to peer over the dashboard. Brad signaled for a lane change, checked his mirrors, and swung into the next lane to pass the Ford. The van changed lanes also, still a safe distance behind them.

He's changing lanes because he sees the Ford is crawling at a snail's pace. Brad thought. He tried to reassure himself with this thought, but a small part of him suggested that wasn't so. That part suggested that the faceless driver of the van still had a burr up his ass and was trying to be discreet about following them.

When Brad saw that he was at a comfortable distance past the Ford, he signaled for another lane change and merged back into the slow lane. The van did likewise, still a respectable distance behind him.

"So I just don't know what to do anymore," Lisa was saying, looking out at the road ahead of them. "Sometimes I wonder if l should just go directly to Debbie and-"

He listened. And he nodded and responded at the appropriate times. And he watched the road ahead of him and monitored the van behind them. It stayed a good distance back, never retreating nor accelerating to catch up.

And every time Brad changed lanes to pass a slower vehicle, the van did likewise. After three times Brad began to get an eerie feeling that the driver of the van hadn't forgotten the minor transgression fifteen minutes back. It was a feeling that gnawed at him, creating a pit of unease in his belly.

Lisa appeared not to notice what was going on. And I won't say anything, Brad thought. It'll just freak her out. Besides, it's probably just my imagination. I mean, why would-

'The van suddenly sped up, closing the gap between them. Brad expected it to tailgate him again, but it didn't. It crept up to one car length away and then eased up, widening the gap between them. Lisa, who had been talking about work, noticed the change of expression on Brad's face as the van accelerated, and glanced in her sideview mirror. "What the hell is he doing now?"

"1 don't know. But he's been following us the whole way."

"Are you serious?" Lisa watched the van out of her sideview mirror.

"Yeah. Every time we change lanes, he does the same thing. I almost get the feeling he's… well… stalking us."

"Why don't we pull over?" Lisa said, turning to Brad now with a scared expression. "Let's just get off at the next exit, pull into a gas station or something, and call the police."

"What for? The guy hasn't actually done anything"

Lisa looked like she was at a loss for words. "Well, at least we could see if he pulls off the road, too. It's better than nothing."

Brad nodded, eyes on the road, glancing back at the van behind them. For the past twenty minutes or so, the van had kept a safe distance behind them, never out of their sight even when other cars were in front of it. That was what worried him.

"I don't know. It's probably nothing. I mean, it's not like 1-"

"'There's a cop up ahead"

Brad looked. Parked in the grassy median between the north and south lanes was a California Highway Patrol car, as if the officer was laying a speed trap. Brad selfconsciously checked his speed-he was well within the speed limit-,and then they were zooming past the police car. His eyes darted to the rearview mirror just in time to see the patrol car pull into the highway behind them. It's just a coincidence, Brad thought. Surely he can't be lying in wait for us-

Flashing blue and red lights danced along the dome on top of the patrol car as it tailed them, the twin beams of its headlights flashing. The officer activated the siren briefly. Brad felt a stab of fear in the pit of his belly. Why is he pulling me over? I'm not speeding. I'm-

"I don't believe this," Lisa said, glancing back behind her shoulder.

"1 don't either," Brad said, as he signaled and merged to the right-hand shoulder and stopped.

He looked in the rearview mirror and saw that the patrol car had moved in behind him and was now parked, its lights still flashing. But that wasn't what made the pit of ice in his belly stab into him harder.

It was the van that pulled up behind the patrol car and parked behind it that sent his nerves twitching.

"Oh my God," Lisa said, her voice hollow. She looked at Brad, and her blue eyes were wide and scared-looking. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't know," Brad said, keeping his hands on the steering wheel. He watched in the rearview mirror as the officer approached the passenger side of the car. Lisa rolled down the window.

The patrol officer was thin, in his mid-thirties, with thin, angular features, brown hair, and a mustache. Dark sunglasses hid his eyes. He leaned down and looked at Brad. "Can I see your license and registration, please?"

"Yeah, sure." Brad fumbled for his wallet, got the identification out, and handed it over. The officer glanced at them, then looked back at him. "Got a call that you were doing some reckless driving back there. Speeding up real fast, then braking suddenly, swerving all over the road, trying to cause accidents."

Lisa looked over at Brad, confused, then back at the officer. "You must be mistaken, officer. We weren't doing anything like that."

"I didn't say you, ma'am. I meant him." He motioned to Brad, his voice taking on a tone of condescending.

"I haven't been doing anything like that," Brad said. He could feel his hands shaking. His voice, when he spoke, was thick and guttural. He had never felt so nervous in his life.

"I don't really care what you say," the officer said. "The person that called it in saw it and requested a citizen's arrest."

Lisa's features went pale. Brad couldn't believe what was happening. "There's some mistake," he heard himself saying. "I wasn't driving the way you said I was. I was going the speed limit, I was-"

"Save it," the cop said. "The person that reported it saw it and wants to make a citizen's arrest. I'm going to run your ID, then I'm going to go back to the person that made the complaint to confirm that you're the person he saw committing the violation. When he called it in he sped up to get your license plate number, so I'm sure identification won't be a problem. When that's done, I'll place you in custody-"

Place me in custody? Brad's heartbeat slammed harder.

"… then, depending on what time it is, we'll see if we can get you before the judge to arrange bail and then. "The cop looked at his wristwatch and shook his head. "Nope. It's a little after four o'clock. Courthouse is already closed. Anyway, it looks like you'll be in custody till Monday morning, when the courthouse opens again and bail can be arranged."

"Tis is bullshit!" Lisa's voice took on a high-pitched shrill. "We weren't doing anything! That guy-"

"Shut up," the cop said casually. "I don't really care one way or the other. It's your word against his, and he witnessed it. Wait here while I call this in and have a talk with him." Without another word, the officer walked back to his car.

Brad watched him go, feeling light-headed and dazed. He had never been in trouble with the law before, had never been guilty of anything except a parking ticket. For a moment he forgot his knowledge of California criminal law from law school. He was in private practice in family law, and hadn't been keeping up on criminal law much since getting his law degree. Surely this had to be some kind of mistake. His heart hammered in his chest as he watched the cop go back to his squad car and slide behind the wheel.

Lisa turned to Brad as he watched the cop type his information on the computer in his car. "'this is fucking bullshit! That asshole is just trying to fuck with us. We should be the one calling the cops on his ass to make a citizen's arrest!" Lisa had turned from a confused, scared woman to a woman with seething, righteous anger. When Lisa got angry, she got explosive and cursed like a sailor. And when she got explosive, you didn't want to be around her.

"1 didn't do anything," Brad said, still in a daze. "1-1-" He didn't know what to say.

"No shit, we didn't do anything." Lisa fumed. "And when that asshole cop comes back, I'm going to demand a citizen's arrest on that asshole in the van."

Hearing the venom in Lisa's voice injected some in Brad's own system, although now that he was thinking about it he realized that Lisa wouldn't be able to do that. It was all coming to him now: To assist in a citizen's arrest, the officer had to confirm that the violation in question was a felony punishable by at least a year in jail. If the guy was claiming speeding and reckless driving with intent to cause bodily injury, that would be enough for the officer to place him in custody. Lisa couldn't do a damn thing except represent him in court Monday. His stomach still churned, but he felt a sudden burst of adrenaline. "Let's see what that guy tells him," he said, watching the cop in his rearview mirror and the van parked behind it, its windshield a solid black screen.

"You're not going to jail," Lisa said, watching the scene from her side mirror. "I'm going to tell him I want to place a citizen's arrest myself. The guy in the van was stalking us and tailgating us. If that asshole wants to play at this game, that's just fine with me."

Brad's mind was racing. Worst-case scenario, maybe Lisa could contact a local judge over the weekend, get him to look at the case. Maybe we can get this dismissed by tonight. Yeah, that's the ticket-

"He's going to talk to the guy in the van now," Lisa said, watching from the sideview mirror. Brad watched from the rearview mirror. The cop stood at the passenger side of the van as he talked to the guy, who was still hard to make out due to the dark windshield. They were silent as they watched the conversation take place. What is he telling him? Brad wondered. What are they discussing? The few minutes that the cop spent talking to the faceless driver in the van felt like five hours.

Finally, the cop headed back to their car. Brad felt his gut tighten as the cop drew abreast of the Lexus, placing the driver's license in his breast pocket. His right hand went down to the grip of his firearm. "Would you please step out of the car, ma'am?"

Lisa cast a fearful, wide-eyed glance back at Brad. The cop leaned forward, looking directly at Brad. And would you please place your hands on the steering wheel so I can see them, Mr. Miller?"

I can't believe this is happening, Brad thought as he put his hands on the steering wheel. His heart was racing madly. I can't believe this fucking asshole is doing this!

Lisa stepped out of the Lexus. "I would like to make a citizen's arrest of my own, officer-"

"Shut up."'Ihe officer leaned toward the open passenger side of the car. Speaking directly to Brad, he said: "I want you to open the driver's-side door with your left hand, keeping your right hand on the steering wheel where I can see it.'

"Did you hear what I just said?" Lisa's tone of voice was taking on that righteous pissed-off anger that it tended to get when she was ignored. "1 said-"

"I'm telling you to shut up now, or I'll be taking two people to the Ventura County Jail today." The cop glared at her, then turned back to Brad, the subject of Lisa's interruption dismissed as he tended to the arrest at hand. "Now I want you to step out of the car carefully with your hands over your head where I can see them."

Brad did what the officer told him, the adrenaline pounding in his veins. Lisa stood at the side of the road in shock. When he got out of the car, he saw the officer standing on the other side of the vehicle, his mirror shades black and menacing. Lisa looked helpless and angry. "Put your hands on your head and walk around the front of the vehicle and come toward me."

Brad put his hands on his head and walked around the front of the Lexus on wobbly legs. When his feet reached the side of the road, the officer stepped forward. "Turn around."

Brad turned around and the officer grabbed his wrists, jerking them behind his back. He felt the cold snap of steel around his wrists as he was handcuffed. "Now I want you to sit down while I go and get the person that issued the compliant. Stay here." He helped Brad to a sitting position on the ground, then walked back toward the van.

Lisa knelt down beside him. "Everything will be okay. When we get to the police station, I'll call contact the District Attorney of Ventura County. We'll get this taken care of."

Brad felt a lump in his throat; he felt like crying, but not out.of fear. He felt a sudden outpouring of blinding, white-hot rage. "Call Billy, too." William Greckd was a friend of Brad's family and a criminal defense lawyer in Orange County. He was a brilliant, if annoying, criminal defense attorney. He was brilliant because he had a knack for getting some of the most repugnant people off with little more than a slap on the wrist. He was annoying because he was an alcoholic, one who was a pain in the ass to be around when he drank.

"I want to kill that fucking sonofabitch," Lisa said, her voice trembling. Tears appeared at the corner of her eyes, but her voice carried a tone of anger and loss of their weekend together being suddenly destroyed.

"Just be calm," Brad said. "We don't need you in jail this weekend, too. I need you to be calm to get us out of this, okay?"

"1 love you," Lisa said. She kissed him quickly, and then the sound of approaching footsteps caused them both to look up as twin shadows fell across them.

The man standing next to the officer was of medium height, but overweight with a huge belly. He had sandy hair that was balding at the top and a scruffy, sandy beard. He was wearing a T-shirt with the word Hawaii on it in a tropical design, and a pair of faded blue jeans and white tennis shoes. He was wearing sunglasses. He grinned wide.

The officer looked at the driver of the van, then nodded down at Brad. "Okay, you can go ahead."

The man took a step forward, grinning at Brad. "I'm placing you under citizen's arrest for reckless driving, asshole. That'll teach you to fucking pull in front of people on the highway."

Lisa shot to her feet. "This man is lying, Officer. He's been harassing us ever since we pulled out of the last rest stop outside of Ventura. He's been tailgating us and-"

"1 don't want to hear it: the cop said. He reached down and pulled Brad to his feet, his hard callused fingers digging into the flesh of Brad's upper right arm. "And I ain't letting you make a cross-complaint, because this gentleman witnessed you make several felony driving violations. Your only recourse is in court when your husband goes up for trial. If the case is dismissed or he's found not guilty, then you can seek civil recourse against Mr. Smith, here."

Brad glared at the man the officer referred to as Mr. Smith, who smiled back at him. That smile seemed to say I got you, you stupid luck. Teach you to fuck with me.

"I hope you have deep pockets, Mr. Smith," Lisa said, nearly spitting the words out. "You've picked the wrong people to fuck with; my husband and I are both lawyers, and when this is over we are going to sue you so fucking bad you won't be able to find a shopping cart to live in!"

Mr. Smith smiled at her. "My apologies for being a concerned motorist, ma'am." He turned to the officer. "Do I need to do anything else, Officer?"

"You need to follow me to the station to fill out some paperwork," the officer said. He began to lead Brad toward the patrol car. To Lisa: "Lawyers, huh? Looks like you'll be needing one yourselves, ma'am."

"I plan on having a word with your captain, too," Lisa said.

"Whatever." The cop opened the back passenger-side door of his cruiser and Brad slid inside. "Watch your head," the officer said.

Brad looked up at Lisa. "Call Billy, honey."

"I'll follow you to the police station," Lisa said. The officer slammed the door.

"Okay," the officer said, turning to Lisa. His face was expressionless, his features stony. "Let's get this show on the road."

Three

The Days Inn off the Interstate had vacancies. Lisa Miller was sitting on the lumpy queen-sized mattress in her room, her suitcase opened, phone book out. The curtains were drawn, the rays of the setting sun bleeding through and casting shades of orange across the table and part of the bed. Lisa and Brad had been looking forward to this vacation for the past six months; now it was shot to hell thanks to that Mr. Smith asshole.

Thinking about the situation again made Lisa want to smash something, preferably Mr. Smith's smug, self-righteous face. The nerve of that man!

She had seethed the whole time she was at the sheriff's substation. First she had to watch Brad be led back to the jail. Then she had to watch that prick of a cop come out with some paperwork and talk to that Mr. Smith numbfuck who had been standing on the opposite side of the lobby, pausing every now and then to grin at her. It was hard to ignore the man; she had to fight the urge to walk across the lobby and rip his smug face off his skull. Just you wait, she had thought as she watched the officer hand the paperwork to Mr. Smith and instructed him on how to fill it out. When this is over, I'm not even going to wait for Brad to come to trial. I'm going to slap you with the biggest lawsuit you've ever seen. You won't know what hit you. You'll wish you had driven that fucking van of yours off a cliff

When the officer was finished with Mr. Smith, he had come to her. He wasn't wearing those stupid cop sun glasses anymore. His eyes were like cold flint. They were cop's eyes-cold, unemotional, uncaring. "I need to explain to you your legal rights and the ramifications of a citizen's arrest," he began. "The first thing I suggest is find yourself a motel room in the area. Your husband is going to be in a cell until Monday, when we can drive him to the Ventura County courthouse and have him arraigned. The bail will probably be low, but you can never tell what mood the judge will be in. I suggest getting a lawyer this weekend."

"I've already got one," Lisa huffed, arms crossed in front of her chest, looking boldly at the officer.

"You mentioned back at the scene that you and your husband are lawyers; what,kind?"

"Family law"

"Then I'll explain to you what you may not have learned in law school. The reason I can't allow you to make a citizen's arrest on Mr. Smith is because one, your claim, if it's true, is a misdemeanor offense. Mr. Smith claims to have witnessed felonies. The minimum statute which a private citizen can file a complaint for a citizen's arrest is a felony punishable by up to one year in prison. That's just the minimum."

"And driving within the legal limits of the law is a felony," Lisa said with a hint of sarcasm. "I see. 7bank you for clarifying that for me".

The officer ignored the remark and continued. "When I talked to Mr. Smith back at the scene, I explained all the legal ramifications to him. I don't know what happened back there because I didn't see it. Mr. Smith claims to have witnessed your husband driving in a reckless manner in a way that would have put other motorists in grave danger. His descriptions to the 911 operator amounted to that of at least two felonies, and that's when I was dispatched. Otherwise I wouldn't have made the arrest. I did explain to Mr. Smith the consequences he could face should the case be thrown out, or if your husband is found not guilty; that he could face a civil lawsuit. He was firm that he understood and that he wanted to pursue the complaint, so by law I was obligated to place your husband in custody."

"Should this go to trial, is he called as a witness?" Lisa asked, motioning across the room toward Mr. Smith.

"Depends on what the DA says. The paperwork Mr. Smith is filling out will require him to explain precisely what he saw, including information on where he lives and other contact information. In most cases, that is all anyone needs to do in making a citizen's arrest. In some cases, nothing further is needed of the witness. That isn't always the case!

"So all this crap that asshole says we did… speeding, and swerving dangerously in traffic and braking suddenly… that's a felony?"

"Reckless driving with the intent to cause grave bodily injury or property damage is a felony in the state of California," the cop said. "Like I said, the minimum for which a citizen-and that's anybody-can file a citizen's arrest is that the crime they witness has to be a felony punishable by up to one year in jail. That's why you don't hear about people making citizen's and on jaywalkers."

"What about witnesses?" Lisa asked. "Or physical evidence? Will the DA try to gather some?"

"Who knows?" The officer shrugged. "My guess is they won't. A case like this, it's you and your husband's word against Mr. Smith's. Personally, I think the DA will take one look at this case Monday morning and decline to file charges. I told Mr. Smith that I didn't think he had a very good chance in something like this, especially out on an open highway. Of course, if other people call in to say they saw it happening, then there might be a stronger case. But unless that happens, there isn't much to go on." The cop cocked his head and his features became softer. "If you don't mind me asking, did you notice this guy before this happened?"

Lisa had almost exploded with anger, but she held it in. We're only told you eight million fucking times that this asshole was dogging us all the way from the last rest stop! Instead she had said, We noticed him just after we pulled out of a rest stop twenty miles or so back. There wasn't much traffic, and Brad made a lane change to pass a slow-moving vehicle. There was nobody, and I mean nobody in that lane, and then all of a sudden that guy," she motioned to Mr. Smith, "was right there on our ass, tailgating us like crazy."

The cop had actually listened. He had nodded as Lisa spun the story, his eyes darting over to Mr. Smith, then settling back on Lisa. Lisa had felt a little better that somebody was finally listening to her now, but she was still angry over the way she and Brad had been treated, especially at the hands of this cop. When she was finished, the cop nodded. "I'm sorry for what happened," he had said. "I'll be perfectly honest in saying that I really can't do anything about the situation. But I would like to say off the record that I think the judge or the DA is going to take one look at the complaint against your husband and throw it out. I know your vacation is probably all shot to hell now-"

"It is."

The cop had nodded, his features apologetic. "I explained to Mr. Smith the full consequences that could happen should the outcome be found in your favor. I explained that he would be fully opening himself up to a civil suit, and despite that, he wanted to proceed. Between you and me, I think the guy has a screw loose."

"I think he did this because he was zooming along at a hundred miles an hour," Lisa had said in a hushed whisper. She had been facing the officer, but her eyes were fixed on Mr. Smith's back as he bent over the paperwork at the counter. "That's why Brad didn't see him in the lane, and it also explains why he was suddenly there right on us. He probably got pissed off because he had to slow down to avoid hitting us, and I'm sure it didn't make matters any better when Brad slowed down as we descended the hill. Brad got back into the slow lane, but he followed us, right on our tail!

The officer had nodded, looking across at Mr. Smith. `I think that might be a safe assessment'

There had been nothing left for her to do at the substation. They wouldn't even let her see Brad, but the officer did promise to relay a message to him. She would be checking in at the Days Inn and would be placing a call to his parents in Orange County, as well as his friend Billy. She would also try contacting the DA, or a local judge, to see what she could do in speeding the arraignment process up. If she couldn't get the wheels grinding tonight, she would cancel their hotel reservations in Cambria and remain in town until Monday morning. In fact, she would be waiting at the substation bright and early Monday morning when the paddy wagon showed up to transport him to the Ventura County Courthouse. She would be in court for the arraignment, hopefully with their lawyer. And the minute he was out they were going to have a little talk, the three of them, about filing a lawsuit against Mr. Smith.

She had left the substation and driven to the Days Inn five blocks east. There was a Denny's on the comer, which she supposed was where dinner would be eaten tonight. She had checked in and called his parents. Luckily, they had been home. Brad's father, Frank, was an executive at Farrar & Sorts, an investment firm, and the cushiony salary and thirty years with the company had left him and Joan, Brad's mother, pretty well off. To devote more time to her art, where she excelled in watercolor, Joan had been able to take early retirement as a junior high school teacher after slugging it out for twenty years. Due to his position at Farrar and his years with the company, Frank had plenty of flex and vacation time. They had been very upset and alarmed by what happened. "Do you want us to come up?" Joan asked.

"Yeah," Lisa had said, sitting on the bed, twirling the telephone cord between her fingers. She would feel better if Brad's parents were here. She wouldn't feel so alone.

Joan asked if she would be okay by herself tonight, and Lisa said she thought she would. *We'll be up in the morning, then," Joan had said. "Between ten and eleven.'

Lisa glanced at the clock on the nightstand. It was now closing in on six PM. Her stomach rumbled. She hadn't eaten a thing since this morning and she was hungry. She stood up and began rummaging in her purse. The cop that had pulled them over-he had finally introduced himself as Officer Chris Lansing-said that Brad would be fine for the weekend. He was in his own cell, and he would be served three meals a day. Lisa's heart went out to Brad, who was a good man. He surely didn't deserve to have this happen to him, but at least he had his own cell and the jail itself was empty. "If we get anybody else for the weekend, they'll have their own cell. Don't worry, Mrs. Miller, he'll be fine."

She was reflecting on what a gentleman Officer Lansing had become the more he learned about what really happened, when her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.

She whirled to the door, her heart leaping slightly in her chest. That couldn't be Joan and Frank, not this early. Even if they had changed their minds about coming up tonight, it would still take them three hours or more to get up here from Huntington Beach. She went to the door and peered through the peephole. Nothing.

She opened the door and peeked out, and that's when the door slammed back violently and hit her above the left eye.

She fell back and hit the wall as the door slammed open. Her mind was spinning, trying to track what was happening, and then he was looming over her, his beard scruffy in his grin. "Thought you were rid of me, huh, bitch?" Mr. Smith said. Then he swung one hard, callused fist down onto her head and Lisa saw stars, then blackness.

Four

The next thing she was aware of was her head hurting.

Lisa came awake gradually, as if swimming up from the bottom of a pool. The darkness turned to gray, then a murky color punctuated by lights and muffled sounds. The lights grew brighter, but everything was blurry. A shadow loomed over her and hung there; she was frightened, thinking the shadow was going to descend and take her down into darkness again.

Then her blurred vision cleared and she blinked. She was lying on her back in the motel room's queen-sized bed. Her arms were tied behind her back, and the strain on her shoulders was what brought the pain to the surface. She shifted on the bed and then she saw him, sitting on a chair by the end table. He smiled and rose to his feet. Instinct took over and she kicked out with her feet, but she didn't get anywhere: he had tied her ankles together, too.

Mr. Smith laughed. "Now now, Mrs. Miller. No need to get antsy."

"Let me out now!" Lisa screamed. The sound of her scream was loud, even to her ears. She let loose another loud, piercing scream and tried to lunge off the bed at Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith's cocky grinned disappeared. He swarmed over the bed, his body pinning her down as she screamed and flayed on the bed. You cocksucking motherfucker, I'm gonna kill you-"

Now now, let's not have any of that." He damped one large, meaty hand over her mouth to shut her up. Lisa clamped her teeth over the fleshy part of his thumb and bit down hard. Mr. Smith yelled and jerked back, holding his thumb. Lisa squirmed violently and tried to scream again, but managed only a slight croak. "You bitch!" He held up his bleeding hand to Lisa, his features seeming to say /can't-believe-you-bit-me!

Lisa took a deep breath and yelled at the top of her lungs. Her back arched as she lifted her upper body off the mattress. Mr. Smith fumbled in a small bag she saw on the nightstand, and he extracted a handkerchief. He picked up a small bottle resting by the bag, poured something in the handkerchief, set the bottle down, and advanced toward the bed. Lisa's eyes widened in shock, and she struggled. Mr. Smith approached her and Lisa opened her mouth to scream again, but the handkerchief was stuffed into her mouth, the wet part clamped down over her nostrils, and then she was breathing in a heavy, acidic stench and she saw stars. The room was spinning, and she barely had time to recognize the looming figure of Mr. Smith over her as her mind reeled from the scent of whatever it was he had given her, and then her last thought was Oh my God, the baby=

When she woke up again, she had a splitting headache. She tasted something in her mouth and ran her tongue along it. It was a loth rag, wedged into her mouth and tied around the back of her head. She was gagged.

The sun had dropped outside and it was darker in the room now. She lay on the bed, her heart pounding, letting her eyes grow accustomed to the dark. She heard him before she saw him, from the chair at the writing desk opposite the bed. "You're awake," he said. "You don't have to lie there and pretend to still be out. I know you're awake"

She almost let out a sob of frustration and fear. She felt tears at the back of her throat; her face felt hot and flush. She was no longer hungry, but there was an empty feeling in her belly anyway-the empty feeling of fear.

The dark shape sitting at the chair rose to its feet and walked over to the side of the bed. Lisa could barely make out Mr. Smith as he stood over her. "I had to gag you," he said, "because you were being unreasonable. There's no need to be unreasonable. It's a good thing for you nobody heard you. If somebody had heard you and come to investigate, you wouldn't have woken up, little lady. No sirree."

Lisa began to cry.

Mr. Smith leaned over her and she could make his features out more clearly through tear-blurred eyes. He was grinning. "Everything's going to be fine," he said. "You got a nice little bump on your noggin, but it's barely noticeable, which is good. We're just going to wait until it gets dark, then we're going to hit the road. That's why I had to tie you up and gag you. Once it's dark and the coast is clear, I'll move you to my van and we'll head off."

Head off to where? Her mind screamed. She tried to control her sobs, but couldn't. The tears flowed freely and her breath was harsh. Why are you doing this?

As if he had heard her silent question, he smiled: "I know you're probably wondering why I'm doing this. If it'll make you feel better, I've never done this kind of thing before-kidnapping people, that is. I'm not some psycho or some serial killer. I'm not going to hurt you!

So why are you doing this?

Mr. Smith leaned over her. "You guys presented yourself to me so perfectly. The citizen's arrest? That was just my way of getting you separated from your husband. By the time he gets out of jail Monday morning, you and I will be over the hills and far away."

Lisa felt a sudden weight of fear in her belly. Oh my God, he's going to kill me!

Mr. Smith leaned closer to her. She could smell his breath; it smelled of onions. "So your hubby gets to spend the weekend in jail-and you?" He chuckled and straightened up, rising to his full height. "You get to spend the weekend in my company. We're going to have a good time together." He walked to the window and parted the drapes, peering out at the darkness.

Lisa's heart raced. What was he going to do with her? She felt a sinking sense of dread. It wasn't just her anymore-there was the baby to think about now. She was almost paralyzed with fear at the thought of the fetus in her womb being hurt, but somehow she barreled past that. Her hands moved to and fro behind her back, testing the bonds. He had trussed her up pretty tight. It would take a miracle to untie herself, and unlike the heroes and heroines of novels, she didn't think she'd be able to free herself.

Mr. Smith turned back to her. "You might be wondering what I'm going to do to you. Like I said, Mrs. Miller, I've never done this before. I ain't no serial killer, and I ain't no rapist, either. It's just that, well.. " He shrugged. "Maybe I'll tell you later if you behave. How's that sound?"

He grinned wide again, his teeth gleaming in the darkness. "We'll leave when it gets dark. We have a good threehour drive ahead of us."

Lisa's breathing became quick and labored as Mr. Smith stepped loser to her and leaned over her prone, trussed-up form on the bed.

Five

When Joan and Frank Miller pulled into the parking lot of the Days Inn the next morning at ten-thirty, they saw the kids' Lexus parked in front of room 6. There were four other cars in the parking lot: a black Camaro, two SUVs, and an Accura Legend. Rank pulled in next to the Lexus and turned it off. "Here we are," he said.

"I wonder if she was able to talk to Brad this morning," Joan said, grabbing her purse and sliding out of the passenger seat.

"If she hasn't yet, maybe the three of us will be able to this morning," Frank said, shutting the driver's-side door and stretching his back. The three-hour drive had begun very early for them. They had been out of the house by seven o'clock.

Joan crossed over to room 6 and rapped on the door. They stood there for a moment, waiting for Lisa to answer, and then Joan knocked again. "Maybe she's in the shower," Frank suggested.

"Maybe' Joan rapped harder on the door and they waited, spending the next three minutes knocking every twenty seconds or so, trading puzzled looks. Joan put her ear to the door and frowned. "I don't hear anything."

"She couldn't have gone anywhere," Frank said, motioning to the Lexus. "Her car is still here."

"Do you think she might have walked to the police station?" Joan shaded her eyes with the flat of her hand as she gazed down Rim Road. "The police station is only five blocks that way."

Frank shrugged. "It's possible. She might be at the Denny's having breakfast, too. Why don't we take a little walk and find out?"

Their little walk took them to the Denny's, then to the Ventura County Sheriff substation. Once at the substation, they inquired at the front desk about their son. The desk clerk, a young woman with black hair carefully pinned back, consulted a computer. "He's in the jail's holding and receiving area," she said.

"Has he had any visitors this morning?" Joan asked. It had been warm this morning in Orange County, and she had dressed in a pair of white slacks and a blue blouse. It was a little chilly in Ventura, and she pulled a white sweater over her shoulders.

The clerk shook her head. "No, he hasn't. Are you family?"

"We're his parents," Frank said. "Can we see him?"

"Let me check" The clerk picked up the extension on her desk, punched a number, and got somebody else on the line. "Mr. Miller in 4D? His parents are here. Can he have visitors?" She paused. "Okay, thanks." She hung up and turned to Frank and Joan. "The jail warden will be out in a minute"

Five minutes later, a door opened and a young officer looked out. "Mr. and Mrs. Miller?"

As they followed the officer down the hall to the rear of the building where the jail was, Frank asked again if Brad had received any visitors this morning. "None," the officer said.

"Are you sure?" Joan asked. "We were thinking our daughter-in-law might be here already."

"You're the first to see Mr. Miller this morning," the officer said. He inserted a key into a large metal door and opened it, ushering them inside. "Last cell on the left. Press the buzzer outside the door when you're finished.*

'Thanks." Frank took Joan's arm and led her through the door and down the hall.

Brad was waiting for them at the front of the cell, his hands gripping the metal bars. His hair looked ruffled and there were dark circles under his eyes. He smiled when he saw them. "God, am I glad to see you guys!"

Joan went to her son and reached through the bars, grasping his hands and pulling him closer. She kissed his cheek. "We're glad to see you too, son.'

"You okay, Brad?" Frank asked, taking Brad's hand and squeezing it affectionately.

"I'm tired. I didn't get any sleep in here last night."

Joan was nervous, not just for the situation at hand, but because they hadn't seen Lisa. "Lisa hasn't been by this morning has she?"

"No," Brad said, his face strained. "I thought she would have been here by now. She called you last night, didn't she?"

"Yes, she called us last night from her room," Joan said, casting a worried glance at Flank.

"She gave us her room number last night when we talked to her," Frank said. Joan could tell her husband was trying to appear calm. "We got here fifteen minutes ago and went to her room, but she wasn't there!

Brad frowned, worry creasing his features. "Rut's weird.*

"Her car was there," Joan said, as if to reaffirm to her son that everything was okay. "Maybe we just missed her at the Denny's or something."

"Why don't I head back and see if I can find her," Frank said, looking from his wife to his son. "Maybe we did miss her."

"You do that," Joan said. "I'll stay here."

Frank nodded, gave his son a smile, and pressed the buzzer at the end of the hall. The door opened and he stepped through, pausing briefly to talk to the officer on the other side. The door closed and then it was just mother and son, alone in the jail.

Joan turned to Brad, trying to not appear so worried. "Have they been feeding you in here?"

"Yeah," Brad said, dangling his arms over the bars. "The guards are really nice. As you can see, I've got the entire block to myself." He tried to muster up a smile, but it came across as half-assed and forced.

"Dad got ahold of William last night around eleven," Joan said. "He said that most likely, from what Dad described to him regarding what happened, the judge will probably dismiss the case."

'That's what I thought," Brad said, his features worried. "The cop that arrested me said the same thing. He said he explained the legal ramifications to the dickhead that started this whole thing, but the guy wanted to go ahead with it."

"What a creep," Joan said, fiddling with her purse. "I hope there's some way they can arrest him for filing a false police report."

"I don't think they can do that," Brad said slowly, looking more nervous. He licked his lips. "So, Lisa wasn't at the motel room at all when you showed up?"

Joan told him the story again, telling her son that she thought Lisa might have been in the shower but she hadn't heard anything. Brad nodded. Joan reached through the bars and took her son's hands, patting them reassuringly. "We probably just missed each other," she said. "Your dad will find her."

They spent the next ten minutes talking about what had happened yesterday. Brad told her everything, starting with the lane change and Mr. Smith's van being suddenly on top of him, tailgating him all the way down the hill, to finally dropping back. Joan felt more nervous as the story spun out, and she tried to tell herself that she was overreacting when Brad was finally finished. "1'm sure everything will work out," she said. "When this is over-"

The sound of the door opening interrupted her and they both turned to the sound. Flank came down the hall alone, his features creased with worry. Joan felt a flutter in her stomach, and she heard her voice give a sharp squeak as she asked her husband, "You didn't find her?"

Frank shook his head, his dark eyes wide and scared. "I retraced my steps all the way back. Even asked the hostess at the Denny's if Lisa had been in. She hadn't been in at all, even last night. The front desk clerk at the motel says they haven't seen her since she checked in. I tried knocking on her door again, but there's still no answer."

If Brad looked scared before, he looked petrified at this news. His face went pale. Joan felt light-headed with worry. She reached through the bars again and took her son's hands. "I don't like this," she said. "Maybe we should-"

"Go back to the motel and ask them to open the door for you," Brad said, his voice wavering. "Tell them what's going on, and if they won't open the door, come back here and talk to the police. In fact, ask for Officer Lansing. He's the guy who arrested me yesterday."

"I'll be right back " Flank said, turning to head back down the hall. Joan watched him go, feeling lightheaded and dizzy. Frank had looked ashen as he told them what he'd found, and as she turned back to her son she suddenly saw how Brad would look in thirty years: he would be an exact carbon-copy of his father.

"Everything's going to be okay," she said, forcing a smile and squeezing his hands through the bars.

Brad nodded, not meeting her gaze. "Yeah." But the tone of his voice suggested that he didn't believe her.

Frank had to threaten legal action if the front desk clerk didn't get off his fat ass now and accompany him with a passkey to room 6 and open the door. The clerk sighed, rolled his eyes, and moved himself off the stool behind the desk with a groan. "I'll probably get fired anyway for doing this, so let's go." He pulled the passkey to room 6 off the wall and swung around the counter. "Be right back," he called to somebody in the back room.

Frank felt his limbs grow heavy with trepidation as they approached the room. The desk clerk paused in front of the door, inserted the key, and opened the door, stepping back to let Frank pass. "Be my guest," he said.

Frank stepped into the room, the darkness seemingly sudden and final. He felt for a light switch, found it, and turned on the light. He stood at the threshold for a long time, not sure what he was seeing. He had almost forgotten about the front-desk clerk when he heard his voice behind him. "Well? Satisfied now?"

Room 6 was fine. The bed was neatly made, with no signs that it had been slept in. There was no sign of a struggle; no overturned furniture, no broken glass. Frank stepped into the room, his eyes sweeping around it. Lisa and Brad's Lexus was parked right outside the front door, but there was no sign of their luggage or any other personal belongings anywhere. He headed to the bathroom and turned on the light, inspecting the sink and countertop, the unused bathtub, the clean white towels lined up on the iron rung of the linen ring. He turned to the clerk who had followed him into the room. Are you sure you haven't seen Lisa Miller? Think!'

The clerk shrugged. "Only time I saw her was last night when she checked in.' He glanced around the room. "Are you sure she even spent the night here? Looks like she didn't even use this room last night"

Flank glared at the clerk. "What a brilliant deduction! What are you, employee of the month?"

The desk clerk's features went sullen. He shuffled on his feet nervously. "Listen, I have no idea if she was here last night. I got off at six-thirty, thirty minutes after she checked in. For all I know, she could have left right after I got off work.'

Frank turned back to the empty room. "Stay here," he said. "I'm getting the police."

*Whatever," the desk clerk said, following Frank out of the room.

Frank glanced at the Lexus as he headed outside. He peered inside the car-it looked normal, no sign of luggage anywhere. Of course, they would have put their luggage in the trunk, and he didn't have the key to open it. With a sinking sense of dread, Frank hightailed it back to the Ventura County Sheriff substation, wondering how he was going to tell his son that his wife was gone.

Six

Lisa Miller was very afraid.

She lay naked on a narrow spring mattress, her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts, her mouth gagged. It felt like she had been trussed up like this for days, but the shrinking part of her rational mind told her that it was probably only twelve hours or more. She had long stopped crying; crying made her throat hurt and made her more tired. It also made it hard to concentrate and sapped her willpower. And if she wanted to get out of here, she was going to need all the willpower she had.

She had been so overcome with anger when Mr. Smith had barged into her room (last night?) that she hadn't even thought about what she had been planning to tell Brad this weekend. This was supposed to have been a romantic getaway. A second honeymoon of a sort, punctuated by romantic dinners, cuddling together on the bed and making love, sightseeing, and just spending quality time together. Lisa had something else she wanted to do as well; she had wanted to tell Brad that he was going to be a daddy.

The thought of her pregnancy hadn't come up when Mr. Smith came into her room; what had come up was her sudden anger, and then the instinctual fight-or-flight mode. It wasn't until Mr. Smith was getting ready to carry her outside to his van that she thought of the baby.

She had feigned unconsciousness as Mr. Smith deposited her in the back of the van. For a time she must have passed out, because the next thing she remembered they were moving. She had been blindfolded, but she could sense that Mr. Smith was somewhere in the front driving. She had lain on the floor in the back, trying to calm herself down. The more agitated she became, the more her head hurt. Her mouth was dry, and the sweet, almost pleasant-smelling liquid he had knocked her out with was still in her nostrils. He had trussed her up more tightly this time, securing her wrists together tighter than before. Likewise, her legs were tightly bound together, as were her ankles.

But she wasn't gagged.

Lisa had waited until she felt calm and her throat was well moistened before she ventured communication. "Where are we going?"

"1 was wondering when you were going to talk," Mr. Smith said, keeping his eyes on the road. "1 could tell when you woke up; your breathing changed. How do you feel?"

"My head hurts," she said, saying the first thing that came to her mind. She decided that the best way to approach her predicament was to be calm and controlled. To let her rage take over was to invite more trouble from Mr. Smith. If she turned combative again, he might see fit to pull over and gag her again. Or knock her out.

Oh my God, did him knocking me out with that stuff was it chloroform? — did that hurt the baby?

"If you promise to behave and not cause a scene, I'll give you some water and aspirin at the next rest stop. How's that sound?"

Okay.

He drove silently for a while and Lisa debated whether or not to ask where he was taking her again when he answered her question. "As to where we're going, I'm taking you to a cabin near Big Bear. In fact, if you want, I can pick up some food for you at the next rest stop and whip something up for you once we get there. You must be hungry."

She was starving. "I could eat something," she said. Her mind was racing: Be calm, don't do anything to set him off If he was going to kill you, he would have done it by now.

And on the heels of that: Why is he taking me to this cabin?

She wondered if she should tell him she was pregnant. She had heard from would-be rape victims that telling your attacker that you were pregnant was a possible deterrent. Would it work with Mr. Smith? She was just about to mention it when he started talking. "I don't want to hurt you," he said, eyes on the road. "In fact, if I didn't need the money I wouldn't be doing this. That whole scenario that happened back along the interstate? Like I said, that was just to separate you from your husband. My name's really not Mr. Smith, and this van isn't even registered to me. Nobody will know what happened to you. I cleaned up at the motel, wiped everything down, even used gloves after I knocked you out. I took your luggage and your purse-they're in the back with you somewhere. I left your car at the motel because that will be the first thing they look for, and a stolen car is easy to trace. This is going to work out." It sounded like he was saying this aloud to reassure himself that what he had planned was going to work, rather than attempting to explain to her his intentions.

He's going to rape and kill me, she thought, a sudden lump rising in her throat. That's why he's taking me to this cabin. That's why he didn't take my car. When he's done, hell bury me somewhere in the woods and nobody will know. Nobody will ever find out.

And on the heels of that: But if he was going to rape me, why did he say that he wouldn't be doing this if he didn't need the money? Is he kidnapping me for some kind of ransom?

"I'm pregnant," she said, not really knowing if this revelation would be an influence. It wasn't; Mr. Smith laughed.

"If you think that's going to get you out of this, you're a bigger fool than I thought. But I admire you for trying anyway. I know what it must feel like."

"You have no idea how I feel. And I'm not lying about being pregnant, either."

"You don't look pregnant."

"I just found out early this morning."

"Really?" He paused for a moment. "Have you told hubby yet?"

She didn't know what to say. "No," she said in a whispering tone.

"But you were gonna tell him, weren't you? This weekend?"

Lisa felt the anger and hate come boiling back. She could picture his cold gray eyes watching her in the rearview mirror. "Maybe I was. What is it to you, anyway?"

"Just that I want to know what I'm dealing with. I can understand now why you were so feisty back there at the motel. Your maternal instinct kicked in. You weren't just thinking about saving your own skin, you were thinking about the unborn baby in your womb. Weren't you?"

'flying to push the anger down, she nodded. "I guess you could say that."

Mr. Smith sounded like he was considering this. "If what you're saying is true, then they might actually like this."

Those words had a chilling affect on Lisa. She felt a pit of ice creep into her belly. "What do you mean? Who are they?'

"Later," he said, dismissively. The rest stop is coming up and I'll be pulling over. Remember. One peep out of you and you are one dead bitch. Got that?"

She had been forced to remain silent, struggling silently with her tears as he gagged her, then exited the van. The few minutes he spent in the AM/PM mini-market felt like hours, all the while safety and freedom only a shout away as other travelers pulled up beside them and people walked past the van to the convenience store. She had tried maneuvering around in back of the van in a vain attempt to see if she could chance opening the door and making a run (or a stumble) for it, but she was bound so tight that she could barely move. If she screamed, there might not even be a chance she would be heard. She would have no way of knowing where Mr. Smith was because she wouldn't see him until he opened the front driver's-side door of the van, and he would surely know she had been screaming for help. She believed he really would try to hurt or kill her. And she couldn't do anything that would jeopardize herself or the baby. She had to wait until she saw a better chance to escape and then take it.

When he came back, he had a bottle of Evian water and some Anacin. He crawled in the back and helped her sit up. Then he popped two Anacins in her mouth and held the bottle up for her to drink. She thanked him, and he managed a faint smile. "Got some ready-made sandwiches for you, too. You'll eat one when we get to the cabin."

He kept his promise. They had arrived at the cabin a little under an hour later, and he got her into the bedroom through a side door. She could tell they were in the mountains by the brief scent of pine and the brisk, cool air as he ushered her through the door. Ten minutes later, he took the blindfold off and he was patiently feeding her as she sat up on the narrow bed, holding the Evian bottle up for her to drink. When she was finished, he instructed her to lie down on the bed, and then she felt him struggle with the knots he had used to tie her up. "You'll feel some of these loosen up, but don't move or try to do anything. You try anything, I've got a hammer right here that III use to smash your skull." She had lain down, fighting the tears as he practically untied her. Then he quickly peeled off her clothes, then told her to turn over. When she turned over, she saw that he indeed had a hammer. She was almost tempted to try rushing him again; she could surprise him, try to claw out his eyes or something, but he had that hammer, and he was holding it in his right fist, ready to swing. She couldn't risk it. He told her to lie down on her back, and then he slipped the rope he had tied around her arms down to her wrist and tightened it with one swift tug. He had her wrists and ankles tied to the bedposts within a minute, and then he stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. "You'll be fine for the night. If you gotta piss, go ahead and piss on the mattress. I'll be up in the morning to change it and bring some other things."

"What are you going to do?" Lisa was sobbing, and now her emotions did gain the upper hand. All she could think about was how this man was destroying all her hopes of having a baby with Brad, a dream she had been working to achieve for the past two years. All she could think about was saving herself so that her baby might live. "You sonofabitch, why are you doing this!"

"1 told you," Mr. Smith said calmly, a look of indifference on his bearded face. "It's nothing personal. I need the money, okay? I'm not going to hurt you."

"I don't understand!" she wailed, trying to sit up in the bed. "Please let me go! I swear I won't say anything. I won't tell anybody-"

"It's too late for that now," Mr. Smith said, looking down at Lisa calmly. "Look, it's nothing personal. The people I'm working for… well, the dients they're working for, they wanted somebody just like you. They were getting tired of using runaways, drug addicts, and vagrants, the kind of girls they had been using all along. They wanted somebody who has a clean, wholesome image. Somebody who actually has a life. It took me two days to find you." He grinned down at her.

She still didn't understand; Mr. Smith said that he wasn't going to hurt her, but what he was implying sug gested that somebody else was. She sobbed hoarsely, her vision blurred with tears.

Mr. Smith leaned forward. "The… clients who we're doing this for… they've got some real expensive tastes. 'They've got a taste for… well, let's just say they have a taste for some pretty hardcore shit."

"What are you talking about?" Lisa wailed.

"They're into extreme hardcore and snuff films," Mr. Smith said, once again indifferent. "Surely you've heard of snuff films, haven't you?"

Lisa shook her head, feeling her flesh break out in goose pimples. She had never heard of extreme hardcore or snuff films, but she instinctively felt that whatever they were, they were bad.

Mr. Smith leaned forward slightly. "Extreme bondage… S&M… surely you've heard of those, haven't you? You don't strike me as being that naive."

Lisa nodded, a shudder running through her body. She was going to be raped! Raped and tortured for some per- vert's private porno film collection. She began to sob again. "Well… yeah… but… I still don't understand… bondage… isn't that like… I thought… I thought… that was just… regular porno people doing that!"

"The clients that my associates and I are working for have tastes of a more brutal nature," Mr. Smith said, indifferently. "It's a very small circle of people, really. They gather at various intervals throughout the year in the privacy of their own homes, and buy and sell various tapes that my associates, and others, produce; mainly extreme hardcore S&M films, sometimes snuff films. Regular porno people don't associate with this stuff. You'd have to be crazy or a fool to want to appear in one of these things. Unless you're a complete sadist like Animal." Mr. Smith's features were grim. "Of course, there are some hardcore freaks-masochists-who get off on that kind of shit. Some of them appear in the hardcore S&M and torture flicks, but the others? Snuff films? Like I said, our clients were getting tired of watching the same chicks and butt boys time and time again and wanted something different-something fresh." Mr. Smith grinned slightly. "It's nothing personal, really."

"You're going to kill me," Lisa whispered, looking up at Mr. Smith with fear.

"I told you that I'm not going to kill you," Mr. Smith said. And I'm not going to hurt you. I'm supposed to take care of you to assure my associates that you are in the best physical appearance as possible for our shoot. Then when Al and the Animal get here sometime tomorrow or the next day-"

"The Animal?" Lisa said, dread suddenly filling her even more at the sound of the name.

Mr. Smith cocked his head at her. "Yes, Mrs. Miller. I was telling you the truth when I said that I wasn't going to hurt you or kill you. But your costar in the snuff film we'll be shooting… the Animal… he will."

Lisa's hands were shaking, and when she spoke her voice quivered with fear. "Please. You don't want to do this.*

"I'll be back tomorrow," Mr. Smith said. He turned and exited the room.

She found her voice and let loose with a wail. "Please let me go! Pleeeaaase!"

Her wail fell on deaf ears. Mr. Smith exited the cabin, and a moment later, amid her heavy sobs, Lisa heard him start the van up, back down the gravel path, and head down the highway.

Seven

The three nights and two days Brad Miller spent in the Ventura County slammer were the longest of his life.

Fueled by his anger over the initial road rage incident that sparked his incarceration, he got little sleep that first night, and when he found out that Lisa was missing, his nerves went on a frenzy. He continually paced the length of his cell while his mother stood by, helpless as he drove himself deeper and deeper into worry. "I don't like this, Mom, this just isn't like her, I don't like this, why aren't they doing anything!"

That first day, Frank Miller succeeded in getting ahold of Officer Chris Lansing, the patrol officer who had placed Brad in custody Friday. When he told Officer Lansing that Lisa was now missing from her motel room, with no clue as to where she could have gone, Officer Lansing grew concerned. "And Brad hasn't seen her since his arrest?"

"That's right," Frank had said. He had cornered the officer as he strolled in to begin his two-to-midnight shift. "And everybody I've talked to in this fucking building says they can't do anything about it because she can't be considered missing yet!" He spat that last sentence out with an air of contempt. "Fucking bullshit, if you ask me."

"Come with me a minute," Officer Lansing said. He led Frank through the office to a desk where a young officer with a crew cut was at a desk in front of a computer. "Can I borrow your computer for a moment, Doug?"

"Sure" Doug moved aside, and Officer Lansing sat behind the terminal.

'In my right-hand drawer there is an arrest file on a citizen's arrest by a Mr. Caleb Smith. Can you pull that for me?"

Doug retrieved the file and Officer Lansing flipped through it. He entered Mr. Smith's name and address in the system, hit a key, then waited. A moment later, a message appeared on the screen: NO MATCHING RECORDS FOUND.

'Shit' Officer Lansing retyped the information as Frank peered over his shoulder at the screen. The query returned the same message.

Officer Lansing turned to Frank.'"Ihis system hooks up with the DMV's central database. I should have gotten Mr. Smith's DMV record, which would have included any outstanding warrants or other records, but there's nothing."

Frank looked at Officer Lansing. "You saying this guy gave you a false address?"

"1'm not saying anything yet." Officer Lansing handed the file to Doug. "Run a complete check on Mr. Caleb Smith, then run a DMV check on his vehicle. When you're done, bring the printouts to me. I'll be in Ken's office." He rose from the desk and began heading toward an office at the rear of the building. "I'll have to get back to you, Mr. Miller. Will you have a seat in the waiting room for me?"

That had been the longest wait in Frank's life. When Officer Lansing came back, he was accompanied by a lieutenant. The lieutenant appeared to be his age, with salt-and-pepper hair and ruddy features. "We're sending a pair of detectives to the Days Inn now, and another to talk to your son!

Flank had risen to his feet. "Does this mean you can let him go?"

For the first time, he realized that Officer Lansing looked embarrassed. Lieutenant Young gave Officer Lansing a cursory glance, then looked back at Frank.'Un- fortunately, because your son was placed under citizen's arrest in pursuant of a felony, we can't release him until Monday morning."

"Christ!" Frank ran a hand through his thinning hair.

"We're doing everything we can to find Lisa," Lieutenant Young said, trying to muster a positive smile. "We'll find her. Don't worry."

Frank relayed all this to his son that afternoon, trying to break the news as gently as possible. Brad could only listen with a growing sense of dread; he didn't know how, but somehow Mr. Smith had something to do with this. He could feel it in his gut.

Brad's parents stayed with him at the jail until five PM. By then a search had been conducted at the motel room, and no signs of foul play had been found. Officer Lansing had remained at the station to ferry the news back to the Millers and comb through the files for any information on Mr. Smith. He broke the news shortly before five o'clock. "Something happened to her," Brad said, his voice threatening to break. "Find this Mr. Smith guy and-"

"We're working on it," Lieutenant Young said. "Believe me, we want to find this guy ourselves."

"What's his story?" Frank asked. "Did you run his license plate? Was that fake too?"

Officer Lansing looked grim. Me DMV check we ran on his plate came up reported stolen six months ago. The plates belonged to a Chevy Suburban in San Diego. I didn't get a PIN number on Mr. Smith's vehicle at the time of your arrest because… well.. "

"I was the criminal yesterday, not him," Brad said, feeling the cloud of anger return.

Officer Lansing ignored the comment. "Every check we've done through the DMV has resulted in a dead end. I've got a sketch artist coming up with a composite now, and we'll put that over the bulletin by this evening. Don't worry, we'll catch him!

"What do we do till then?" Brad asked. His eyes were bloodshot and he was exhausted.

Officer Lansing sighed. His face had an empty, haunted look. 'There's only two things we can do. Wait and pray."

Eight

The sound of a car engine pulling up in the driveway woke her up.

Lisa snapped out of a light sleep, her senses alert. She heard the slam of a door and then footsteps. The sound of a door opening and then a rattling sound. Her heartbeat quickened. He's back, and this time he's with those other guys, thatAnimal and whoever else, and then they're going to start. They're going to rape me and kill me and my baby and film it and-

The footsteps sounded across the gravelly driveway and up the front walk of the cabin. She held her breath as a key was inserted in the lock of the front door, and then the door was opened and the footsteps were clicking across the hardwood floor of the cabin. "Hello?" Her heart leaped in her throat, because at first she didn't recognize the voice. Then the man said "Hello" again and recognition flooded in: It was Mr. Smith. - —

He walked into the bedroom bearing something in his arms. He bent down and set it on the floor with a clanking of metal and stood up, smiling. "How are you this fine morning?*

Lisa opened her mouth to answer, but all that came out was a dry hiss. Her throat was dry. Mr. Smith nodded. "Want some water?"

Lisa nodded. "Yes," she rasped.

"Coming right up." Mr. Smith disappeared into the kitchen and returned a moment later with a glass of water. He held the glass to her lips while Lisa sipped at it slowly. "Better?"

Lisa nodded. "Yeah "

"Good" Mr. Smith glanced down at the mattress. "I see you couldn't hold it last night."

Lisa felt the tears spring to her eyes again. The pain in her bladder had grown unbearable by late last night and she had been forced to void it. The smell and dampness that had spread under her buttocks and settled into the mattress had kept her awake the rest of the night.

"Don't worry. There's a spare mattress in the next bedroom that fits this bed frame just fine. We'll replace it. And you won't have to worry about making wee-wee in the bed anymore. I've found a solution to your problems." He picked up the thing that had made the metallic clanking sound, holding it up for her to see. It was a piece of chain.

Lisa started to cry.

Mr. Smith ignored her as he went about his work. First he attached a device on the windowsill, screwing it on with heavy-duty screws; it looked like a pulley. Then he payed out the heavy line it was attached to and fastened a metal ring to it. A piece of short, heavy chain was attached to that, and another device was attached to that. Then he drew out two pairs of handcuffs, one which he attached to her wrists, the other to her ankles. He attached a piece of chain to the thin but sturdy chain of the handcuff and ran that length of chain to the heavy pulley on the larger chain. He did the same thing to the hand cuffs attached to her ankles. When he was finished, he untied the rope that secured her ankles and wrists to the bedposts. Lisa was barely aware of what Mr. Smith was doing; she lay on the bed crying uncontrollably, hysterical in her fear.

Mr. Smith tested the strength of the chain by tugging on it. Lisa felt a sharp bite of steel in her wrists and ankles and stopped crying. Mr. Smith smiled. "There. Why don't I help you stand up now"

He helped Lisa sit up by moving her shoulders and upper body into a sitting position on the mattress. Then he helped her move her legs over the side of the bed. "Stand up now and let's see you walk." She did so, and Mr. Smith kept a close watch on her, grinning and nodding. Lisa's cries had reduced to sniffles, and she walked around the room, testing the new contraption that would keep her prisoner in this room. The shackles around her ankles were barely a foot apart and forced her to shamble along like a prison inmate. She stumbled as she tested the limits of it. Mr. Smith reached out to help her up. "Whoa, watch out there! I can't lengthen the chain on the cuffs down there. Wouldn't want you trying to kick me or Animal." "

Lisa glared at Mr. Smith but said nothing. "How far can I move in this thing?"

*Let's head to the bathroom and find out" He held his arm out, as if escorting her like a gentleman. He led her to a door she had barely noticed before that was set against the wall. He opened the door, and she saw that it was a small bathroom, complete with a tub and a sink. Lisa walked into the bathroom. "Can you sit down at the john? Let's try it"

Lisa turned around and sat her naked buttocks on the lid of the toilet. The payout of the line attached to the pulley grew taut. Mr. Smith smiled. "Wonderful! Just like I thought. You have enough line to reach the toilet, which means you probably have four feet beyond the bedroom door and that's it. I'll board up the window to keep you from smashing it and trying to escape, but then I've got you pretty well trussed up"

Lisa looked at Mr. Smith, feeling defeated and beaten. She had been doing some thinking last night and resolved herself to not even try to plead with him. He had told her last night that it wasn't personal, he was only doing this for the money. He had picked her up because she was what his unknown clients were looking for to be the star of a snuff film. She had been thinking about that last night, and while the implications of what was going to happen to her were petrifying, she had a thousand questions to ask him. She had been debating on whether to try to draw him into some sort of conversation. Part of her felt that she needed the human contact of conversation to keep from going crazy, while another part of her held the dim hope that perhaps if she evoked enough compassion in him, Mr, Smith would let her go. She seriously doubted that, but it was worth a try.

"How did you get into what you're doing?" She asked him, her voice submissive but not pleading. "You know… the whole snuff film thing." "-

Mr. Smith shrugged as he worked at the window. He had gone into the living room and come back with several five-by-twelve pieces of wood, which he proceeded to erect across the window and nail to the wall, boarding it up. "I never really got into it. It's just something I do for money."

*But you had to fall into it somehow."

Mr. Smith turned to her. "Why do you want to know?"

Lisa shrugged. "I figure as long as I'm going to… you know.-.. I might as well know more about it!

Mr. Smith turned back to the window and continued boarding it up. "I admire that. You'd rather face up to things than run away from them. I like that." "

Except for the pounding of nails as Mr. Smith boarded up the window, there was silence for a moment.

*1 was a producer for a while," he said, finishing up the window. "I produced a lot of hardcore porn back in the seventies. That's how I met Al, one of the guys you'll meet later. He's a director. He shot a bunch of films for me. I specialized in a lot of extreme hardcore S&M and bizarre shit-golden showers, fisting, bestiality, blood sports, scat films, rape films, a lot of kiddie porn-you name it. I had an audience that ate that shit up"

Lisa listened, feeling disgusted with Mr. Smith. He looked, acted, and sounded like the stereotypical pervert. Middle-aged, balding, overweight, glasses, small beady eyes. It was easy to picture him sitting his girth on a director's chair, pulling his pants down, and telling the naive teenage giggleboxes who came to Hollywood with dreams in their eyes that, sure they could have a part in his film, but first they had to get down on their knees and show him how much they appreciated him.

"So how did you come to be a part of making snuff films?' Lisa asked, hiding her revulsion.

Mr. Smith was finished boarding up the window. "I don't do just snuff films. I do a lot of stuff on commission. Al and 1, we do a lot of extreme hardcore S&M shit. And I ain't talking your everyday, run-of- he-mill slap-andspanking shit that bored yuppies and trendy goths are into, either. All that rope bondage and whips and chains shit that people are into? Forget that. You can get crap like that at your neighborhood video store. The stuff I'm talking about that Al and I deal in is extreme, sick shit. Most of it is near-death stuff: mutilation, a lot of asphyxiation. Al's tapped into the extreme hardcore community real well. Some of the people he shoots for privately, they're into this kind of shit. Whenever we get a job, he comes to me and I… well, I sort of comb through the girls I know of that would fit perfectly."

"What kind are those?"

Mr. Smith looked at her. "Not like you, that's for sure."

"Why's that?"

"You're not like them, that's why. You got a life. A career. You're a lawyer, right?"

Lisa nodded.

"The chicks I usually get for extreme hardcore films and snuff films," Mr. Smith said, regarding her calmly, "they've got nowhere to go but down. Sometimes we get a request for a guy, and they're just as easy to get because they fall into the same shit. Most of them are hardcore druggies; runaways, hookers, people that aren't immune to turning some pretty sick tricks, you know what I mean? I find them, take them out, buy them clothes, show them some money, they fall all over me. Turn them on to a bit of blow or smack-most of them are already fucked up on drugs anyway-and they'll keep coming back for more. Once they get a taste for a shitload of money and free drugs, they'll do anything. They'll even come back for more. Shit, some of them are so fucked up when we use them for an extreme hardcore film, they actually like it! Can you imagine that? Getting off on somebody cutting your tits or burning you with cigarettes? Well, some of them get off on it, and those are the ones we use for the films. Like I said, they got nowhere to go but down, and they don't give a shit what happens to themselves anyway. Shit, most of them are too fucked up to care. And most of them have the same sob story to tell: Daddy abused them, or they ran away from a shitty home life or some other shit. It don't matter where they come from as long as they're on the way down. Long as they been on the street for a while and they got nowhere to go, no mommy and daddy to go to, no boyfriend or husband that will give a shit about them, they're the ones we use. Long as nobody misses them, that's all that matters.' '

Lisa was disgusted, but she tried not to let it show. "So why me?"

*1 told you. The guys that commissioned this film, they got tired of watching a bunch of junkie cunts being raped and sliced up. To tell you the truth, a lot of those chicks get so fucked-up-looking they look real skanky by the time we use them. The clients wanted something fresh. Shit, they woulda used a bitch like that Britney Spears chick or Heather Locklear if they could get away with it. They wanted somebody that was pretty and healthylooking, somebody that didn't look like they had been shooting dope for the past five years, or who had too many fucking scars on their bodies from S&M mutilation " or size-fourteen assholes from too many fisting sessions."

So in other words, I'm nothing to them and to you. Lisa thought, digesting the information slowly. If she had heard this yesterday, she would have gone into hysterics. Now she merely processed the information and shifted gears. "I'll be missed, though," she said. "My husband… my parents, our friends. I'm not just some nobody. People will want to know what happened to me."

Waybe." Mr. Smith shrugged and headed toward the entrance to the bedroom. "But who gives a shit? What matters is that nobody will know afterward. That cop that pulled you over yesterday? He's got nothing on me. And when this is all over, this here," he pointed to his scruffy beard, "gets shaved off and I wear my contact lenses for a while. Maybe lose a few pounds. Trust me, we had this planned for a while. The van I used last night is already in Mexico, the driver's license I used was fake. In short, the cops got nothing on me. And this place?" He swept his hands around the cabin. "It's so far off the beaten track nobody will know anything. Nearest neighbor is a mile away, and-"

"Nobody will hear me if I scream," Lisa finished.

if they do, they'll think it's just the coyotes howling at the moon." Mr. Smith grinned. And besides, you'll be too fucked up to do any screaming. The shit Al will shoot you up with… you'll be conscious, but you won't be able to scream."

Lisa was silent. Mr. Smith watched her for a moment, then bent down to pick up his toolbox., He started heading outside.

"What about the people who are into this?" she asked. Mr. Smith stopped at the doorway and looked back at her. "The people that… pay to watch. I mean…" She gestured vaguely. "What kind of people are into this? Why? Why do they do it?"

Mr. Smith appeared to ponder the question before he answered. "More than fifty percent of the people that watch snuff films are weak, inadequate, high-profile people with high-profile jobs, mostly people in the business community: corporate executives and CEOs, bankers, people like that. Some of them are high-priced lawyers. The others are participants in the extreme hardcore scene just looking for something they haven't seen or done. As to why they do it.. " He paused, stroking his chin. "It's a power trip," he said, looking directly at her. "It's a rush for them. It gets them off. Extreme hardcore and snuff isn't just about sex. It's about owning someone, making them beg for mercy, deciding whether or not they're going to give it. It is the ultimate power over someone. When the… people who are into this kind of stuff… when they watch a snuff film, they like to imagine what it's like… what the killer feels. They like to pretend they're him, doing the things he's doing. They get a tremendous sense of power, knowing they orchestrated the torture and death of another human being."

The thought terrified her, but she tried not to show it. "What about the guy that will be doing it… the Animal? — Why does he do it?*

Mr. Smith grinned. `1 guess you'll have to ask him." He turned and left the room.

Lisa sat on the bed, all hope draining away. She had no idea what time it was now. There was no clock in the bedroom, and the sun had been up for how long? Two hours? Three? All sense of time was a blur. She had barely slept last night, especially after being forced to pee on the mattress she slept on. She had started crying after soiling her mattress, and the next thing she remembered, the sun was coming up. She supposed it could be anywhere between eight and eleven o'clock in the morning by now.

Her bladder felt full again and she stood up, walked into the bathroom, lifted the toilet lid, and sat down. She peed, then flushed the toilet. The urge to wipe came, but then she thought, why should 1? Mr. Smith was bringing the Animal to rape and kill her anyway. Why clean up for him? She stood up and moved to the sink, sobbing quietly as she washed her hands. Even though she had just found out she was pregnant, she was already picturing what her and Brad's baby would look like. And now it was all going to be snuffed out. She took a deep breath and hung her head over the sink, trying to calm herself down. When her sobs trickled down, she looked in the mirror at her reflection. There were large, dark circles under her eyes, the whites red. Despite not sleeping much last night, and everything else she had gone through, she didn't look that bad.

She walked back into the room just as Mr. Smith was replacing the mattress. The old pee-stained mattress was resting on its side against the bedroom wall. He patted the new mattress. "Have a seat. I'll be outside nailing up that window." He exited the room and she stood there for a moment, her mind numb and reeling. After a few minutes, she sat down.

She heard him clomp outside to his vehicle, then a few minutes later she heard him at the side of the cabin outside the bedroom window. She heard the sound of pounding along with his mutters, and then he began putting the wood up, securing it over the window. She sighed and tried to drown out the sounds of Mr. Smith hammering nails in the wood that would secure it to the windowsill. The room was dark from the boards already blocking the sun from the inside. She looked up at the ceiling, feeling her eyes grow heavy with tears again. The sound of those boards going up over the window was like nailing the lid of her coffin.

She sat on the bed and tried not to cry as Mr. Smith worked on boarding up the window to her prison. Her mind retraced yesterday's nightmare quickly: leaving the rest stop, the van's grille suddenly filling up the rearview mirror, Brad's panicked voice as the van dogged their every move for the next mile or so down the highway, then the whirling lights and sirens of the Highway Patrol. She had known the minute she saw those lights appear in the rearview mirror that it had something to do with the van, that the driver had pulled some kind of stunt. And when that cop had pulled them over with his holier-thanthou attitude and told them it was Brad that was driving around like an asshole, she'd felt an impending sense of doom. She had felt a sense of disbelief as the officer told her why he had pulled them over, and why he couldn't really give a shit about them-after all, the law is the law, and I'm only doing my job. And now as she sat naked on a bare mattress in a small cabin somewhere in Big Bear in the San Bernardino mountains, her mind flashed on something she had almost forgotten.

They had still been at the rest stop. They had stopped for bathroom breaks, and as usual Brad had finished first. Lisa had exited the women's restroom and joined Brad at a little scattering of picnic tables. There was a yellow sign with a blocky-looking drawing of a snake on it, a warning to tourists that rattlesnakes were in the area this time of year. Lisa had stood by the sign with a wild grin as Brad snapped a photo of her, and it was then when she had seen him walking by, casting his gaze on them.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember, summoning the image in her mind. Yes, she was positive it had been Mr. Smith. He had been wearing sunglasses, and the more she thought about it, the more the picture came to her mind. He had been standing by a large tree that overlooked the rest stop. She didn't remember him being there when they had pulled up, but she surely remembered glancing over at him when she left the ladies' room. She had quickly dismissed him, figuring he was just another tourist waiting for his wife or significant other to exit the ladies' room. There had been four other women in the restroom besides her, and she had dismissed it from her mind until she and Brad were shooting photos and horsing around, and then he had walked past them slowly, casually, and then Brad had said something that distracted her and then they were laughing over something and the guy was forgotten as they gathered their stuff together and headed toward the Lexus. He was gone anyway, both physically and from her mind, when they climbed into the Lexus and backed out of the parking space to hit the Interstate.

But hadn't there been a red van parked at the rest stop? Now that she thought about it, she could have sworn that there was. She could picture it now: him sit ting at the rest stop, carefully but unobtrusively watching as tourists came and went, waiting for just the right people to come along. And then she and Brad had dropped in. How did Mr. Smith pick them? Did he overhear a scrap of conversation they might have had as they walked to the restrooms together? Some bits of information that told him everything he needed to know? Did that information-talking about their vacation plans this long weekend-give him what he needed to know to convince himself that he would have at least two days to do what he needed to do before any alarm was raised about her disappearance?

The feeling of dread settled in her belly further. Now she was more terrified than before. The story he'd told the officer was bullshit. The thought of actually feeding her to this guy he called the Animal for a snuff film, all for the satisfaction of a faceless group of perverts, was more frightening the more she thought about it. He didn't appear to be bothered by the fact that he was playing a key role in her murder. He didn't seem to care when she told him she was pregnant. All he had been concerned about was the money he was being paid.

There was no question about it. She had to get out of here at any cost. She would run through the woods naked if she had to. She didn't care. What mattered more than anything was getting out alive. She didn't have just herself to think about anymore-the life of her unborn baby was at stake.

A thought suddenly came to her as she remembered being knocked out by Mr. Smith: Did the chloroform he gave me yesterday… did that hurt the baby?

Oh God, please no, please let my baby be all right!

The sound of Mr. Smith working outside became background noise as she sat on the bed and thought about what to do. When Mr. Smith left later today, she was going to have to do some roaming around the room to see if she could find something to help her escape with. She inspected the bed she was sitting on. Maybe she could take a piece off of it, use it to batter down the boards he had nailed over the window Surely if she was able to do that and wriggle out the window she wouldn't get very far because she was chained up, but if she stood outside and yelled long enough, wouldn't somebody hear her? Even if the closest cabin was a mile away, surely somebody would hear her during the day and-

"Hey, Tim? Jeff? Anybody here?"

Lisa's heart froze. For a moment she thought it was Mr. Smith, but then she heard the sound of nails being hammered into the wood outside the room. Mr. Smith was still outside boarding up the window. Which meant that-

Footsteps clumped from the back of the cabin and grew loser. "I was wondering when you would be coming back up. I saw your van and-" It was a woman's voice, and now Lisa looked up just in time to see her stop in the middle of the living room, silhouetted against the rays of the sun that streamed in through the halfboarded-up window. The woman looked like she might have stepped out of the pages of a fashion magazine. She was tall, with dark hair that fell to her shoulders. She had high cheekbones and a sharp nose, with full lips and dark eyes. Now those lips were open in a round 0 of surprise, her eyes wide with shock as she looked through the doorway at Lisa sitting naked on the bed, her ankles and wrists shackled together. "Oh my God!" she said.

Lisa was so stunned by the sudden intrusion that she didn't know what to do. Her brain was frozen. She thought the woman standing in front of her was an illu sion, a wishful thinking of her imagination. The woman took a step closer, her face still frozen in that Fcan't-be- lieve-I'm seeing-this expression, and said, "Are you okay? What the hell is-"

Mr. Smith suddenly appeared in the living room, grabbing the woman from behind, one arm locked around her throat in a chokehold, the other around her waist. The woman struggled, her eyes going wider, and Lisa watched as Mr. Smith tried to wrestle the woman to the ground. The woman tried to scream, but all that came out were muffled, strangled sounds of fear and anguish. Lisa watched, her stomach in a tight ball.

For a minute it looked like the woman had a fighting chance. She had a good six inches on Mr. Smith, and she used her height to its full advantage, throwing herself around, trying to offset the balance and throw him to the ground. But Mr. Smith managed to knee her in the kidneys and the woman went down with a muffled woof of pain, and then he had her. He brought her to the ground and, planting his knee on her back, he held her down. "Goddamnit, why did you have to barge in like that? Oh goddamn, goddamn…"

The woman had been stunned by the blow to her lower back, and tears welled up in her eyes. Mr. Smith hit her again, and the woman screamed and curled up into a ball. The sound of the scream curdled Lisa's blood. She drew herself up on the bed in a protective gesture, not even aware she was whimpering.

Mr. Smith stood up, looking anguished as he ran a hand through his thinning hair. "Oh Christ, this is a mess. Shit!" He turned to the remaining chains on the floor, and Lisa watched as he trussed the woman up with them. "Debbie, why the fuck did you have to barge in like that, huh? Why the fuck did you have to stick your nose in my fucking business?" He repeated similar mantras as he trussed her up. By the time he was finished, the pain from the two blows to Debbie's kidneys seemed to have subsided. Now all Debbie did was sob loudly. She didn't resemble the woman who had stumbled into the cabin a few minutes before. Mr. Smith had reduced her to a quivering, blubbering thing.

Mr. Smith tested her bonds. "Shit!" He turned and clomped outside. Lisa watched, breath held as she heard him rummaging around in his van. Then he returned a moment later with some rope. Mr. Smith tied Debbie up with the rope, trussing her up more securely than he had with the chain. When he was finished, he stood up and surveyed his handiwork. Debbie lay on the floor, arms tied behind her back, wrists tied together, her legs and ankles lashed together. No way was she going anywhere. "I'm sorry I have to do this, Debbie," Mr. Smith said. He looked around nervously. "You up here alone? Did Neal come with you?"

Debbie only cried.

"Fuck!" Mr. Smith stomped outside. Lisa heard him get into his van and start it. He backed it down the driveway and sped down the road.

Lisa waited, her stomach doing slow flips in her belly. If Neal was up here as well, he might be her chance to escape. That is, unless Mr. Smith didn't kill him first.

The wait for Mr. Smith to come back was torturous. Debbie cried the whole time, and shortly before Mr. Smith returned, her crying slowed down to trickles. Her eyes were puffy, and they glanced around the room, wide-eyed with terror. Lisa looked down at her. "What's your last name?"

"Martinez," Debbie said, hiccupping. 'Who are you?'

"Lisa Miller. Is Neal up here with you?"

"No" Debbie's face screwed up and she began sobbing again, heart-wrenching cries that tugged at Lisa's gut.

Mr. Smith stomped back in. He looked somewhat relieved to find Neal not at the cabin. "Is Neal coming up this weekend?" he asked the crying woman on the floor.

Debbie shook her head, trying to calm her crying down. "No… please don't hurt me!"

"I'm not going to hurt you' Mr. Smith was agitated. He bobbed back and forth on unsteady legs. "When is Neal coming up?"

"/ don't know!" Debbie cried.

"Shit" Mr. Smith ran his hand through his hair again. He looked at Lisa, then turned away and headed back outside. A minute later, he resumed his work at the window

Lisa sat on the mattress, her mind racing. Surely, whoever Neal was, he would grow worried when Debbie didn't come back, or when he couldn't reach her at her cabin. Debbie was most likely a neighbor and was acquainted with whoever Tim and Jeff were well enough to feel relaxed around them (Was Mr. Smith, Tim? Or was he Jeff7). If Neal wasn't around this weekend, how long would it take him to get worried and try looking for her?

Would he think of looking for her at Mr. Smith's cabin?

And if he did, would Mr. Smith-or worse yet, would the Animal-be here to kill him?

Lisa couldn't think of that now. To do so would be courting defeat. Neal was her only hope. Debbie lay on the floor, her crying trickled down to sniffles, and now the darkness in the room was like a permanent thing. Mr. Smith finished boarding up the window.

He trumped back inside the cabin. He looked in at the two women, his eyes darting to Debbie, then to Lisa. "I'm leaving, but I'll bring you some food. Are sandwiches okay?"

'Yeah."

"Okay." Mr. Smith disappeared, and a moment later she heard him in the kitchen.

Lisa looked down at Debbie. "Crying only wastes your energy," she said in a whisper. "We're going to need all the energy we can get, girlfriend. You better believe it if you want to get out of this."

Debbie lay on the floor, her eyes wide and staring. "Why is he doing this?"

"I'll tell you later," Lisa said. She turned away from Debbie and waited on the bed for Mr. Smith to return. Several times Debbie whispered up to ask her what was going on-why had Tim tied her up like this? Why did he attack her and tie her up? — but Lisa didn't answer her. "I'll tell you later," was all she said. "When he leaves." And then Tim-Mr. Smith to Lisa-was back with four sandwiches, a bag of potato chips, four bottles of Evian water, and several pieces of fruit. And then he was gone.

When the sound of the van's engine receded in the distance, Debbie asked Lisa again. Lisa looked down at the woman. "How well do you know Tim? And what's his last name?"

Debbie opened her mouth, dosed it. "His last name is Murray. I… I don't know him that well, I guess. I mean, we're neighbors, I see him and his friend Jeff and their other friends up here every so often, but-"

"Listen to me very carefully," Lisa said. "And try not to freak out. I know that will be hard to do. It took all of my willpower to not collapse, and if we're going to get out of this we're going to have to work together. You and me. Okay?"

Debbie nodded, her face stony. And then Lisa shuffled closer to Debbie and told her, and Debbie did freak out.

Nine

"You people are a real piece of work, do you know that?"

"Ma'am, we're doing everything we can. Now, if you'll please-"

"Please nothing. My daughter-in-law is missing, and you not only refuse to believe that, but you've been holding my son now for two days without a legitimate cause for-"

"Ma'am, we've been through this before." The officer on the other side of the desk was trying hard to remain calm, but was clearly becoming agitated the more Joan Miller kept arguing with him. "There's nothing we can do until Monday morning when Brad is arraigned. I know Officer Lansing has been helping you and your husband through this, but-"

'Tbat's enough, Officer," Frank Miller said. He grasped his wife's elbow firmly, pulling her away from the reception desk. "Come on, Joan."

"But-" Joan looked torn between wanting to leap over the desk and throttle the officer and breaking down in tears.

"It's okay. They're doing everything they can. All we can do is wait." Frank looked like he had aged ten years in the past twenty-four hours.

"Wait for what?" Joan's voice was full of anguish. The tone of it caused several people in the lobby of the sheriff's station to turn their way. "For that scum Caleb Smith to-"

"Enough!" Frank grasped his wife more firmly and led her away from the reception desk and got her outside.

Once outside, Joan turned on her husband. "Goddamn it, FYank, don't you dare do that to me again!"

"You listen to me," Frank said, holding his ground firmly. He grasped his wife's shoulders, his eyes boring into hers. "The facts are, these people are doing everything they can already. To release Brad from custody would not only be a violation of California law, it would get them in a hell of a lot of trouble. Like it or not, there's legal protocols they have to follow. As for the accusations against Caleb Smith-"

"Accusations my ass! That bastard has done something with Lisa! Don't you see it?" Joan's voice practically screeched. Her hair was in disarray, her eyes puffy from lack of sleep.

It was late Sunday afternoon, over a day and a half since arriving to keep Lisa company for the weekend while they tried to get Brad out of jail. In that time the situation had grown from bad to worse. The sketch of Caleb Smith had been put over the wire and so far there had been no word. The police were searching for the van and it hadn't turned up. Their lawyer friend, Billy Grecko, had called at the hotel room this morning, and when confronted with Lisa's disappearance told them he was going to put in a call to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He knew an agent there whom he was on good standing with, and he was sure he could convince him to get a missing-persons investigation started, at least give the Ventura County Sheriff a good kick in the ass to get going quicker. Meanwhile, Brad was still sitting in a cell, getting by with little sleep and food. The more the hours passed with no word on Lisa, the more frantic he was becoming behind bars.

"They are accusations right now,' Frank said, his voice firm. "Mind you, I have just as strong a feeling as you have that he has something to do with all this. The only thing we have going for us right now is the fact that this Caleb Smith guy doesn't appear to be who he is. If it wasn't for that… if they had actually found him and discovered he has a strong alibi, we wouldn't have a leg to stand on.'

Joan was crying now. She sank into her husband's arms and he held her, paying no heed to those who were coming in and out of the sheriff's station casting them curious looks. Joan hadn't cried. like this in years-hell, Frank had never seen her cry like this before. He just hoped his strength didn't sap away nearly as fast as hers did. He was now the rock that held them together.

"Why is this happening to us?" Joan sobbed against Frank's chest. "Why?"

"I don't know, honey," Frank murmured, holding his wife close. "I don't know."

They remained that way for a while, and Joan calmed down. Finally, she broke away from him and wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. "Look at me. Blubbering like an idiot."

"It's okay. You needed that cry. It's been long overdue."

Joan looked at her husband; she looked lost. "I'm sorry. I've been trying to hold it all together. It's just.. " She threw up her hands in despair.

"It's been too much. I know."

"I'm sorry that I caused such a big scene in there," Joan said. "1 don't want to cause any trouble for them. I know they're only trying to help us"

"I'm sure they realize you're upset. I think we both know what it feels like to be an officer now. to feel helpless and bound by the law against doing what you feel in your gut is right."

Joan nodded. She reached into her purse for a tissue and wiped her nose with it. "What do we do now?" She put the tissue back into her purse.

"Let's go back inside and tell Gary where we'll be for the rest of the night." Officer Gary Fraser was the officer Joan had just yelled at; since Officer Lansing had gone off duty late last night, Fraser had been their main contact at the station. "'Then we'll go see Brad. We'll tell him that he'll be out tomorrow morning. Billy should be at his hotel by now, and he may even have word on getting an investigation going on finding Lisa. Then the only thing we can do is go to our room and wait until tomorrow."

Joan sighed. 'omorrow. That seems like such a long time from now"

"1 know." Frank put his arm around Joan's shoulders. "I know."

They walked back to the station together.

Ten

On the morning of Brad Miller's arraignment, his parents followed Billy Grecko in his silver Mercedes as it sped down Interstate 5 toward Ventura. Visible three cars ahead of the Mercedes was a white van with a Ventura County Sheriff's logo on its side. Joan and Frank caught a brief glimpse of Brad as he was led to the van, and when he saw them he waved. Joan and Frank waved back. Brad tried to smile, but it looked forced. He looked tired and defeated.

In Judge Kurt Plummer's chambers, the bailiff escorted Brad to the defendant table. When the judge got the papers that were filed on the charges, he cast a glance out at the court. "Case 498736, people of California versus Brad Miller.' His eyes found Brad's, locked in on him. Are you Mr. Miller?"

"Yes, Your Honor; Brad answered. For some reason, the judge reminded Brad of the actor Ossie Davis; his voice was deep and commanding, his graying hair giving him a dignified appearance.

"And do you have counsel?"

Billy Grecko rose from his seat at the defense table. "I represent Mr. Miller, Your Honor."

"And your name?"

"William Grecko, Your honor."

Judge Plummer looked over the paperwork, his eyes magnified from behind the thick glasses he wore. He scowled. "Tis is a citizen's arrest.' He looked across at the prosecution table as an African-American man in a dark suit and a power tie stood up. "What is the nature of this case, counselor?"

"The County of Ventura would like to decline to file charges against Mr. Miller at this time, Your Honor," the lawyer for the DA said.

"On what grounds?"

"Lack of evidence, Your Honor."

"And you wasted my fifteen minutes this morning just to drag this young man into my courtroom for that? I should fine you, Mr. Carr."

"I'm sorry, Your Honor."

Judge Plummer pounded his gavel. "Case against Mr. Brad Miller dismissed, by request of the prosecution"

Five minutes later, Brad was walking briskly out of the Ventura County courthouse, his parents and William Grecko trailing him. His eyes were wide with fear. "We've got to find Lisa!"

"Brad!"

He stopped and turned around as his parents and William Grecko caught up with him. William Grecko was panting, sweat dotting his forehead. He smelled faintly of rum.

"What? We can't fuck around. It's been, like, three days-"

"Brad" Billy was suddenly in front of him. He took Brad by the shoulders, his eyes locked with his. "Listen to me very carefully.'

Brad's eyes suddenly went wide with fright. "What happened? You found. her! Please tell me you found her-"

Billy paused, his eyes flicking from Rank to Joan, then back to Brad. He looked nervous. "Brad, let me explain this to — you."

"Will you just tell me what's going on!" Brad's voice cracked. Joan almost broke down at the sight of her son.

"Son, there's not much to go on," Frank said. He looked nervous and scared, and he traded a glance with Billy, who stepped back from Brad. Brad turned to look at his father. "Billy has a friend with the Bureau. He was able to get a couple of detectives over at the hotel and.. "

— Mey couldn't find anything," Billy finished. He looked dejected. "They talked to all the employees at the motel. Nobody saw or heard anything. There's no sign of a struggle in the room. Your car is still in the parking lot, your luggage is still in the trunk, but Lisa's stuff… her purse and suitcase… they're gone-"

"What do you mean there's no sign of a struggle?" Brad cried.

"'The police have been unable to find Caleb Smith anywhere," Bill continued. "The Bureau ran a list of aliases and checked them all out against the composite that was done back at the station. Neither man they came up with was Smith. It's almost like he just vanished into thin air."

"You've got to be kidding!" Brad cried, his hands going up to his face. He looked absolutely panic-stricken.

"I'm trying to push this down the pipe as fast as I can, but my friend at the Bureau says that we need more to go on," Billy said, and now he did look defeated. It was in his eyes, his posture, the way his shoulders slumped. It seemed to permeate the air around him, much like the smell of rum that was seeping out of his pores. "We have nothing at the motel, no reasonable cause for suspicion on Caleb Smith, whoever he may be… we have no witnesses, no-"

"You've got to try!" Brad said, grabbing the lawyer's suit with weakened fingers. His eyes searched the lawyer's face, then lighted on his parents. He could feel himself breaking down. "Please, you've got to try."

"We'll try," Billy said, taking Brad's hands and squeezing them tight. "We'll do everything we can.'

Brad could do nothing else but stand in the parking lot of the Ventura County Courthouse in the clothes he had worn for the past three days, not even aware of his body odor as his mother took him in his arms, not even aware of his own warm tears coursing down his cheeks.

Eleven

Noon.

Lisa tried to ignore the stench of vomit, piss, excrement, and blood that now permeated the room, but with the window boarded up and the cabin now locked up good and tight, that was hard to do.

She sat cross-legged on the floor just outside the bedroom, still in shackles. Aside from yesterday, Caleb Smith-a.k.a. Tim Murray-had only been in one other time since Saturday morning, and that was later that afternoon to deliver another series of chains and a pulley to truss up Debbie Martinez in a like fashion. Wouldn't want Debbie to shit her pants now, would we? he had said grimly as he worked. Debbie had been reduced to a quivering thing that could only moan as Mr. Smith came near her. She had burst into tears the minute he entered the room. "Please let me go… pl eeaaassseee!'

Lisa had told Debbie what happened to her and Brad, starting with the road rage incident and ending Saturday morning when Mr. SmithiTim Murray had shown up to truss her up more securely. Debbie's eyes had grown wide at the mention of the snuff film and Tim's involvement. "1 don't believe this… this is some kind of sick joke…

"I'm afraid not," Lisa had said matter-of-factly.

Debbie couldn't believe that Tim Murray was capable of what Lisa was telling her. She couldn't believe that somebody so sweet-so normaNooking-was a bona fide weirdo. She had still been puzzling over the revelation when Tim returned to truss her up more securely, and that was when the implication hit her-why else would Tim be keeping her prisoner like this? 'That's when she had begun to plead for her life. It fell on deaf ears.

When Tim finally left for the night, Lisa set about to find a way out. She tested the length of chain she was tied to and found she could only exit about four feet out of the bedroom before the chain pulled tight. There was a small closet in the bedroom, which yielded nothing. Aside from the single bed in the middle of the room, there was a small dresser and a nightstand. The bathroom was bare bones, too; just a bar of soap, a couple of towels, and a dusty medicine cabinet. Lisa flipped on the light switch; the bedroom light came on.

Debbie had sat on the lumpy mattress and watched as Lisa stormed around the perimeter of their prison, trying to find a way out. Debbie was just as pretty nude as she had been fully clothed. Lisa's first impressions of the woman were that she could have passed as a model. With her flat tummy, her full, perfect breasts, and her long legs, she looked like she could pose for a Playboy centerfold. Lisa scowled as she searched frantically for a way out, casting glances back at Debbie, who sat on the bed still in shock. "Bambi" better get her head out of her ass if she wants to stay alive, she thought. Then she silently chastised herself. Stop it. She's a victim as much as you are. She doesn't deserve this any more than you; she's just handling it differently. She's not as tough. You've got to help her toughen up. If you can help her find the strength she needs, she'll be an incredible asset.

For a while, Lisa thought that's exactly what would happen. They had talked, and after a while Debbie began to relax. Sometime later that night, Debbie became a different person. She was still scared, but now she was angry as well. She told Lisa that her husband Neal was probably worrying about her right this minute. "1 thought I could hear my phone ringing a while back," she had said. "Sound can sometimes carry pretty well out here."

Did that mean that if they screamed loud enough somebody else might hear them? Debbie shook her head. "Nobody up here now except us. The closest cabin is the Hamptons' about two and a half miles east of here, and they might not even be at their place this time of year."

It was a start. They grew tired as the night wore on, and after eating a sandwich and some chips they went to sleep, both of them lying together on the narrow bed. Lisa had never slept with another woman before, and sleeping with Debbie wasn't sexual for her in any way, but it was comforting. The feel of the other woman lying beside her, feeling her breathe next to her, feeling her skin touch hers, was comforting. Having somebody with her helped make the night more bearable.

They had inspected their room further the following morning, Sunday. Lisa emptied out the drawers of the nightstand and removed them, moving them and the nightstand to the blind side of the door. When Tim-or the Animal-came through this door, she or Debbie could conk him on the head, get the keys to the handcuffs, and free themselves.

It was a good plan if you weren't pregnant.

Lisa couldn't bring herself to go through with it. What if something happened and the baby was hurt? Then she would just be killed anyway.

They were arguing about this, trying to come up with a feasible plan, when they heard a vehicle pull up outside the cabin.

There was a pause, low voices outside, more than one person. Then slow footsteps mounted the porch, and then a key was fumbled into the lock and the door opened. "Yoo-hoo?" a voice called out, and the minute she heard that voice a shiver of ice went down Lisa's spine. Anybody home?" He chuckled, and then the footsteps grew closer.

Tim Murray stood in the living room looking into the bedroom. Flanking him were two other men, one in his early forties with thinning, dirty-blond hair, bearing lighting and video-recording equipment. The second man was tall, wearing black leather pants, and a black leather vest over his bare chest.

His head was completely covered with a black bondage mask, holes cut over the eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

For a moment they stared at each other. -Mat one's the one I picked up outside Ventura," Tim Murray told the man with the camera. He pointed to Debbie. And that's the one that brought her nosy ass in yesterday, the one I told you about last night."

The guy with the thinning blond hair nodded. `What do you think, Animal?"

Animal stood there and stared at them. His breathing was harsh and heavy. He was staring at Debbie; he raised a finger and pointed. "Debbie," he said.

Debbie screamed.

It was done quickly. Tim grabbed Lisa and gagged her quickly, trussing her up even tighter and throwing her in the corner. Lisa watched with numb fear as Debbie was overpowered by Animal and the blond guy. The blond guy gave her some kind of injection in her arm and Debbie quieted down, her eyes growing droopy. Lisa's heart beat a mile a minute; it was beating so hard it felt like it was going to burst out of her rib cage.

After that it was simple. The mattress was moved aside so Tim could lay down some plastic tarp on the floor. The blond guy joined him in nailing the tarp up along the walls, and then the bed was moved back into place. Tim helped the blond man with two sets of lights, got them setup, and then they went to work.

She tried not to watch, tried to drown out the sounds of what was going on, but she felt drawn to the scene as it was being filmed. It was strangely mesmerizing and soul-destroying.

The blond man filmed Debbie Martinez being raped by the man in the black bondage hood as he held a knife to her throat. Lisa would realize later that the reason Debbie didn't cry out louder was that she was doped up with something that left her conscious but incapacitated.

As the assault continued, Lisa had feigned unconsciousness for what felt like hours. When the man in the hood was finished raping Debbie, he turned her over and did something to her that seemed to shatter the effects of the drug. Lisa had never heard anybody scream in pain the way Debbie screamed. The screaming went on for a while and was punctuated by wet slapping sounds. When Debbie began to vomit, the hooded man left the room and the blond man stopped filming and the three of them left. They returned some time later-thirty minutes? An hour? lvo hours? — and resumed the rape and torture session. All of their attention was riveted on Debbie Martinez; they seemed to have totally forgotten that Lisa Miller was even there.

They hardly spoke at all during the ordeal. The few times words were spoken was the blond man instructing the man in the hood-Animal-to perform various sex acts on Debbie or hurt her in some way-bite her tits, cut her with that knife, bum her with that cigarette, fist-fuck her ass, strangle her just short of passing out then let her breathe-whatever. Tim said nothing during the ordeal; his sweaty features were riveted to the scene, his breathing-harsh and panting.

Only once did Animal speak. He told Debbie that he had been wanting to fucking torture her ass and stick it to her' for a long time now. Ever since he had laid eyes on her.

Somehow, Lisa managed to suffer through the ordeal of listening to Debbie Martinez being brutalized while she cowered in the corner, trying to drown out what was happening. For the first time since her ordeal, the thought of the fetus in her womb didn't come up. It's never going to be, she had thought, her heart heavy with sadness. Brad and I aren't going to have our baby, we'll never get the chance to make a baby again, because when they're finished with Debbie they're going to do the same to me.

Lisa didn't know if Debbie was dead or alive until the three men left. She heard them packing the camera and lighting gear up, and she heard the blond guy ask,'Is it okay if we leave that one here until tomorrow or the next day?'

Tim answered: "Yeah, she'll be fine. I left some food for her.'

Then they left.

Lisa waited until the sound of the engine had receded down the dirt driveway, and then she got up and went to check on Debbie.

Debbie was unconscious; her face was horribly bruised and swollen. Her nose was crushed, flattened against her face amid a gout of gore; her bottom lip was split by a great gash that would scar badly even if it was treated correctly. A great amount of blood had spurted from her nose and drenched her face and upper body, mixing with the blood from the other wounds Animal had ravaged on her. Carved into her belly were the words SLUT and CUNT. The blood had clotted, making the words one jumbled mass. Lisa had put a hand to her face to stifle a cry, but had been unable to. The tears sprang fresh and unbidden from some untapped well deep within her. She knelt down beside Debbie's tortured body and cried.

Debbie was alive at least, but it was hard to make out the damage. From what Lisa could tell, there were the wounds to her face and stomach, as well as further cuts to her breasts, back, and thighs; most of the cuts needed stitches. She had numerous bite marks on her body, some bad enough to pierce the skin and draw blood, and it looked like her left nipple was almost chewed off. Her vagina was swollen, bruised, and bleeding; her anus was dilated horribly and was bleeding steadily, clotted with feces. The mattress was drenched with blood, vomit, saliva, feces, piss, and semen. Probably the most damaging wounds were those that Debbie would suffer in her mind. Lisa tended to Debbie's wounds in a daze, knowing that she needed professional medical attention. Somehow she leaned Debbie up as best she could and stopped the bleeding.

When Debbie came back to consciousness later that night, she screamed so shrilly it chilled Lisa to the bone.

By sunrise this morning, Monday, Debbie was catatonic. She had lain on her back on the bed, her once beautiful brown eyes now reduced to a muddy, vacant stare as they gazed up at the cracked ceiling. Her lips were dry and chapped, and she didn't even try to wipe away the snot that pooled out of her nose. Animal's attack had shattered her, the next one would probably kill her.

Lisa had inspected herself in the bathroom mirror. Aside from the shocked expression on her face and the red in her eyes, she looked fine.

She hoped that taking it easy last night would calm the sick feeling in her stomach, and it did. This morning she felt better, and she was able to think more clearly. After cleaning Debbie's wounds with a towel and some warm water this morning, she had eaten one of the sandwiches and a banana, drank some water, then tried to get Debbie to eat something. The woman ignored the food, her eyes staring somewhere past her. Maybe later.

She had spent the next two hours in the living room, as far as the chain would allow her. She sat on the floor, her back against the wall, watching the sun rise higher in the sky. She checked on Debbie occasionally, and for a while briefly debated another escape plan. She looked at the nightstand and once again thought about whether to use it as a weapon the next time they came back. She had nothing to lose.

She sighed and looked at the food, which she had placed just outside the bedroom. They were down to one sandwich now and half a bag of chips. Lisa had eaten a sandwich for breakfast and had tried to get Debbie to eat something, but the woman wouldn't eat. She wondered how long Tim intended to keep her and Debbie prisoner here. The next time they came would probably be to film the completion of Debbie's torture and murder. Would they commence filming her own murder shortly after? Or would she get another short reprieve?

Lisa went into the bedroom and tried to get Debbie to eat again, but she still refused. Debbie Martinez was still in a dazed, catatonic state, her muddy brown eyes staring vacantly at the wall. Lisa checked her wounds, then went back to her spot outside the bedroom. She ate the rest of the potato chips and chased them with the rest of the water from her Evian bottle. They were down to five bottles of water now, enough to last a while, but not forever. It was the food she was more worried about now.

Just then, as if in answer to her concerns, the sound of a van pulled up in the driveway.

Twelve

They didn't venture immediately into the cabin.

Apparently, on the drive up a heated discussion had commenced.

"So what the fuck are we supposed to do with this Debbie bitch?" It sounded like the blond guy. "I mean, Animal went fucking nuts on her, so yeah, of course I'm gonna film the shit. That was the best shit I've gotten on film in a long time, and we can probably finish it today. What I want to know is what are you gonna do when the bitch is dead?"

"I'll get rid of her," Tim said. They were slowly walking up the walkway to the front door. "Don't worry. I found a new spot two weeks ago. We can get rid of her easy there. But we got to do it soon, like tonight. Neal hasn't cruised by yet, so as long as he don't come up, nobody will know'

Lisa listened, her heart pounding hard as she listened. Debbie moaned on the bed, raising gooseflesh along Lisa's arm. The men had stopped outside the front door, their voices lowering somewhat, but still audible. `What about this fucking place?" The blond guy was saying. "When you told meyou had a new place, you didn't tell me it was in the center of where every fucking California yuppie flocks for their summer homes. What is this shit?"

*Nobody will know anything; Tim said, trying to calm the blond guy down. "Sam Bash made the arrangements. His name isn't attached to it at all, and neither is ours. Nobody will know anything. We'll just use the same tarp we rolled over the floor and roll both bodies into it when we're done and dump them. Then we got two films ready to go. That's some extra cash there."

"You sure Sam and his boys will be in the market for a second one?"

"You better fucking believe it. He told me himself that they were tired of all the fucked-up-looking junkies and whores I been getting them. Debbie's gonna really please them. And that other bitch? She may not be no fucking beauty queen like Debbie, but she's got a nice wholesome image, you know? They'll like that-that's what they asked for anyway."

Lisa shuddered at the conversation. She felt her limbs go numb. It's going to be tonigijt, she thought. Oh God, not tonight, please help me get through this-

"Fine," the blond guy said. Then the sound of the door opening rolled through the cabin and they stepped inside.

"I'm fucking starving," the blond man said as three pairs of booted feet stomped into the cabin. "All that arguing made me hungry. Animal, you hungry?"

A muffled, throaty" No."

"You?"

Tim: "Nah. I'm gonna go outside and take a walk around the grounds to make sure everything is cool. Why don't you go on ahead."

"Okay. I'll be right back."Ibe blond man stomped back outside. A moment later she heard a car door open and close and then the sound of the engine starting.

Tim: "You want to come with me and check things out?"

"No" At the sound of Animal's voice, Lisa felt her skin tremble. His voice sounded so normal, so unassuming. "I think I'll stay here",

"Well, don't fuck with them," Tim said, walking to the door. "You want to fuck with them, wait until Al gets back so he can film it."

"Okay."

Tim left the cabin, and she heard his footsteps on the porch for a minute, then click down the front steps and around to the side of the house. A second set of footsteps slowly approached the bedroom, and Lisa felt her skin crawl as they grew closer, a large shadow materializing in the doorway, and then Animal was standing in the threshold of the room.

They stared at each other for a minute. Lisa couldn't tear her eyes away from him; her mouth went suddenly dry. She couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Standing before her was a tall, slim, nice-looking man in his mid-thirties. He was dressed in a clean pair of faded blue jeans and a green polo shirt. There was no trace of bondage apparatus anywhere on his person. Without his bondage hood, Animal could have passed for a young executive at a large corporation, or maybe a lawyer at the firm she worked at.

His features were angular, his jaw strong, his cheekbones sharp. He had mesmerizing green eyes that danced and complemented his smile, which was now cracking his boyish features. His mouth was fine, framed by sensuous lips, clean, even, white teeth. His hair was black and wavy, cut short and stylish. He looked like an All American Boy.

They looked at each other and for a moment Lisa was too stunned to say anything. This is the man they call Animas This is the man that almost killed Debbie yesterday. This is the man that is going to kill me either today or tomorrow in a snuff film.

Her mind was reeling; she couldn't get over how normal he looked.

"Why?" The question came unbidden, her voice sounding strong to her for the first time in days.

Animal blinked; he seemed surprised by the question. He's probably expecting me to beg for my life right now, she thought.

"Why… what?" he asked, his lips curling upward slightly in a grin.

"Why do you do it?" She gestured at the room; the bloody tarp, the bed with the worn mattress, Debbie lying in a bloody stupor. "Why do you do this? Snuff movies… kill people…?"

"Why do you want to know?"

Lisa looked at him, meeting his gaze. "As long as you're going to kill me, I think I would like to know the reason why before you do it."

For a moment, Lisa didn't think Animal was going to answer her. He looked at her in silence. Then he glanced behind him into the living room-the sound of Tim's footsteps had receded-and then took a step into the room. For the first time since laying eyes on him, Animal looked human-he looked like the kind of guy that she would pal around with at the office. "You really Want to know?"

Lisa nodded, trying not to appear too desperate. "Yeah, I would."

Animal shrugged. "Guess it can't hurt." Then he stepped into the room and began to tell her how he acquired the taste for hurting and torturing other human beings.

"I used to work for a large, international consulting firm," Animal began. "It was through my employment there that I met a woman who I became involved with. She introduced me to the scene. Even then, to look at her you wouldn't have guessed she was into the painful arts. She looked like she could've been a cheerleader in high school. She was pretty and incredibly sexy. At work she had a bubbly personality-lively, free-spirited, fun to be with. But she was sharp. When it came to her work, she was a real professional.

"It started innocently enough. We became lovers. We had a good time, but I could sense that for her she was just going through the motions. At first I thought that perhaps she didn't want to get emotionally involved with me, that she only wanted me for a fuck toy or something. That was the furthest thing from my mind. I only wanted her for the sex. See…" He began pacing the floor, his brow furrowed in concentration as if he were trying to think of a way to express himself most clearly. "I was never much of a ladies' man. I'd always had an inferiority complex around women. I'd only lost my virginity two years before and I was pretty much racing to catch up, if you know what I mean."

Lisa nodded, accepting his confession but finding it hard to believe that a man as handsome as Animal would have lost his virginity well into his twenties. Physically, he was a hunk. But the more she watched him, the more she listened to his speech, the way he carried him self, the more she began to get the sense that he was something far different.

Anyway," he said, stopping his pacing to look at her. "It was a sexual thing. It always was. And the more we got into it, the more she started… demanding certain things!

"What kind of things?"

"It started with biting," he said. "We were having sex one night and she begged me to bite her while we were fucking. I was so into it that I did, and she loved it. At first I thought I had hurt her… my teeth had actually broken the skin and drawn blood, but she'd been ecstatic. She actually came. It was like that night was the happiest day of her life. And it was then that I learned the first lesson in the painful arts." He took a step forward, regarding her as a teacher would a student. "Pain and pleasure are two sides of the same coin. Pain tolerance goes up during sexual arousal. The brain also produces endorphins during sex to compensate for pain. It gets you high. It's the same rush you get while eating chili peppers. It comes from that same center in the brain where pain and pleasure come from, and that's what makes it enjoyable for S&M players being whipped or spanked or whatever. It isn't pain to them. It's pleasure." He smiled.

Lisa felt a shudder run through her body, along with a slight stab of guilt. The mild bondage she and Brad had participated in-tying each other up, slipping into the role of the naughty girl and begging Brad to spank herwas nothing compared to this.

"That was the first step toward my initiation," Animal said, still smiling. "When I first saw her naked body, I was shocked. The skin along her back and her torso and breasts was like one big puckered scar. It was so bad she looked like a burn victim. I thought she had been in an accident. When I learned that they were self-inflicted or from others, I felt… a combination of revulsion and attraction. And the more we talked about it, the more she told me that she really enjoyed pain and being abused, the more I saw that she was serious. And seeing that she was serious, that she was willing to put herself through such scenes, turned me on."

"I don't understand," Lisa said, choosing her words carefully. "What does being a willing participant in an S&M scene have to do with what you're doing with me?"

"It has a lot to do with it, if you'll listen."

"I am listening."

"No, you're not." He was standing in front of her, menacing even-in his Gucci loafers and polo shirt.

"Okay," she said, shifting gears. "Okay, I'm listening."

"You're just like all of them," Animal said, looking at her with a sneer of contempt. "All the whiny, pitiful little yuppie fucks who think they can be hip and cool by dressing in rubber and leather at underground fetish clubs at night and be corporate rats by day. You don't know shit. You don't know the first thing of what it's like to feel power over another human being."

"Then tell me!" Lisa said, trying not to sound too demanding.

Animal stepped forward, and at first Lisa thought he was going to strike her. Instead, he hunkered down so that he was looking at her eye to eye. "Let me give you a little bit of my background. I may look like a yuppie fuck to you, and maybe in a way I am. I came from a normal WASPish family. My mother was Miss Susie Homemaker; Daddy worked his nine-to-five like a good boy and came home every night to a home-cooked meal. Mommy and Daddy were also repressed shits who did their best to repress their children. All I heard from them was that sex was wrong, that it was only for procreation. Hearing that warped me, especially when I saw the exact opposite happening at home. My dad coming home drunk after having gone out with the boys from the office, getting fresh with my mom and her slapping him away, and then hearing them fighting over it. The fucking bitch wouldn't put out for my dad, and it pissed him off, you know? Then at the same time both of them are telling me that sex is wrong no matter what, even if it's between two people who love each other."

Lisa didn't know what to say. She met his gaze, not daring to drop it.

"Don't get me wrong," he said. "They never beat me, they never physically abused me in any way, but they did have their way with getting their message across. They were also both extremely domineering. I could only wear the clothes they wanted me to wear, have the kinds of friends they approved of, choose the kind of career path only they approved of. Anything I did on my own, from the people I chose to associate with, to jobs I've had, if they didn't like it they would let me know they were disappointed in me. It was beat into my head at an early age that disappointing my parents was something that was unacceptable with not only them, but to society at large. To disappoint those that had given birth to you, who had created you, was the worst thing a child could do to their parents. For them to be disappointed in me created such a feeling of guilt. And when it came to sex, it was hardwired in me to not disappoint them in that area. Could you image what it would have been like if I had gotten a girl pregnant? My God, they'd go off the deep end and I couldn't live with myself! It was that fear of disappointing my parents, of getting a girl pregnant, that kept me from indulging in whatever normal sexual feelings I had." He snorted back a laugh. As you could probably imagine, I jerked off a lot through high school."

Lisa didn't laugh; it really wasn't funny to her. If anything, it scared her.

"I never felt in control of anything in my life," he resumed, standing up. He turned around and began pacing the room as he talked. "I let all this frustration bottle up inside me, and it wasn't until I began my relationship with Susan that I realized I could let them out. I was with somebody who was encouraging me to act on my fantasies. She didn't disapprove. In fact, the more I told her about them, the happier she got. They were fantasies I wanted to indulge in for real."

"What were they?"

"I thought you'd never ask," he replied. He turned to her, counting them off on his fingers. "Let's see… dominating every single woman or girl that had ever turned me on in high school or college or in the few years after obtaining my MBA. Sometimes I had fantasies about doing similar things to men, but men don't excite me sexually the way women do; the only way I get turned on by hornoerotic thoughts is if I'm torturing another man."

Torturing another man. Obviously torturing women, too. Lisa licked her lips and swallowed, her throat dry, and nodded.

Animal continued. "I tried to deny I was having these thoughts. I thought I could never act on them-normal people don't give in to such urges, much less have them. So for ten years I would occasionally think about what it would be like to strangle the head cheerleader of the high school football team, or castrate the homecoming king and stuff his cock down his throat, or cut my secretary's fingers off with a paring knife and force-feed them to her. And then I would deny that such thoughts excited me. I didn't realize that inflicting pain on these people would be like music to my ears.

"Obviously, when Susan found this out our sex life be come more intense. She encouraged me to get rougher with her, to hurt her. She enjoyed being tied up and whipped. She enjoyed having her ass slapped with a leather belt until I drew blood. She was with me the whole way, and I knew that as long as she was there I could do it. I knew I was safe with her, that our secret would only be between us. I later learned that this is what true S&M is: It is the complete surrender and trusting of your body and emotions to another person. I no longer saw it as something deviant practiced by perverts. Of course, what I'm going to describe to you… if a regular S&M practitioner were to hear this they'd be horrified. Basically, the entire extreme hardcore scene is a very brutal, very underground subculture that lurks within the S&M world. Most S&M participants are either ignorant of the more forbidden aspects of the extreme hardcore world or they don't want to admit it exists. But it's there. The more you get into S&M, the more you get into a local scene in a big city like NewYork or LA, the more you dig into its various subcultures, you'll soon start finding some people that are into some pretty extreme shit."

He paused, his features appeared reflective, then he continued. in a way, I guess we loved each other. We were the perfect partners for each other. We were friends and lovers in the extreme sense. Our sex life accelerated into something I had never experienced before and never knew existed. Previously, I was merely content to play my part in a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am role. I suppose most guys are. With Susan, I was becoming more confident in myself in dealing with my fantasies; she encouraged me to act on them. Our sessions accelerated rapidly until we were getting into some heavy stuff, things I wouldn't have even imagined participating in. She demanded that I hit her harder, bite her harder, whip her harder. And I complied. The harder our ses sions became, the more I would feel that I shouldn't be doing this, that what I was doing was wrong, but then Susan would encourage me." He looked at her. "And the more she pulled me in, the more I found myself liking what I was doing to her."

Lisa looked into his eyes, and what he said next made the skin along the back of her neck erupt in gooseflesh. "We began having regular intercourse less and less. It never really did much for me anyway." He stepped closer to her. "But what we did together? Me playing the sadist to Susan's masochistic fantasies? 'That's what got me off. It's what still gets me off."

Lisa swallowed, and tried not to look away as Animal stared at her. His gaze was penetrating, cunning, predatory. She forced herself to meet it head-on, even as she fought to control her rising fear.

"She introduced me to the underground extreme hardcore scene," Animal continued, not breaking his gaze from hers. "It was at such functions, usually held in private homes, where she told me she often had to go to be completely satisfied sexually. I was a little nervous at my first party, but that didn't last long. As soon as I saw that there were others who shared my fetish, I relaxed around them. Susan introduced me to an underground hardcore porn filmmaker named Alex Pressman-he's the guy that filmed yesterday-who sometimes filmed the parties for private video collections. He asked us that first night if he could film Susan and me in a scene, and… well…I suppose he recognized talent when he saw it." He grinned.

Lisa could only imagine what it must have been like… Animal abusing his consenting girlfriend, getting off on it, Alex filming it, recognizing something in Animal that he could use…

Animal continued the narrative, shattering the image in her mind, replacing it with something more gruesome. Her first earth-shattering orgasm with me was when she introduced me to blood sports. V were at her place one night, and she opened a slim mahogany case that was lined with red crushed velvet and showed me a scalpel. She told me exactly what to do, coached me exactly how to cut through the top layer of skin on her lower back. First I tied her up, then I inserted a ball gag in her mouth. I flogged her back and she got wet instantly even as she bled. Then she cried out for me to cut her. I drew the blade across her back and finger-fucked her. She had the most earth-shattering orgasm I'd ever seen anybody have before. She actually cried afterward, and at first I thought I'd really hurt her. I actually apologized to her! Can you imagine that?

Of course, I didn't have to apologize for anything. She wasn't crying because I had hurt her… she was crying out of sheer joy! Sheer ecstasy! And even better, what we'd done together had really turned me on more than I ever imagined! I actually came! It was the first time I had come without having my dick stroked or sucked or stimulated by a clenching pussy."

Animal began pacing the room again, and Lisa watched him, hands tied behind her back, legs lashed together, sitting on the bare mattress in the shabby little room. She took in what Animal was telling her, and she supposed if she hadn't been in the position she was in now, that if this were a scene in a movie and she were watching it, she'd turn the TV off, unable to watch any more. Not able to listen to the atrocities this man was claiming to take part in. But now she listened intently, part of her deeply afraid, another part of her searching for a way to escape, to find a way out of her predicament.

'That cut on her back was the first I put on her, but it wouldn't be the last," Animal continued. "Susan told me later that she had been into the pleasures of pain for as long as she could remember. Her family background was similar to mine. Her parents didn't abuse her, Daddy never tried to have his way with her, she never had abusive boyfriends. She just liked pain. She told me about the people she met at the underground parties like the one she took me to. That they were just feeding off of each other, like they were willingly carrying out this symbiotic relationship. She had to get what she needed from the more hardcore freaks, though, the people that were into mutilation. The more she played out scenes with them, the more hardcore it got for her. She showed me this huge scar that ran from her belly to just below her breasts; it was from a burn. She told me that most people who are into heat playing won't burn the skin due to the medical consequences, but she wasn't getting anything out of a simple first-degree burn. She said she had to actually scream at her partner to hold the flame to her skin until she orgasmed " Animal smiled. "Aside from the night I first cut her, that had been her most intense sexual experience."

Lisa thought about some of the S&M imagery she had seen in the kind of magazines one found among the fetish racks at newsstands; images of men and women in skintight black leather or rubber clothing, their faces and heads covered in black leather masks, only their eyes and nostrils exposed slightly, a small opening along the mouth with a zipper to allow for closure; half-naked people in leather and chains and bondage harnesses; women tied up to racks with ball gags in their mouths, their eyes wide open and pleading, No don't, please don't hurt me, but at the same time saying, Yes, do it to me, do it to me doittome-

Use me, hurt me, abuse me. Do whatever you want with me.

"1 thought about the people I had met at the underground parties we attended! Animal stopped pacing; he stood by the boarded-up window, peeking outside between the nailed up two-by-fours and strips of plywood.1 thought about the scenes I had seen them play out. I remember watching a man in a black leather hood draw blood from his slave with a syringe and then feed it to her. I fantasized about being him at that moment, wielding such incredible power over this person. I remember watching a gay couple, the dom cutting his slave with a scalpel and then sucking the blood from the wound as his partner writhed in pleasure, and I wondered what the blood tasted like. I got hard watching all these scenes being played out before me. I thought about the extreme hardcore films that were screened at these parties, watching women and men scream in pain as their doms pulled at pierced labias and scrotums, stretching the fragile skin to the point that it began to bleed and they began begging for mercy. I imagined myself doing that to those people, and the more I thought about it the more excited I became. I thought about the first snuff film I saw at the last party Susan and I attended, in which a young black girl who looked like a homeless junkie was fucked to death with a baseball bat in an abandoned warehouse. I remember watching it with bated breath-1 don't think anybody breathed while we were watching that thing. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. All I could do was imagine myself doing what her killer was doing, working the fat end of the baseball bat in and out of her as she screamed in pain and died."

Animal turned to her, and Lisa felt her stomach crumble into crushed ice. There was no sense of guilt or sorrow in his face over what he had witnessed, no sense of horror at watching other human beings being tortured and abused, thrown away like trash. She didn't know what to say-how does one respond to somebody who relates such things as pleasurable, who now has your life in their hands?

"Do you understand what I'm telling you? When I cut her skin and she screamed in a mixture of pain and pleasure, it made me feel good. When I branded my name into her flesh with a piece of hot metal and she passed out from the intensity of the orgasm, I felt an extreme sense of power. I'd never had power over anything in my life before, and with her giving me blanket permission to indulge in her freely, knowing it pleased her so much, gave me a sense of empowerment I never thought I would have. Susan changed me, and at the same time what we did during the last month of our relationship was to spell the end of it as well."

He stopped, turned toward the boarded-up window as if he was looking outside. Lisa waited, heart thumping in her chest, her stomach churning in grave anticipation to what was coming next.

"She finally told me what her ultimate fantasy was," he whispered. "She told me because she could tell that I was ready to hear it, and she felt that I was the only man who could give it to her. She could tell I was ready. When she told me. " He paused, as if trying to search for the right words to continue."… at first I didn't want to do it. I thought we… that she… was going too far. She tried to convince me that it was okay, that it was what she really wanted, and I got angry. I got dressed and she chased after me in the apartment, pleading for me to stay. What she was asking… I never thought I could do it, especially to her. I thought if I went through it that it would be over for me, that I would no longer have an outlet for my pleasure."

Lisa couldn't take it anymore. "What did she want you to do?"

Animal turned toward her, his features pensive, reflective. "She wanted to be tortured and killed in a snuff film; he said, the words rolling off his tongue as nonchalantly as if he were telling her about a family get-together or a weekend golf game. "She wanted me to be the one to do it to her, to share with her what was to be her ultimate pleasure…. her greatest orgasm ever, achieved at the instant of death. Eros and Thanatos, sex and death. And she wanted it captured on videotape so that her greatest pleasure would live on."

The crushed-ice feeling in Lisa's stomach churned. She could tell from Animal's tone of voice, from the look in his eyes, that the story was true.

"1 wouldn't do it," he said, walking back to her casually. in a way, I suppose you could say I was afraid to cross that line. But then I did some thinking. I did love Susan, in a way most people don't seem to understand that word. And I realized that turning her down had hurt her in a way most people would never imagine. Knowing I had turned her down, rejected her, hurt me. Yes, I didn't want to lose her, but I realized the only reason why I didn't want to lose her was because she brought me so much joy, so much pleasure when I ravaged and mutilated her. I'd have no outlet for this again-at least that was my thought. But then I realized that perhaps introducing me to the scene was her way of showing me that there were others out there like us. She had opened up a whole new world for me. Yes, there were more like her. And if I liked what I did to her for her final pleasure, there were more outlets for me to… indulge in, shall we say." He grinned. "After all… that snuff film I saw had to have come from somewhere, right? I made a call to Alex Pressman first and casually asked him where he had gotten it. He wouldn't tell me, and I don't blame him. When I asked if there was any way for me to appear in his next production, his voice changed. He became excited. He told me he could always use people like me.

"That decided it for me. I knew of a place in Orange County, a mental facility that had been abandoned for years. I did some discreet investigating and got a very detailed map of the hospital. I also did some more checking, found out when security was more apt to be absent, which was most of the time. Then I called Alex back and offered him a job. When I told him what it was, he agreed immediately, especially when I named my price. We settled on a date, and I gathered together some tools, then called Susan and told her to meet me at such and such a time, at such and such a place for her birthday present. I think she could tell by the tone of my voice what I had in store, and she showed up like I knew she would." Animal smiled, the memory of the incident replaying in his features. "When she saw me in that large run-down room in a dilapidated wing of what had once been a mental hospital, she smiled. I was wearing a pair of black leather chaps, my ass exposed to the wind. I wore a black leather vest over my shirtless body, a black leather bondage hood over my head. There was an old mattress placed in the center of the room, laid out on top of a large roll of plastic tarp. I had set up a table with knives. Alex was waiting with his camera and lights. And when she saw us standing there, she smiled. And she thanked me."

Lisa looked up at Animal. "You killed her."

"Yes" Animal looked triumphant; proud. "I still have that tape. Her final, most pleasurable orgasm ever. I paid Alex ten thousand dollars for his work and his secrecy. I take the tape out every once in a while and watch Susan and me play out our scene. And the more her screams of pain echo in my ears, the more I realize that she was responsible for my breakthrough. Without her I would have lived in torment. Now? I live for nothing else but fulfilling my desires. I still have my job, though not with the same company. Its mostly to maintain a front for sheep like you, society at large. Susan's life had been similar. After we disposed of her body, I went to her apartment and found her letter of resignation on her computer and knew that she had prepared it in the hopes that her fantasy would someday come true. I printed it, dated it, forged her signature on it, and mailed it to corporate headquarters. Then I took care of her things. To everybody at the office, she had just suddenly quit for no reason and moved to the Midwest. To her parents, she moved and left no forwarding address. In a way, wiping out her existence was great preparation for what we're going to do with you' He grinned.

Lisa forced herself not to look scared, wondering if Susan's parents still missed her. Or did they even care?

"As for me," Animal said, shrugging his shoulders and walking toward the doorway that led to the rest of the cabin. "I became hooked. Alex saw that I had the kind of potential that he and his clients needed. Finding somebody like me in our circle is always hard; the majority of people in the S&M scene are what you would think of as good, decent people. Everybody consents to what they do. But the extreme hardcore scene? It's run by ruthless people who don't give a shit about anything except money and getting their dicks sucked every now and then. They don't know the meaning of the word consensual. Finding people like me to appear in extreme hardcore films and snuff films, thats even tougher. Nobody wants to get caught, for one thing. That's why it's so dosed, so insular. I assured Alex that as long as we kept things within the circle, we were safe. Six months later, they received another job. Somebody in Virginia commissioned a film, something basic. Alex tapped into his contact, whom you've already met in the form of Tim, and he gave us a sixteen-year-old runaway. She was perfect; a heroin addict from a broken home. Nobody would miss her. The woman that commissioned the film paid a nice fee for it."

"Woman?" Lisa felt her stomach sink.

"Oh yes," Animal said casually. "It's not just men that get off on watching the suffering of other human beings, although they do outnumber the women. Females get off on it, too. Ever been to a boxing match? The audience for boxing is primarily made up of men. Most of the women in attendance are there because their boyfriends or husbands are into it, but there is a sizable portion who are into it as much as their male counterparts. They get off on the violence and bloodlust in the same way. Of course, the analogy between a so-called civilized and legal sport and the snuff underground is extreme, but in a way the same rules apply.

"Anyway, where was I? Oh yes! The first snuff film I did after Susan. Tim brought us a worthless piece of shit that had run away from her foster home. She was a prostitute, a junkie. Tim's good at finding talent from the ranks of losers like that. He has contacts all over the country that give him insights on the background of some of these people. That first one was a local girl… or I should say, she had run away from home somewhere in the Midwest and come out to sunny California, Hollywood to be exact. She got hooked up with the wrong crowd, started doing drugs, started walking the streets, and the rest is history. Tim had hired her for some bondage sessions with one of his private clients to get her initiated; he does that to let them think that when they come on my set they're going to be in just some regular porn film. If they're already junkies, he lets them get high on the set so they don't resist when we tie them up, and they're al most always junkie fuckups. He brought her to the location I had done Susan in, and I let loose on her as she came off her binge. I raped that bitch until she was bleeding out of orifices you wouldn't even think of. I kept her alive for a full hour before she finally expired." He laughed. "It's only gotten better since then. Now, thanks to Alex and Tim and our contacts among the more financially secure in the circle, people who live all over the world, I'm in big demand. I make good money doing this. And I get immense sexual satisfaction from doing what I do. I also get something else." He stepped forward, his grin wide, evil. "1 get a strange sense of… power."

Thirteen

When Animal was finished Lisa was too stunned to say anything. She could feel Animal's stare, like that of a hungry beast, and she immediately met his gaze and asked the first question that popped into her mind. "How many snuff films have you been in since then?"

Animal shrugged. "I don't know… over the last five years I'd say eighteen or so, as well as numerous extreme hardcore films." "

Eighteen or so snuff films. Eighteen or so bodies. Used and discarded like trash.

*1 still don't understand why you do it," Lisa said, Animal's story pulsing in her brain. "You told me how you got into it, but… I still don't understand."

"I do it because I like it," Animal said, and the simplicity of his answer chilled her to the bone. "1 get extreme pleasure from inflicting pain on other people!

"Pleasure…" Lisa was looking at him, trying to understand. "Sexual pleasure? What, do you come? Does your dick get. hard? Is it like sex? What is it?"

Animal shrugged. "I haven't had normal sex in five years. What I do here… He gestured at Debbie's prone, bloodied form on the bed. "It's the most ultimate pleasure I've ever felt. That's the only way I can describe it. When I… when I don the mask and wield the knife, I feel like a god. I get to choose whether they live or die. They cower at my feet, they beg me for mercy. I completely rule them. I have power over their lives… their death. It… fuels my fantasy and then… then I can go to work on them." He looked so calm explaining this to her. "Then when I cut them with a knife..-. it's like ecstasy. Feeling the blade slice through their flesh, hearing them scream as I cut them, seeing the expression on their faces as the knife slices through… it… it's even better than sex."

The sound of footsteps returning from the side of the cabin interrupted her thoughts, and Animal turned toward it. Lisa's breath was shallow, her mind racing. Al and Tim were coming back; she could hear them talking. Then they would finish what was started yesterday and then it would be her turn. Her turn at a starring role in the grindhouse of death.

"Debbie and I are the first, then," Lisa said, the question coming unbidden. "We're the first people who aren't junkies or homeless people. Right?"

Animal nodded as he stood up to his full height. "Yeah!

Lisa's mind was racing. Tim and Al entered the house, and as they crossed the living room into the bedroom the idea sprang to Lisa's mind full-blown; she was desperate. "Listen," she said, looking up at Tim. "Please let me go. If you let me go, I can get you somebody that could take my place-*

Tim traded glances with Al and laughed. "Who you kidding, lady?"

'Please, just listen to me! Before Brad and I stopped at that rest stop, we stopped for breakfast in North Hollywood. There was a woman there that we gave money to. She had just been kicked out of her home and-"

"They ain't looking for homeless chicks," Tim said, scowling. "I thought I told you that yesterday? That's why I was scoping that rest area out. The group we're shooting this film for, they were gettin' tired of the same kind of chicks. That's why-"

"But this one's difkrent!" Lisa said, her nerves on edge. "She's only been on the streets a few days and she's gorgeous! She's-"

"Forget it' Tim said, dismissing her with a wave of his hand. "I don't give a shit if this chick's a supermodel. I ain't-"

"But she's beautiful! She's a… a professional, and she's intelligent. She's really pretty, she's not a drug addict or a prostitute and she'd fit perfect!" Lisa glanced back and forth from Animal to Tim. "Please… I'll even help you find her. I know where she is and-"

Al and Animal laughed. Tim chuckled, shaking his head. "You're a riot, lady. Why the fuck should I go out and risk my neck in getting this other bitch? I already got you. For all I know, this chick is probably just another whore like all the other ones, or she doesn't even exist!

ill pay you!"'Ihe adrenaline was flowing through her veins, making her feel light-headed. She could feel the dock ticking on her and her unborn baby's life. "I'm a lawyer-4 was just made a partner in my firm. I can give you whatever these clients of yours are paying you. I can get you the money immediately!"

Al looked intrigued. He looked at Tim. "Money talks, Tim."

Tim stroked his chin nervously.

Al turned to Lisa. 'You can match it, huh?You sure?"

"Yes," Lisa said, her heart thumping. "I can not only match it, I can find the woman for you. Please, just take me down there with you and I promise you that-"

"You can come up with ninety grand cash?" Al cocked a questioning glance at her. "You got that kind of money?"

"Yes!" She and Jeff had around sixty thousand in their joint savings account, and another sixty grand or so in their IRAs. She was fairly certain she could cash out her IRA quickly if she hit her bank at the right time. She also had her wedding ring-there was five grand right there. "I can get it," she said, straightening herself up. "Hard cash."

The three of them were glancing at each other, and as Lisa watched the exchange she realized she'd struck a nerve with them. She'd hit the gold mine. With the exception of Animal, the only reason they were engaged in this was for the money. Hadn't Tim told her that over and over again on the drive up after her abduction?

"I don't know," Tim said shaking his head. "I can sure use the extra money, but… I got a product to deliver in three days." "

"I can help you get her by the end of the day," Lisa said, desperate now "If we leave now, we can be in LA by two or three, and I can have the money to you by four. Please, I'll do all that and-"

*And lead the cops right to us," Tim said, angrily. "No fucking way."

"N-no," Lisa said, her voice cracking. "No police. I swear to Cod, I won't tell anybody."

"What about your husband?" Al said, an irritated grimace on his face. "He's gonna call the cops, you know they're gonna be involved anyway.'

"I won't say anything!" She said, pleading now "Please… I don't know your names, I don't know what you look like, I've never seen you before in my life. You're four black men, but you may have been Hispanic or Samoan or something. I don't know, it was too dark and I couldn't see, and you had me blindfolded and you knocked me out and… please, I won't say anything!"

Al looked at her for what seemed an eternity. He turned to Tim and shrugged. "1 can sure use the money,Tim!

No, man," TSm said, shaking his head. "I don't like it. I mean, I got orders-"

"Fuck that shit," Al said, turning to Tim. "You telling me you'd be willing to throw another ninety grand down the toilet? You shittin' me?"

Animal had been standing in the corner during the exchange, fists clenched at his sides. He was silent as Tim shook his head. "I don't know, man, I don't like it. I mean, I did my part, but.. "

Al turned to Animal. "What about you, Animal?"

1be money would be nice," Animal said, his features suddenly darker than they had been when he'd just seemed like another young professional. 'But the itch is gettin' strong. Rankly, I could tear into this bitch right now if you let me. I don't give a shit who I do. Long as I get mine"

Al turned to Lisa. "Well, that settles it for me. Animal's ready, and we already got you and the other bitch. I say we just do them both tonight and-"

Before Lisa could stop herself, she let it blurt out. "The other woman has a baby!" They stopped and turned toward her. The atmosphere in the room got heavier, as if cold water had just been dumped on everything, setting the flames to sizzle and steam. Lisa could feel the blood pounding in her veins. "She has a baby girl," she heard herself, instantly hating herself for saying it. "Probably not even a month old. You can have her, too. Please.. "

The three men were silent. Animal's breathing grew heavier. Al shrugged at Tim. "Well… Animal's always wanted to do a baby. It might be. " He shrugged, a mixture of unease and anticipation on his features. "Hold on a sec." He pulled a cellular phone out of his jeans pocket and stepped outside, dialing a number. Lisa watched him leave with a growing sense of dread.

Oh God, what did I just do!

Tim and Animal stood in the corner of the room, regarding her with cold stares. Lisa couldn't look at them, the dread solidifying in her belly. She drew into herself, head down, trying to staunch the flow of tears that threatened to burst forth. Oh my God, what did I just do? I just… I just…

I just want to have my baby! Please let me have my baby!

She didn't know how long Al was gone, but it felt like an eternity. When he came back she refused to look up, not knowing if she would be able to look into his face. "We're on with the other chick and the baby. Get this bitch in the van and find them pronto."

Lisa looked up, the surprise of the verdict stunning. Al had a satisfied look on his face. Tim looked stunned; Animal looked excited. "You sure?" Tim asked Al.

'Sam just said they'll pay double if we have a baby in it." Al folded the cell phone up and replaced it in his pocket. "Let's get going though. Get rid of this bitch and find this other chick and the kid."

"Did you tell him about this one?" Tim asked, motioning to Lisa.

"No." Al turned to Lisa, his eyes cold. "This woman… you said she's only been homeless a few days, right? What's she look like?'

Lisa fumbled for the right description. She felt numb with shock. She couldn't believe this was happening. "Shshe's about six inches taller than me. B-blond hair… shoulder length… real pretty. N-nice body… n-nice We-legs.

"Fine" Al leaned close to her, his face dark. "If you don't find this chick and her baby, Tim will bring you back here, and then we're going to film you getting fucked to death, and I can guarantee you that Animal will make it the most vicious, most painful fuck you have ever had in your life. Do you understand me? He'll put a hole in your belly and fuck the wound while you're still alive. We don't call him the Animal for nothing, you know what I'm saying? 'Rut's why he's in such demand for our little group. We've used other doms, but Animal's special. He'll cut your fingers off and make you eat them if he wants to. He'll keep you alive for the next week if he wants to. Shit, he'd pop your left eyeball out and fuck the socket while you're still alive if he could. He's never been that lucky, though. Usually, they die the minute Animal sticks his dick in the eye socket."

Lisa was sobbing, the images washing over her, turning her stomach. Al leaned loser to her, his breath sour. "And if this is a scam, or if you don't find this chick and the baby, your ass is going to be tortured so bad that you're going to wish you just opted for the quick way out. You got me?"

Lisa nodded, tears silently spilling down her cheeks. She was shaking, paralyzed with fear.

"You find the chick and the baby, Tim will take care of everything," Al continued. "You find them, and once he's got them, he'll take you to your bank and you'll both go in and get the money. You won't try anything in there, you got it? If Tim ain't back up here by nine o'clock this evening.. " He reached for her purse, which had been sitting in the corner since being dumped in the room, and rummaged through it. He extracted her wallet, took her driver's license out, then rifled through it until he found some photos. He found the one he wanted and took it out. He held it up for her to see: It was Brad. "I take that back. If I don't hear from Tim by five o'clock on my cell phone, I'm going to pay your hubby a visit myself. And then maybe we'll take him somewhere nice and safe and film ourselves a homosexual snuff film. Animal, he has no fucking sexual preference, so long as he mutilates and tortures people. Don't you, Animal?"

Animal nodded and grinned. "I've done men before. They can be fun, too." "

Al turned back' to Lisa. "After you've given Tim the money, we don't want to so much as be reminded of you. You got me? And if I so much as get pulled over by a cop for a traffic ticket, I will find you, got me? If you say anything to the cops about this and they come looking for us, I'll know where to find you." He held her license up, grinning. "Tim tells me you told him you were expecting a kid yourself? That true?"

TYembling, Lisa nodded slowly, trying to control her crying.

"I'll keep tabs on you," Al said, his grin wicked. "And if the cops come nosing around, I'll know where to find you. And I'll wait until you're well along in your pregnancy. I'm sure the guys in the group will love to watch a flick of a pregnant bitch getting it." He grinned sickly.

Lisa was unable to control herself now. She felt weak from the terror of her ordeal and she felt nauseated, but she also felt as if a huge burden was being lifted from her shoulders, as if she had just been given a reprieve. My baby gets to live, my baby gets to live!

"And if I don't get you then, I'll get you later, after you've popped the kid," Al said. "Then we'll make ourselves a nice little sequel to the film we'll hopefully be making tomorrow." He tipped his head back and laughed, and then the tears came fresh, bursting out of her.

Please don't hurt my baby, she almost said, but held it in. Instead, she nodded and said, "I won't tell anybody. I promise."

If he understood her through her sobs, Al gave no indication. He nodded to Tim."I'm sending Animal with you." To Animal: "Tie this bitch up and get her in the van."

Animal stepped up to Lisa, his grin wide, and Lisa felt herself go limp. She didn't put up any resistance as Animal gagged and blindfolded her. The last thing she saw before she was blindfolded was Al talking in low tones to Animal as the young sadist nodded seriously. Then, with Tim's help, she was carried outside to the van.

Fourteen

Tim delivered the news to her five minutes into the ride to Los Angeles. "We're going by your bank first to get the money. Where is it?"

She felt a stinging bum as the duct tape that had been slapped over her face was ripped off, removing small facial hairs and an upper layer of skin. Her blindfold had been removed a moment before, and now she sat propped against the side panel, blinking up at Animal as he hovered over her, his green eyes predatory and cold. She stole a quick glance at the front of the van where Tim was driving; he met her gaze from the rearview mirror.

"Well?"

"Bank of America, Huntington Beach branch." She gave them the nearest cross street. "It's right off the 405"

"It's off Beach Boulevard, you said?"

Lisa nodded. "Yeah"

"I can get to Beach from the 22," Tim said, turning his attention back to the road in front of him." hat goes right through Little Saigon."

"Where's the homeless chick and the baby?" Animal asked, and hearing him ask this sent a shiver of ice down her spine.

"North Hollywood," Lisa said, the feeling of dread rising in her again. "Off Burbank Boulevard. There was an IKEA right off the exit."

"I know where that is," Tim said.

They were silent for a while as Tim meandered down winding, twisty mountain roads. Animal sat across from her, sizing her up occasionally, mostly looking out the windshield. Lisa tried to ignore him as they headed down the mountain, but it was hard to do. Every time his eyes lighted on her, she felt like a mouse being sized up as a potential meal for a snake; it was a cold, impersonal feeling. It made her want to draw into herself more.

Once they reached the main highway that would take them to Interstate 10, Animal moved to the front seat. Lisa slumped back against the side panel and almost let out a sob.

Omigodwhyisthishappening!

She cried silently, the tears squeezing out of her eyes to roll down her cheeks. She didn't care if Tim or the Animal heard her or not. They would probably think she was crying out of fear anyway, but she wasn't. She was crying out of shame.

What have I done?

Well, let's see, Lisa. In order to save your own hide and your's and Brad's unborn child, you willingly turned this No of murderous psychopaths on to a woman you not only don't know, but you also told them they could rape, torture, and murder her infant daughter. Gee, that's a really nice thing to do to somebody, don't you think?

What else could I do? They were going to kill me? They were going to kill me knowing I'm pregnant?

Yeah, and in the process, you've managed to sell a woman you don't even know and a baby to them. Your own baby isn't even born yet and Mandy's, what, a month? livo months old maybe? And Alicia? What about her? You' l be helping kill two people here, Lisa.

But they were going to kill my baby! They were going to-

Can the save your baby crap. You just want to save your own skin. Isn't that right?

No! Mat's not true! Mat's-

Bullshit! Why else would you do what you just did? Oh please don't torture me to death in a snuff film! I don't want to die! I know somebody else you can kill instead. And while you're at it, you can have her baby, too! Just don't kill me.

And as the tears spilled down her cheeks, she realized that the part of her that was telling her this was right.

And that only made her feel more ashamed and disgusted with herself.

Tim's voice cut through the din of her sobs. "Shut your fucking trap back there!"

She hitched in a breath at the bark of Tim's command and tried to hold back the sob that threatened to spill forth. Don't fall apart now, she thought. You've got to be strong if you want to get through this. You're going to need a dear head if you want to save not only yourself, but Ali cia and her baby. Because you owe it to her-you owe it to them. You know that, don't you?You are going to get out of this and you are not going to let them take Alicia and Mandy.

And as the van sped down Interstate 10, she began to try thinking of a way out of her predicament.

They were on the 57 Freeway breezing by Anaheim Stadium when Animal popped back into the rear of the van. He held a nasty-looking knife in his hand. "Hold still," he said. "I'm just cutting you loose so you can get dressed."

"And don't try anything," Tim warned from the front seat. "Animal's killed eighteen people. You try anything, he'll gut you faster than a rat can shit"

Lisa's skin tightened as she felt Animal cut the rope that bound her wrists together. She felt him work the lock that held the handcuffs together and then she was free. Then he was in front of her, holding the knife to her menacingly as he held her clothes out to her. "Put your bra and shirt on first, then I'll uncuff your ankles."

Lisa rubbed her wrists, then did what she was told. She dressed slowly, her mind racing. She had been thinking about a thousand possible scenarios for the past hour and none of them appeared promising. In the first she saw herself enter the bank, most likely with Animal, then suddenly making a break for it and diving over the teller's desk. That would cause a scene; Animal would surely get the hell out of dodge. And she would be safe… but not for long. Al had her and Brad's photographs. He had her address and phone number, which he had taken from one of her bank slips. Hell, he had her social security card. With all that information, he could probably find her pretty quickly.

Another scenario saw her getting the money, then making a run for it out the front doors. But then that would end the same way.

She tried playing different scenarios out all the way till the end, to their final destination in Burbank. What would happen? Suppose Alicia and Mandy were gone? How would Tim and Animal get them in the van without attracting unwanted attention? The more she thought of it, the more volatile Alicia's abduction would be. Lisa had the feeling Tim knew this, which was why they were going after the money first.

The only scenario she really liked had her lunging for the armed security guard at the bank. If she could surprise him and get his gun, she could maybe shoot him (in the leg, of course; she didn't want to kill him), then maybe shoot Animal (again, in the leg; she wanted him alive to confess to the police. On second thought, maybe she'd shoot his balls off. Shooting a man's balls off wouldn't kill him, would it?), then rush outside and surprise Tim in the van, holding him at gunpoint until the police arrived.

There were several problems with that scenario. Suppose there was another guard at the bank and she was shot first? Suppose she couldn't get the gun, and in the struggle for it Animal escaped? Suppose the police arrived too quickly and shot her? All these problems flashed through her mind in seconds as she slipped into her bra and shirt.

"Slap some makeup on your face," Tim said. "We're almost there."

Lisa looked out the front windshield. They were on the 22 Freeway heading north. They were getting close to their exit. Let's take this one step at a time, she thought as she put her shoes on.

By the time they reached the bank, she had put some makeup on and inspected herself in her compact. De spite all she had gone through in the past three days, she didn't look that bad. Tired maybe, but not that bad.

Tim swung into a parking space near the bank's entrance, cut the engine, and turned around. Animal's goin' in the bank with you. If you try anything like screaming or something, Animal will just dash out here and me and him are off. You won't know when we'll get you next, but we will. And we'll get you and your whole fucking family, and we'll film Animal torturing and killing all of you, you got me?"

Lisa nodded stoically.

"Is this savings account a joint account?" Tim asked.

Lisa nodded. "Yes."

"Do any of the tellers in there know you and your husband?"

"No.

"So they won't know Animal here from Adam, right?"

She nodded, straightening herself up. "'They won't know him."

"Good. Animal will play hubby for today. Animal, give your wifey here a kiss."

Animal grinned, leaned toward her, and licked the side of her face. She grimaced as his tongue lapped up her chin, across her cheeks, then over her lips, pausing at her nose. She felt her revulsion rise, fought the urge to gag and push him away. Animal's teeth nipped the tip of her nose playfully, like a lover. "Mmm. Tastes good. Never tried ripping a chick's nose off with my teeth before."

Tim laughed. "Remember… you fuck up, Animal will do it next time we get together."

"I won't fuck up," Lisa said, slightly defiant as Animal moved away from her and began inspecting his looks in the vanity mirror.

"Do you need both parties to sign to take money out of your account?" Tim asked.

"No." Lisa wiped Animal's saliva off her face with her palm in disgust and wiped her hands off on her jeans.

"Good. You are very lucky, my friend. Very lucky. What about your IRAs?"

"'They're individual IRAs, from our own separate retirement accounts," she said, reaching for her purse, checking to see if she had everything in place.

"'then what you're going to do is go to the teller and withdraw the money from your savings account, then you're going to tell them you want to cash out your IRA. They'll probably have you fill out a bunch of forms and shit, so that may take a while. Make sure you get everything you can out of the IRA; don't have them take any taxes out of it. You can eat that later. Just take your cash out of your savings account, fill out whatever forms you need for the IRA, get the money, and get the fuck back out here. How much is in your IRA?"

"Thirty grand."

"They'll probably hold back a few grand for penalties and shit. That only leaves us with eighty-five grand or so. What about your ring?"

Lisa looked at her wedding ring and began to pull it off her finger. It was a five-carat diamond ring, the stone set in a nice gold band. It had cost Brad almost six thousand dollars when he bought it for her three years ago, and she later had diamond studs embedded in the gold band. She pointed this out to Tim as she handed the ring to him. You could probably get ten grand for it if you sold it on consignment'

"Or half that if I just outright sold it to a jeweler." Tim inspected the ring, then pocketed it. "If you come out with the cash, well call it even. How's that sound?"

Tine." What else could she say? Especially when it was her and her unborn baby's life at stake?

"I expect you out of there in twenty minutes," Tim said. if you aren't back by then, I'll know there's trouble and then I'm gone. If-"

"But wait! What if-" Lisa protested, feeling her nerves rise.

"Don't interrupt me," Tim said, glancing at Animal. "If there's a big line, Animal will give me a ring on my cell phone." He tapped his index finger on a small cellular phone in his breast pocket. "He'll do that within a minute of the two of you walking in. But if I see anything funny going on, I'm gone, you understand me? I ain't waitin' around for Animal. He knows the protocol should he get picked up by the cops; he'll be clean."

Lisa listened in dread as Tim continued. He extracted his cellular phone from his shirt pocket. "Animal's got one of these babies." Animal grinned and patted his jeans pocket, indicating the bulk of a small cell phone. Animal knows that we're to be out of here in twenty minutes. If it looks like things are legitimately going to take longer, Animal will call me at the nineteen-minute mark to tell me that. If I don't get that phone call, you and your family are dog meat, you got me?"

Lisa nodded, swallowing a dry lump. "I got you."

"Just be cool, don't tip off the teller, pass her a note that you've been kidnapped, or any of that shit. You do, and Animal will know and he's out of there. You might not want to admit it, but having Animal by your side for the next thirty minutes is going to be very beneficial to you. Because you know what will happen if I see him come out of that bank and you aren't with him?"

"I know," Lisa said.

"Say it "

Lisa glared at Tim, her stomach churning. "Me and my family will be dog meat."

Tim chuckled. "Not just dog meat. Movie stars!" He laughed sickly. Lisa trembled at the sound of his laugh. It was the laugh of a man with no conscience.

"Okay!" Tim clapped his hands together. "Let's get this show on the road.*

Animal slid open the door of the van and Lisa followed him out, her heart accelerating as she tried to appear normal while at the same time trying to seek an avenue of escape that wouldn't end disastrously.

Fifteen

When they walked through the double glass doors into the cool interior of the Bank of America on Beach Boulevard in Huntington Beach, Lisa felt her gut clench when she saw that the line to the tellers wasn't very long. Tim's threats weren't really getting to her now; if she had still been tied up, she might have been scared. Being untied and walking around was beginning to work on her selfesteem and at chiseling the fear away. Fuck Tim and his idle threats! So what if Animal ditched her and they left! So what if they had her address. She and Brad could go into hiding; she could identify all three of them; she could funnel money into getting an investigation started. She could have them caught quickly, she was sure of it. And just to play it safe, she would use her own connections in the legal profession to have her and Brad's identities changed. Nobody would find them. They would be safe.

When they entered the bank, Animal surveyed the interior then reached for his cell phone. He pressed a speed-dial button and said," twenty minutes tops! Then he hung up. He replaced the phone in his pocket. They walked together to the line that fed to the bank tellers, her mind working on overdrive. She knew exactly what she was going to do now. Forget the heroics. She was going to stand calmly with Animal in line. And when it was their turn, she was going to walk calmly to the next teller and tell him or her point blank that the man she was with had kidnapped her and was robbing her and please, would you press that silent alarm button now! Animal would probably fake a look of surprise-Whatever are you talking about, dear? And Lisa was going to let her instinct take over. She knew the teller would be able to see what was happening was the real deal, that this wasn't a joke. And then Animal would probably make a dash for the door and maybe security would stop him, maybe the police would arrive quickly and they'd get Tim and then-

They were the next customers up, and Lisa felt a sudden rush of adrenaline pour through her. This was going to work. She was sure of it. Everything was going to be fine. She allowed herself one small glimmer of courage, and then she felt the blade of a knife in her back as Animal put his arm around her from behind.

"Let me give you a friendly warning," he whispered casually in her ear. "I won't have this knife on you the entire time we're in this bank, but I will be at your side like the ever-faithful husband. And at the slightest sign of you making a break for it or calling for help, this knife comes out and I sever your spinal cord " She felt the blade pierce through her skin and she winced at the pain, feeling warm blood run down her back from the wound. She felt Animal's lips on her earlobe, his warm breath on her cheek. "And then I'm out of here before your body even hits the floor. And if you live, I'll know. And then the next time we see each other, we'll both be on Al's set and I'll be jamming this knife up your cunt. Do we have an understanding?"

Lisa nodded, trembling. She heard the female teller call her over, and then suddenly the blade was gone and she was walking toward the teller, Animal at her side and slightly behind her, his arm around her shoulders casually, a smile on his pensive, handsome features.

"How can I help you?" The teller was a small woman, maybe five feet one with delicate porcelain features, shoulder-length black hair and big brown eyes. She smiled at Lisa. The name on the badge pinned to her blouse identified her as Trish Lynn.

*I'd like to make two withdrawals, please," Lisa said, pushing the withdrawal slip she had filled out a moment before to the teller. Her voice sounded like it was coming from another dimension. "One from my savings account, the other from my IRA."

The teller looked at the withdrawal slip and her slim fingers danced on the keyboard of a computer terminal at her station. The teller's fingernails were impeccable; it looked like she'd had a manicure recently.

"You wish to close out your account with us at this time, Mrs. Miller?" the teller asked.

Lisa started; her mind was in a funk. The small of her back still stung from the knife wound, and she could feel the back of her shirt and her panties grow sticky with blood. She looked at the teller and blinked. "Excuse me?"

"Would you like to close out your account with us, Mrs. Miller?"'Ihe teller frowned slightly.

"Yes," Lisa said, trying to smile. "Yes, I would."

She felt a hand enfold hers and saw that it was Animal's; he was smiling at the bank teller. "We're both a little nervous about this, Ms. Lynn. My wife and I are relocating back east, and we plan to bank back there!

Mish nodded, seemingly indifferent. "You wanted to withdraw funds from your IRA as well?"

"Yes," Lisa said, forcing herself not to let her voice tremble. "Yes, I would."

"Do you have the account number?"

"Right here." Lisa fumbled for her purse and, with Animal's help, she presented Trish with the appropriate account number.

"You'll have to fill out some paperwork," 7Yish said, looking at her computer screen, then back at Lisa and Animal. "I can close your savings account here, then I'll have to direct you to our special accounts person for the IRA withdrawal. In fact, if you like, I can direct you to Mr. Walsh now. He'll help you fill out the appropriate paperwork, and when you're finished with him he can walk you back up here and I'll close out your accounts."

Lisa nodded aslYish stepped around to join them in line, leading them to the Special Accounts Desk. It seemed that the room was spinning as she was introduced to George Walsh, the special accounts person, and then she was sitting down at his desk, listening to him give his spiel regarding the early-withdrawal penalties that were incurred when you withdrew your money from an IRA too early. She nodded and told him she understood, then after asking her a few more questions he pushed some forms toward them, and she gave Animal a quick glance before she turned to fill out the forms. Animal smiled and gave her an encouraging nod. Playing the ever-faithful husband.

She filled out three different forms as Animal called Tim again to give him an EI'A, declined to have federal and state income taxes withheld, signed the forms, and handed them back to George Walsh, who looked them over quickly and tore copies out for her. "Right this way, Mr. and Mrs. Miller," he said.

They followed George Walsh back to 'Dish's window and waited while Trish finished tending to a customer. When the customer left, George nodded. 'they're ready," he told her.

Trish smiled. "Great' Lisa and Animal approached her window again while the teller consulted the paperwork George gave her, and Lisa's original withdrawal slip. "Will you excuse me for a moment?" she asked, leaving her post before Lisa could respond.

She's going to call the police! Lisa thought, her heart hammering wildly. She sensed something and she's going to call the police, they're going to catch Animal and Tim and this nightmare will be over and then-

Trish returned with another woman, this one in her late forties, probably a bank manager. She stood by as Trish reached into her cash drawer. "What denominations would you like your money in, Mrs. Miller?'

Lisa opened her mouth to answer, stunned that they still hadn't caught on. She tried to tell the woman how she wanted the money, but she couldn't. Then she heard Animal beside her, saying, "I think we'll take hundreds, Ms. Lynn."

And as Trish Lynn began counting out her and Brad's life savings and her entire IRA contribution minus penalties into Lisa's hands, the whole experience was becoming more and more like some strange nightmare that wouldn't go away.

Lisa didn't remember much of the ride to North Hollywood. She spent the first thirty minutes or so crying as she sat in the back of the van and Tim piloted them along the 405 Freeway, heading north. Animal sat across from her, eyeing her occasionally as he counted the money. He counted the money twice before transferring it to a small duffel bag that Tim had produced from the front seat. All Lisa could think about was a lifetime of work that had just been pissed away, a lifetime of work that she had handed to these two monsters because she'd been stupid enough to-

She wasn't going to go down that train of thought. She sniffed, ran her hand across her face, brushing the tears off her cheek.'IYaffic was already getting heavy as people began to get off work. Tim turned the radio to a classic rock station; Kansas blasted from the radio, followed by Journey and Boston. Tim turned the dial and found an oldies station specializing in R&B. Al Green's smooth tenor crooned from the speakers and Animal smiled, humming along. "Al Green… what a beautiful voice that man has," he said.

Lisa looked at him.'ihe idea that Animal found beauty in something was mind-boggling to her. She couldn't understand it-he was moved by the music of Al Green, thought it was beautiful, yet he was anticipating raping, torturing, and murdering a woman and her infant daughter. What was wrong here?

The drive to North Hollywood took close to an hour, but it felt like four. Through it all, Lisa thought about what could soothe the savage beast that lay within Animal's soul (Jeff, she thought, his name is Jeff), and possibly Tim's. She also tried to think of a way to stave off the inevitable: the abduction of Alicia and Mandy.

'!kinking of a way to save them fared no better than her plans to foil Tim and Animal at the bank. She still couldn't come up with anything plausible. There was still the possibility they wouldn't find Alicia. If that happened, Lisa was fighting tooth and nail to escape and stay alive. In fact, if they didn't find Alicia at the restaurant or along the street she claimed to have parked her car to sleep in, she was going to make a break for it. Come to think of it, why even go that far? Tim and Animal had no idea where Alicia was; they were depending on her to lead them to her. She could lead them to some other restaurant and then, as they circled the parking lot looking for her, she would take that opportunity to make a run for it.

Animal was watching her from the other side of the van, his green eyes studying her. Lisa refused to meet his gaze; it felt penetrating, as if he could see what she was thinking. It's probabty written all over my face, she thought.

One of her scenarios had her telling them where Alicia was, then finding her, then screaming bloody murder as she accompanied whomever it was she was going to be helping lure Alicia to the van. She saw Alicia make a run for it, carrying her baby as Lisa ran after her, urging her to run, goddamn it, run! She saw them being chased and then either a) Animal and Tim catching her and taking her down, but not before being rescued by bystanders, thus spoiling their murderous plans, or b) having Animal and Tim turn tail and run back to the van, escaping back to Al. In both cases, she saw them trying to carry out Al's earlier threat of tracking her down, but she already had plans for that. She and Brad were going to change their identities as she had planned back at the bank. That was the ticket.

She tried to stay calm as 79m reached Interstate 5. She was just going to have to play this one by ear. But she was damned if she was going to let them take Alicia and Mandy without a fight. "You said Burbank Boulevard near the IKEA, right?" Tim asked.

Lisa knew she couldn't lie; she had already told them where she and Brad had run into Alicia. Part of her had hoped Tim had forgotten this. "Yes," she said, with a sinking sense of dread.

"We'll be there in fifteen minutes," 71m said.

They were silent during the remaining fifteen minutes of the drive. Lisa felt her body go leaden as they approached the exit, felt the dread solidify and become a hot, squirming thing in her gut as they exited Burbank Boulevard and headed west. Animal was looking out the windshield, and he pointed ahead of them. "Coco's is on the right," he said. Tim nodded and merged to the right lane, slowing down to enter the restaurant's parking lot. Lisa felt her heartbeat speed up, felt her face grow flush with adrenaline as they cruised through the parking lot. She was trying to look out the windshield to see if she could catch a glimpse of Alicia, but she couldn't be sure. There were people all over the place; the restaurant was housed in a busy strip mall that also included a supermarket, a drugstore, and several smaller businesses. Tim drove the car to the rear of the restaurant and slid into a parking space. He killed the engine. "I thought I saw a woman standing near the restaurant who looked like the woman we're looking for," he said. "I'm going to back up and cruise by slowly so you can get a look at her. If that's the chick, tell me. And don't lie to me, 'cause I'll know. Shit, I don't even know why I'm telling you to ID her for me. She'll probably have her kid with her."

Lisa didn't say anything. Her mind was racing a mile a minute. It's going to be now. It's going to happen now, and I'm going to have to put up the fight of my life.

Tim motioned to Animal. "I want you to go with her. And we'll do what we talked about, okay?"

Animal nodded, his face showing no emotion.

Tim turned back to Lisa. "You and Animal are going to go out to see if the chick I saw standing outside the restaurant is Alicia. If it is, Animal will know-she'll most likely have her kid with her. If it's her, you and Animal are going to go up to her and this is what you're going to tell her." He told her, and Lisa felt nervous. It sounded so perfect, a plan masking altruism at its best. She held her emotions in and nodded as Tim regarded her. "We'll take care of the rest. Got it?"

Lisa nodded. She looked out the windshield. "And what if the woman isn't Alicia?"

"We'll drive around," Tim said. "We'll drive down that street you mentioned, then we'll hit the YWCA. If we don't find them at either place, it's over." He smiled at her. "The game ends!

Lisa heard what he was saying but didn't feel the implications. She understood them-they would take her back to that lonely mountain cabin by force and kill her slowly in front of the camera-but she didn't let their threats affect her. She had gone beyond that. She had gone beyond feeling scared.

"I'll be right here," Tim said. "And remember what I said before: If you scream or cause a scene or make a break for it, we'll find you and we'll kill you later. Only we'll kill you slowly. And we'll get hubby and baby, too. You got me?"

Lisa nodded. The threat echoed in her mind; it didn't seem real anymore. Nothing did. "Let's do it."

Animal opened the side door of the van and stepped out. Lisa followed him and began to lead the way to the front of the restaurant where, just three days before, she and her husband had stopped to help a woman in despair.

Sixteen

Lisa was cursing herself the entire time for being too chickenshit to do anything. The only thing she could think of was that line of thought part of her conscious mind kept whispering to her a few hours before: You were only thinking about saving your skin. You weren't even thinking about your unborn baby, were you? You just wanted to save yourself

It was that thought that kept running through her mind, as well as her general fright, that kept her from doing anything. It wasn't until they were back at the van and Tim emerged to make the capture that Lisa sprang into some kind of action. And what triggered it was Animal-who had been walking behind her as the three of them walked to the van (while Alicia carried Mandy, who was strapped into her carrier)-as he damped his hand over her mouth and attempted to shove her in the van.

No! her mind screamed, and then she fought. Something deep and primal awoke within her and she struggled hard, more ferociously than she'd struggled when Tim had abducted her back at that motel a thousand years ago. Animal's left hand found her left wrist and attempted to bring it behind her back in a choke hold, but Lisa moved with it, thwarting him. Animal panted. "Thought we were just gonna let you go after this, huh? Think again, cunt!"

She screamed but nothing came out of her mouth, and then she saw the glint of steel and her eyes grew wide. He pulled her toward him, hand pressed down over her mouth, and he brought the knife up, and she could dimly hear movement in the van as Tim tended to Alicia and Mandy and she tried to forget the look Alicia gave her when it all happened. She pushed all that out of her mind and burst through it, fueled by a sudden explosion of adrenaline that seemed to give her extra strength. The knife came up toward her throat, and then she bit down hard on Animal's palm.

She felt her teeth pierce through his skin, and sud denly the hand was gone and she heard a yelp of pain. His grip on her loosened, and she took this small window of opportunity to drive her elbow into him. She felt it connect solidly with his solar plexus and she felt something hit her shoulder, then heard the link of metal as it hit the ground at her feet. Animal's grip on her loosened to the point of letting go as he doubled over, the breath knocked out of him, and now she did scream. She let loose with one motherfucking wail of a scream, and then she was running. She screamed and ran toward the front of the restaurant, ignoring the surprised looks of entering restaurant patrons as they froze to look at her, and then she was in the restaurant, screaming at the twentysome- thing hostess to call the fucking police, and then she collapsed on the floor in a shaking fit of sobbing, not even aware of the commotion around her and the excited voices that accompanied it, not even aware of the van as it peeled out of the parking lot and set off down Burbank Boulevard heading for the freeway.

Brad Miller sat in the Lexus as the garage door opened to his and Lisa's home, feeling a numbed sense of detachment.

The day had gone by in a blur the brief arraignment and dismissal of his case; filing a missing persons report with the Ventura County Sheriff's Department; then a late breakfast at some restaurant with his parents and William Grecko as they all tried to console him. Well find her, don't worry. SheW be all right. Well get to the bottom of this.

Brad had told William Grecko that if they wanted to find Lisa they needed to do one thing: find Caleb Smith. He had something to do with this. Brad knew it. But Grecko told him it was going to be tough. As far as any body knows, Caleb Smith doesn't exist. ft's probably an alias of some sort and the guy's long gone by now. For all we know, he might not have had anything to do with Lisa disappearing.

Brad had wanted to leap over the table and throttle the smug sonofabitch, but his parents were there, and then they were joined by one of the detectives Grecko had called. They had talked some more, and Brad had mostly listened to the conversation, simmering in his anger at the lawyer and the detective, silently screaming at them to get the fuck out there and find her! Then they had driven back to Orange County with Brad's father driving the Lexus. They had gone to his folks' house first, and that was when Brad knew he had to get some kind of plan going. If the police weren't going to do anything about finding Lisa, then he would. He would hire a private detective if he had to. But he would find her.

He felt a little better after coming to this realization, and he had told his folks he was going to go home. His mother had been against it-she seemed to think he was on the brink of a nervous breakdown and might harm himself. Brad dismissed it. "I'm tired, Mom. 1 haven't showered in three days and I'm tired. I want to go home and take a shower and go to sleep. Maybe if I get some rest, I'll feel better."

His father had felt that was for the best too, so both parents had escorted him back to the car and helped him with his things. They watched as he drove away.

Now as he pulled the car into the garage he realized that for the first time since this whole nightmare started he was actually starting to think in a positive manner. First things first: Get a shower and a good night's sleep. Take aValium if you have to, but get a good eight or more hours of sleep. Then tomorrow we'll tackle this thing from all ends. Maybe he would do some calling around and find a good private detective. He would spare no expense. 'Thank God he and Lisa had been made partners in their respective firms this year, because the extra income they'd been throwing into savings was going to be dearly needed.

The garage door whirred dosed behind him. Brad sighed and got out of the car. He retrieved both bags from the trunk and trundled them through the laundry room and the kitchen. He'd get them both upstairs and then he'd-

He was just crossing the living room with the suitcases when the telephone rang.

He rushed to the phone after dropping the bags in the entry hall. "Hello?"

"Brad?" It was Lisa. She burst out sobbing.

"L.rsa!" Brad's voice broke. "Oh my God, Lisa, what happened-where are you?"

"Oh Brad, thank God you're home." Lisa was crying hard, and Brad could hear voices in the background over the line. It sounded like she was calling from an office or something.

"Lisa, where are you?" Brad's own nerves were on edge at the sound of her voice, and he thought, Thank God she's all right.

"I'm in Burbank," Lisa said. "At the police station… I don't know… near… I don't know where this fucking police station is! It's in the valley-"

"Stay right where you are!" Brad said, his mind racing. "I'm leaving right now!"

"Oh Brad!" She started crying again. Hearing her voice, hearing her break down like that, broke Brad's heart.

"I love you, Lisa," Brad said, his throat choking up. "I'm leaving now."

Another voice came on the line. "Mr. Miller? I'm detec tive Morse. Your wife is fine. We're having her transferred to USC Medical Center to have her checked out, but physically she looks okay. She's been through a terrible ordeal, though, and.. "

The minute the conversation was over, Brad hung up and was racing back to the car, then peeling out of the garage and down the street to the freeway, his heart racing with anticipation at seeing his wife.

He couldn't get to USC Medical Center fast enough. What would. have normally been a forty-five-minute or more drive took Brad less than thirty minutes. It was a miracle he made it to the hospital at all; his mind was completely focused on Lisa and reuniting with herseeing her, touching her; holding her close to him. He barely paid attention to his driving. When he arrived at the hospital, he pulled into the first available spot and leaped out of the car, racing toward the hospital with bated breath.

When he burst into the lobby, he went directly to the receptionist desk. "My wife Lisa was just brought here! She was kidnapped and-"

A uniformed officer who was standing near the receptionist desk stepped forward. "Brad Miller?"

Brad turned to the officer. "Yeah. Is Lisa okay, is she-"

The officer nodded at the receptionist and a security guard who had approached. "She's fine. Come with me."

Brad barely noticed as the officer gave him a visitor's badge and led him through a seemingly endless maze of corridors. He could hardly keep his emotions in check. He'd cried briefly on the drive over, the thought that he had almost lost her had hit him hard. He still couldn't grasp the concept that she had been given a second chance, that she was safe. He had to see her.

They reached the emergency ward and the cop nod ded at a nurse who was standing at the nurse's station. "This is Brad Miller," he said. "Lisa's husband."

The nurse held out her hand and smiled. Her features were calm and reassuring. "Mr. Miller, I'm Candace Thorton. Come with me."

Brad followed Candace on trembling legs. She opened one of the doors to a triage unit and Brad's eyes fell on the figure lying in the lone bed in the center of the room. "Lisa!"

The figure looked up, and at first Brad thought he had it all wrong, that it wasn't Lisa dressed in a white hospital smock lying in the hospital bed. The woman who looked at him from across the room was too pale, heavy dark cir- des under her eyes, her blond hair a stringy mess, the skin stretching tightly over her bones, her face weathered. This couldn't be Lisa. Maybe they had it wrong; maybe the men who had kidnapped her had tracked her to the hospital and snuck off with her, replaced his wife with this wraithlike stick figure who looked like she had been through hell and back and-"

"Brad!"

It was hearing the sound of her voice that confirmed it for him. The minute he heard it, he knew The face, still pretty but bearing the emotional and physical strain of the past few days, the dark circles under her eyes from lack of sleep. It was Lisa, all right. There was no question about it.

Nothing else mattered to Brad at that moment-not the nurse or the cop that he barely noticed, who was sitting in a chair near the bed, not even the cop who had met him at the receptionist desk or the doctor that came in to talk to him. All that mattered was Lisa, the confirmation that she was alive. He didn't care about anything else at that moment; those people did not exist for Brad as he quickly crossed the room to Lisa's bedside and swept her into his arms, the tears coming so strong and so sudden that he didn't even bother trying to stem their flow. He let it all out, let the tears come, let himself cry his heart out as he held her close to him, not wanting to let her go, not wanting to lose her ever again, and Lisa cried against his chest and he let her, everything outside of their little world nonexistent right now as he held her and told her he loved her over and over again and that everything was going to be all right.

Seventeen

They had just finished filming when the shit started going down.

Tim had thrown up at least twice during the shoot. He couldn't help it; he'd never seen anybody get done like that before, and he had never seen a baby get done before, either. That was the worst. They'd actually kept the baby's mother alive and tied up while Animal did it, too. Her hands tied behind her back, legs lashed together, her mouth gagged tight, she'd been forced to watch in anguish as Animal… even thinking about what Animal had done to that baby made him sick.

Tim took a deep breath, closed his eyes, trying to gain control of himself. He had to keep telling himself that in the grand scheme of things, he didn't give a shit. Nearly a quarter of a million bucks was riding on this gig, split three ways between him, Al, and Animal. That was a lot of dough for one night.

But then, every time he tried to tell himself that, Alicia's terror-stricken eyes, her anguish, stabbed into his conscious. He had watched her as she watched helpless, powerless to do anything, and in doing so was transported back to when he had been in her shoes.

The rabbit's name had been Binky. Stupid name for a fucking rabbit, but Tim had loved it anyway. The rabbit had been a gift from his mother, for Easter, and he had doted on it the way most boys fawn over dogs. He'd built a little hidey-box inside its cage, fed it, made sure it had water. And he played with it every chance he got. When he came home from school, Binky was always there waiting for him. Tim would lose hours in a single afternoon playing with the creature, absorbed in his own world.

Tim had loved Binky. And he was sure that Binky had loved him.

He must have forgotten to do a chore or somethingplaying with Binky made him forget a lot of things, made him neglect stuff around the house. His mother went after him about it constantly, and he would quickly perform whatever task had needed to be done before Dad came home. But one day he hadn't been so quick about it and his father had come home early. And when Dad saw that the garbage hadn't been emptied and that Tim was lying on his stomach in the backyard, laughing and talking to Binky as they played, he had stalked across the yard and plucked the rabbit up by its ears.

Tim had protested, quickly sensing the error of his ways. Please, he had beseeched. I'm sorry, it won't happen again.

How many times have I told you, his father had said, grasping the rabbit's body with one meaty forearm, that chores come first?

Tim had begged his father not to do it, but he knew the begging would be in vain. Dad had done the same thing to his brother Doug's cat two summers ago, to teach him a similar lesson. There was no reason to suspect he would change his method of operation now

Dad had pushed Tim on the ground and said, Now you watch and you think about the inadequacy of your ways which has caused this great and terrible injustice to be done. And then, as Tim had watched, helpless and horrified, unable to do anything to intervene lest he receive the whooping of his life, his dad had grasped the rabbit's head between his meaty hands and pushed them together. Binky's little red eyes had bugged out in terror and pain, his hind legs had kicked frantically, his little body wriggled as a horrible mewling cry rose deep from within him; that cry had sounded like the scream of an infant. Blood had spurted from the rabbit's eyes and nose and then the head just exploded in a watery pop that sent brains and thick red blood gushing everywhere. And all Tim could do was stand there helplessly while his father killed the only thing he had ever loved.

Tim blinked, trying to chase the memory from his mind. The agonizing screams of that baby, seeing that same look in Alicia as she'd watched her daughter being torn apart by Animal, had brought the memory of what Dad had done to Binky rushing to the surface, making him feel helpless. The feeling was so great that Tim turned away from the scene, throwing up and crying.

Jesus motherfucking Christ! What the luck are we doing?

He'd forced himself to watch the rest of it. Forced himself to watch as Animal had ravaged the infant in front of its mother, who screamed and moaned and strained against the ropes binding her to the floor as she tried to break free. Al had remained silent, catching it all on film. When Animal started in on Alicia, it got a little easier to watch; Tim was used to watching Animal torture and kill adults. Even then, watching this scene was harder than all the others. He had thrown up a second time as the memory of Binky's death rose in his mind, and he'd had to fight back the sudden unmistakable feelings of regret he was now beginning to feel. Jesus fuck, I never thought it would be this bad. Christ, I never thought it would be this bad.

Animal was standing in the center of the room over the worn metal bed frame, naked and covered in blood and pieces of flesh. Even the black leather bondage hood he wore for the shoot was drenched with it. He stood rigid, hands held out at his sides, clenching and unclenching his blood- and flesh-stained hands. Tim stood up from the pool of vomit on the floor and saw with a sickening sense of horror that Animal still had an erection. His dick was covered in semen, blood, and red gooey flesh.

What was left of Debbie Martinez was huddled at the foot of the bed. More of her was on the floor and walls.

There was virtually nothing left of the infant. Just pieces, realty.

In his frenzy Animal had even eaten parts of the infant. Another first. Tim wondered if they could get more money for the film now that it had cannibalism in it.

"Goddamn," Al said, packing away his camera equipment. "Goddamn, but wasn't that some shit. Jesus Fucking Christ!"

Tim was panting, trying to catch his breath. He felt hot and sweaty. His eyes felt hot and moist; he felt the unmistakable dampness of tears on his cheeks. He didn't think he would react this way, that he would actually weep the way he did. He had watched Animal torture and mutilate people before. He had watched Animal stick his prick in places of the human body not designed for phallic objects as whatever junkie whore or butt boy he was doing wailed and screamed in pain before passing out and going into convulsions. Probably the grossest scene he had witnessed was the first time Animal had skull-fucked one bitch while she was still alive. The bitch had been uncon scious, yeah, but Animal didn't give a shit. He was paid not to give a shit. Animal didn't even use his knife to gouge the woman's eyeball out; his thumb and forefinger had sufficed perfectly, and the woman was still screaming when Animal guided his dick into her blood-spurting eye socket. Tim had watched that one in morbid fascination, not even aware that he had thrown up at that shoot, too. By the time Animal was pumping his cock in and out of the woman's eye socket, she was beginning the shuddering dance of death, hemorrhaging out of both eye sockets, her nose, and her mouth. She had even shit blood when Animal came.

Until tonight, that had been the most extreme flick they had ever shot.

"Hey, Tim. Tim!"

Tim looked up. Al was grinning at him. His lean features were sweaty. And even though his hazel eyes danced with glee, Tim detected something else in them. Something that suggested that even Al had been disturbed by this latest shoot. "We did it, man! We fucking did it!"

"Yeah," Tim said, turning back to Animal, who appeared to be gaining control of himself. The body of the baby's mother, Alicia, was lying on the plastic tarp floor at the foot of the bed. Her sightless eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her face was a mass of contusions and cuts. Her torso was sliced open, the flesh spread apart like a dressed-out deer to show her inner works. Animal hadn't dragged them out like he usually did when they filmed a snuff flick; he'd merely jacked off over them and come inside her body cavity.

Tim looked at Debbie's horribly violated remains, then back down at Alicia's corpse, still in a sense of awe at Animal's performance tonight. Three times was the most Animal had ever come during a shoot, and tonight Animal had come at least five times. Five orgasms, three dead bodies.

The sound of Al packing up his camera gear snapped Tim back to reality. "We gotta get the fuck out of here," Al said. "Animal, go take a fucking shower and wash that shit off of you. Brush your teeth, too. I can't have you looking like a fucking horror-movie serial killer all fucking evening.*

Animal turned around, and for the first time Tim was struck with cold fear as the dominiatrix's muddy eyes fixed on him from behind the leather mask. It was the first time Tim had ever felt this way about Animal; mostly he liked Animal just fine. The guy was witty, smart, funny, nice to be around. And he was good-looking, too. He really did look like an all-American boy. He certainly knew how to put the charm on around the women. When he wasn't playing the role of a dom, he was a financial consultant for a large international firm. He made good money, surely more than enough so that he didn't have to partake in the role of a sadist for the snuff and torture films he starred in. But then, as he had explained to Tim one afternoon after they'd dropped off a film to a buyer who had commissioned it: "I like pain, and I enjoy inflicting it on others." There was no arguing with logic like that.

And as for his stage name, well, when he donned the mask and slipped into the role of a dom for one of his and Al's films, he was… well, an Animal.

Animal's eyes flicked from Tim to Al, then back to Tim again. He rubbed his hand over his sweat- and blooddrenched naked torso. The room they were in was splattered with it. The plastic tarp they had rolled onto the floor was slick with blood; it was also running down the tarp they had nailed up along the walls. It was on the ceiling. Al would have to get in here tomorrow and paint the ceiling. Getting rid of the bodies was going to be easy. All that needed to be done was to move the bed frame, roll the bodies into the tarp, and stick them in the back of the van. Tim had found a nice secluded dumping spot a few weeks ago. It was in a remote area; no one would think — of looking for them out there.

"Time's a-wastin', people," Al said, winding up cable.

Animal turned and walked into the small bathroom off the bedroom. A moment later, the shower came on. Tim wandered outside for a breath of fresh air; the smell of blood, puke, and shit was too much for him right now. He had produced eighteen snuff films over the past ten years, and he had never gotten used to the smell of death.

Tim looked up at the star-filled night, breathing in the fresh mountain air. Despite that bit with the baby, it had gone good tonight. Debbie and that Alicia chick were perfect; those in the circle had been itching for something different in the flicks he produced. They had wanted something new, something fresh. Tim could surely see where they were coming from. Watching the same breed of whores and bun boys getting raped and sliced up was getting old. But it was definitely safer. Nobody ever missed the kind of kids that sold their asses on the Hollywood streets when they turned up missing. Christ, they were from all over the fucking place. They came from the cornfields of Nebraska, the deserts of Arizona, the heavily wooded areas of Maine, the swamps of Louisiana. Fuck, one guy they'd used had come from Alaska! That guy had been a real masochistic freak. He had gotten off on some pretty heavy shit. Animal had only been too happy to oblige.

But these two women… that was a different story. Both of them had been good-looking as hell, much better-looking than the homeless chicks they usually used. They looked as if they had just stepped out of a Vogue shoot or something. That was one of the requirements the client wanted for this shoot; he'd even had somebody in mind and had provided Sam with a physical description and a license-plate number. It had been risky, but Sam said the client would double the money to match the risk and Tim had taken it. And then he had gotten even more lucky with Alicia and her kid.

Tim frowned. He didn't doubt Al's claim that Sam would double the price a third time due to the fact that they'd found a baby. He'd heard of a pedophile group in the Pacific Northwest that was rumored to be interested in a snuff film with a baby in it. What he was worried about was letting Lisa Miller get away. He'd had strict orders, down to the make and license number of her car and her physical description, to grab her and bring her to the cabin by Saturday. Al and Animal were to do the rest. Tim didn't give a fuck-he was being paid double for the risk, and the plan he'd formulated had worked perfectly.

Then everything had fallen to shit.

First that Debbie Martinez bitch wandering into the cabin. Stupid cunt. That had been a minor annoyance, but he'd taken care of it. He'd mentioned what happened to Sam, and while Sam hadn't been pleased he'd grudgingly agreed to find a buyer and encouraged Tim to have Animal finish her quickly. Tim assured Sam he'd do that, and the three of them had driven to the cabin to do just that. Animal had managed to draw it out, though, which was fine in some ways, but they'd stopped production midway through. Animal was spending a lot of time with the bitch-he really must've been wanting to fuck this bitch up for a long time, because he was really enjoying it. Al had wanted to resume the next morning, and Tim had seen no reason to disagree. Debbie surely wasn't go ing anywhere, and Lisa Miller was tied up tighter than a gnat's ass. So they'd left.

What had fucked things up… what really fucked it up was Lisa Miller selling this other chick and her kid down the river for her own life.

The minute Al heard Lisa say she could get ahold of an infant, rim had seen the dollar signs in Al's eyes. There was no arguing with him after that. If Sam wanted to change his mind, that was his business. He understood business. And as they transferred Lisa to the van for the drive to Orange County, Al had pulled Tim and Animal aside briefly and told them that the minute they grabbed Alicia and the baby they were to grab Lisa's skinny white ass too and haul her back in the van. They weren't letting her go, and as far as the original job went that was still on the agenda. Let Lisa think they were letting her go; ignorance was bliss, right?

As it turned out, the money didn't matter to Animal. He'd been wanting to do a baby for some time.

What hadn't been in the script was Lisa Miller escaping. Bitch had slammed Animal pretty good in the solar plexus. Must have been a lucky shot. But there was no way Tim was hanging around to chase after her. Animal had limbed back in the van and Tim had sped off back to the cabin. Al had been pissed as donkey shit, and he was flying off the walls. He'd been indulging in the face Drano while he and Animal were gone, too. Tim had spotted the mirror and razor blades and Al had kept rubbing his nose and sniffling, his pupils dilated as he yelled at them for letting Lisa go. Animal had had to hold Al back as Tim told him he'd take care of it. "We'll get her," he'd said. "I know where she lives. When we're done tonight, I'll take my cousin's truck and cruise by her place and scope it out. We'll get her, don't worry."

"Jesus hick!" Al had thundered. He'd twisted out of Animal's grasp. "What the hell am I going to do now that she's gone? Shit!*

'ell Sam we got the film," Tim said, the ruse springing into place perfectly. "Tell him we got it all. When are you supposed to make the delivery?"

"In two weeks!" Al said, running a shaky hand through his thinning hair.

"Piece of cake," Tim said, exchanging a glance with Animal. Alicia and the baby were still in the truck, and Tim remembered hearing the infant cry as he'd tried to calm Al down. "She doesn't know us, she doesn't know where this place is, and she doesn't know you.'

'But she saw Animal's face!" Al had almost screamed the words.

"Yes, she did," Tim said. How do you argue with logic like that?" But we're going to get her. Trust me on this. Besides, I think right now we got something else on our plate we gotta take care of."

That had broken the spell. Al had huffed dramatically, then motioned for Animal to bring Alicia and the baby in, and Tim had spent the next few hours watching in horrified fascination, then disgust and fear and sickness, as they worked. And as the gut-wrenching scenes unfolded, Tim had felt those old feelings from years ago erupt to the surface of his psyche.

And now they had it. Three snuff films, one that of an infant. Ready to roll and bank on.

Tim extracted a cigarette from the pack he kept in his breast pocket. He lit it with shaky fingers, dragged in deep. Fuck, but this had been an intense shoot. Animal had just been… watching him and that baby had just been…

No, Dad, please don't hurt Binky!

The look in Alicia's eyes that screamed No, my baby! No, please-

Remembering the anguish he felt, seeing it on Alicia's face.

He felt the tears again. "Oh fuck, what've I done?"

Al stepped outside, lugging camera equipment. He was no longer paranoid and seemed to be his old self. He glared at Tim. "Quit fucking around and help me carry this shit to the van."

Tim struggled to rein his emotions in. He took a deep breath, struggling to hold back the tears. Time to focus; time to get through this night. He took a drag off his cigarette. "Yes, boss," Tim said, as he helped Al dismantle the camera equipment.

It was closing in on three A.M. and they had just rolled the last tarp containing the body of Alicia and the remaining scraps of her baby daughter into the van when headlights lit up the cabin.

Tim looked up, his heart leaping in his throat.

"Who the fuck do we have here?" Al said.

"Where's Animal?" Tim asked, suddenly feeling scared. He had insisted they clean up as much as possible at the cabin, including removing the boards he had nailed up on the back bedroom window, and he was glad they did.

"Here" Animal stepped up behind them. He was dressed in blue jeans, a white chambray shirt, black loafers. His brown hair was combed and styled perfectly. He was carrying a briefcase that contained the tools he used for shoots. He smiled, his eyes gleaming. "Don't worry," he said. "We can handle this."

When the vehicle pulled up, Tim saw that it was one with the words BIG BEAR P.D. painted on the doors. The driver turned the engine off and the passenger door flew open. A tall man with angular features and short brown hair leaped out. He looked frantic. ""Iim! Hey, Tim, you seen Debbie around?"

No, I haven't, Neal," Tim said, trying to calm his nerves. He'd had a feeling this might happen, and he was hoping they could get the hell out of here before Neal showed up. Neal had probably shown up at his cabin and freaked out when he saw that Debbie wasn't there.

The cop stepped out of the vehicle. He was wearing a light windbreaker. Are you the owner of this cabin, sir?"

"No, Officer, I'm not." Tim offered them a smile. "I'm just renting it from the owners."

You sure you haven't seen Debbie?" Neal was suddenly looming in front of him. He could feel the panic washing off the man in waves. His eyes were-frantic.

"I'm sorry, Neal, I haven't." Tim feigned a look of concern. A sudden sense that he had the upper hand burst through him. It made him feel better, in control of the situation. is there anything wrong?"

"She's gone!" Neal said, his voice a fast clip. "She was supposed to be at the cabin when I came up yesterday, and she was gone!"

The cop was calm and professional. "Mr. Martinez reported his wife missing earlier today. He'd been looking for her and calling us all day, and we got involved this evening. Are you sure you haven't seen her recently?"

"No." Tim shook his head.

"Can I ask who your two friends are?" the cop asked.

Tim turned back to Al and Animal, who had been listening with interest. Al turned on the charm, instantly transforming from snuff pornographer to a guy who looked like he might be a contractor or a cabinetmaker. "I'm Al Pressman," he said.

"And I'm Jeff," Animal said, turning on the charm as well. "Jeff Scott'

"How long have you been up here with Mr….?'

"Murray," Tim said. "Tim Murray"

"How long have you been with Mr. Murray today?" the cop asked.

"All day," Jeff answered.

"And you haven't noticed anything unusual?"

"No"

"Did the three of you come up for the weekend?"

"Yes," Al said. "We've been up here since late Saturday."

"Are you sure you haven't seen Debbie?" Neal asked frantically. Tim could see that the man was imploring them for help. His eyes were wide and frantic with panic. "She just walked out of the cabin. She left her car, her purse, everything at the cabin. I thought maybe she might have taken a walk by here or-"

"I haven't seen her all weekend," Tim said. He was feeling the pressure mount again.

The cop nodded. "Mr. Martinez says he called yesterday and his wife didn't answer the phone. And she never returned his calls."

"I was working this weekend," Neal said, pacing back and forth in front of the jeep. "I couldn't get off. We were going to meet up here today. And when I got here, she wasn't there!"

"What does she look like?" Al asked, his features masked with concern.

The officer described Debbie Martinez to them, and as he did, Al and Jeff frowned, shaking their heads. "No" Al said. "I haven't seen anybody looking like that. We haven't really been out much."

"Can I ask what's in the van?" the cop asked.

Tim felt as if he had been punched in the stomach.

"Camera equipment," Al said.

"Camera equipment?"'Ihe cop looked at him.

"My friends and I " Tim said, attempting to explain as his mind raced. "Wre're amateur filmmakers. We've been up here all weekend working on a film project'

The cop was looking at the van, as if trying to see through it. Tim felt the lead in his belly grow solid. He glanced at Al quickly and saw that Al was watching the cop, trying hard to look casual. Only Jeff bore the slightest trace of normalcy; he looked both concerned for Neal and curious as to why Debbie Martinez could disappear.

"When was the last time you saw Debbie Martinez?" the cop asked, turning back to Tim.

Tim shrugged, trying to come up with the right answer. "I don't know-few weeks ago maybe?'

And you two?" The cop nodded at Al and Animal.

"I've never seen her; Al said.

"I was up here a few weeks ago with Tim," Animal said. -That was the last time I saw her."

The cop turned to Neal, who was hugging himself in the brisk coolness of the Big Bear night. "Why don't we try the Harper place and Keene's shack down 772?'

"Okay." Neal headed to the passenger side without looking at Tim or the others.

"Sorry to have troubled you folks,' the officer said.

"No problem, Officer; Tim said.

Al lifted the last carrying case containing the camera as the officer started the Jeep's engine. The headlights popped on and the Jeep pulled away, heading down the road.

'That was a close one,' Tim breathed, watching the taillights recede.

"Don't just stand there watching them leave!" Al barked. "Help me pack this shit up and let's get the tuck out of here!"

And Tim turned to do just that.

They got the hell out of there.

Eighteen

Lisa had been feeling a little sick the past day or so, and this morning it had been worse. She was curled into her favorite chair by the sofa, trying to ignore the pain. Brad could tell there was something wrong, but every time he asked if she was all right she said she was fine.

It had been two weeks since what they were now referring to as "their vacation that went to hell." Since that time, both of them had been questioned numerous times by the LAPD, the San Bernardino County Sheriff's department, and the Ventura County Sheriffs Department, and Lisa had been examined at USC Medical Center. She had been taken to the hospital, where a thorough examination had been performed. Aside from a few bruises and scratches and dehydration, she was fine. The surprise she had hoped to tell Brad on their vacation was revealed that day, and Brad treated the news with a mixture of joy and relief. The medical personnel questioned her thoroughly about her attack, trying to determine if penetration occurred, and Lisa assured them that, no, they didn't rape her. They did other things to her, but they didn't rape her that way.

Brad was so happy she was alive that he seemed to brush off the story she told the police: She had been on her way to the Denny's near the motel when a van pulled up and she was grabbed. She was pulled into the van and somebody knocked her out with a rag drenched in chloroform. The next thing she knew, they were driving up to the mountains. They kept her in the van the entire weekend, slapping her around a little, forcing her to perform oral sex on them, and doing drugs, probably coke. Maybe it was crystal meth. Whatever it was, they were snorting it, it made them hyper, and it made them homy, but no matter how much they forced her to perform oral sex on them they never got hard. The first time she told this story, the detective nodded. "Speed freaks become impotent after a while. If they hadn't been, the attack probably would have been worse.'

She couldn't describe her assailants, no matter how much she was questioned. It had been dark, but she was certain there were four of them. They were big, they might have all been black, but they could have been Hispanic or Samoan or something. They were big and darkskinned, and some of them had kinky hair, and some of them were speaking a funny language that sounded like it could have been Spanish, it all happened so fast that she just didn't remember. They asked her repeatedly if Caleb Smith had anything to do with this, and at first her mind had drawn a blank until one of the detectives reminded her of the road-rage incident that had landed Brad in jail. She shook her head. 'No, it wasn't him. The van these guys were driving was white, with no windows. It wasn't Caleb Smith at all.

The detectives who had been questioning her traded glances with each other and said nothing.

She had been a nervous wreck throughout the whole ordeal, and after a while they eased off on the questioning. They had vague descriptions of suspects and a description of the van, and that went out over the bulletin. They tried questioning her more in the days that followed, but every time they did Lisa could offer them nothing new. Besides, every time they took her down that line of questioning, she would start crying, becoming hysterical. It was obvious to the detectives working the case that she had been emotionally traumatized by her abduction, and she was, only it wasn't the way they thought.

Her parents, who had flown out to Orange County from Iowa, had broken down and wept at the news that she had been found. Brad's parents had been equally happy-his mother had displayed her relief the same way both of Lisa's parents had. His dad took it the way he usually took good news; all the weight of stress and worry that he had been carrying seemed to ease off his shoulders, and he wandered around the hospital while Lisa was being examined, looking tired, then relieved, then happy for Brad, then worried again. "1 just hope she's going to be all right," he said when Brad asked how he was. Father and son traded smiles; Dad's looking a little bit more worn for the wear after being awake for the past two days.

During the past two weeks, she had been brooding and silent. She went back to work after a week, but managed only one full day of work before asking for a onemonth leave of absence. She was still traumatized by the incident, and she needed time to get herself together. Her boss, George Brooks, had been absent from the office on a business trip when she returned, so the request had gone to one of the other partners. The leave was granted and she spent her days in front of the television, watching talk show after talk show, her mind always elsewhere. Her nerves were always twisting and turning in on themselves, her mind weighing heavily on what she had done to save herself and her and Brad's unborn baby.

Brad was looking at her from across the living room. "Are you sure you don't want me to call that therapist Detective Morse recommended? I can make an appointment for the both of us."

Lisa stared blankly at the television. "1 don't know," she said morosely. "Let me think about it."

Brad regarded her silently. In the days that had fol lowed the nightmare, Brad had been overwhelmed with joy at having her back. He was also overwhelmed with joy at the news of her pregnancy. He had been so happy that he'd gone bustling around the house rearranging things, making plans to turn the spare bedroom into a nursery, talking to her about starting up a college fund. Lisa hadn't told Brad yet about the money she had taken out of their savings account and her IRA; she had intercepted both pieces of mail from the bank verifying the transactions, and she supposed she would have to tell him something eventually. After all, he would notice. She just wasn't sure when she should tell him about what really happened. She had to make sure that if she did he would abide by her wishes and not tell anybody. He would have to agree that they go away, that they pack up and leave and start a new life somewhere far away.

Become new people, with new identities. They could do it.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk to me?" Brad asked, scooting closer to her on the sofa. His features were soft and open. "You look like you have a lot on your mind you want to talk about."_

She looked up at him and forced a smile. "I'm fine… really, I'm fine. It's just..-."

"It's still on your mind? Isn't it?"

Lisa nodded, mouth set in a bloodless grimace. Her stomach rolled in her belly and the nausea returned. Morning sickness, she thought, as the next wave hit her deep, making her cringe. It's just morning sickness that's making me feel so bad, that's all, just-

If it was morning sickness, she had been having it since the day Brad picked her up at USC Medical Center. If it was morning sickness, it hit her strongest whenever she thought about what she had done to save herself and their unborn baby.

The guilt was weighing down heavily on her more and more as the days went by.

And with it came the pain in her abdomen.

The only reason she was alive today was that her abductors had found another to take her place. To spare her life, and the life of the unborn baby growing in her womb, she had offered Alicia and her baby girl Mandy as ritual sacrifices. The image that stayed in her mind the most was the look on Alicia's face when Lisa had surprised her near the entrance of the same restaurant she and Brad had met her. That look of surprise as Alicia recognized her, the look of hope flooding her features as she swallowed the story Animal told her-that he was a friend of Lisa and Brad's, and that the three of them had done some thinking and decided to put Alicia and her baby up in a motel until she could get on her feet. All she needed to do was follow them this way-Brad was waiting in the car-and then the look of utter surprise as they got to the van and Tim popped out from behind the door as Animal ushered Alicia inside, clamping the chloroform-drenched rag over her mouth and nose, pushing her inside the van, Lisa grabbing the handle of the baby's car seat before it could crash to the ground. For a brief instant, she glimpsed the expression on Alicia's face and her eyes seemed to light on Lisa's, terrorstricken and asking Why?

It was that look she had to ignore as she'd fought Animal for her life outside the van.

That look on Alicia's face was on Lisa's mind constantly now. It chased her into the night, keeping her from sleep.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about anything?" Brad asked again.

Lisa shook her head, fighting back the tears. She wanted so much to tell him everything, but she was afraid.

If you tell anybody-and / mean anybody-/ will fucking find you, and you and your family are going to wind up as playthings for Animal in a film. You got that?

1 just wanted to save my baby…

Lisa felt the tears coming. "No. " she said, her voice trembling. "No.. "

The look in Alicia's eyes before the chloroform rendered her unconscious. Why?

The screaming of Alicia's infant daughter, Mandy, growing dim as Lisa ran away from the van… the thought of that baby crying as Tim drove away, the sound of that baby's cries still lingering in her haunted mind.

Lisa began to cry, deep sobs that burst from her gut. She doubled over from the force of them. She had only wanted to save her own baby. She had only wanted to save the wonderful life she was building with Brad. She had only wanted to give her own unborn baby-tea baby she and Brad had sacrificed so much for and had gone through hell to conceive-a chance at life. 'chinking about this, thinking about the fact that she had so easily turned Tim and his murderous group onto an innocent woman and her infant daughter, all to appease the faceless group of perverts who paid big money to satisfy their sadistic urges, was more devastating to her than she had ever expected.

"Lisa" Brad's voice was filled with concern. He knelt down beside her, touching her knee gently. "Hey, it's okay, honey. You're safe now. Everything's going to be all right!

Lisa shook her head, the tears flowing more freely now. The sobs were coming from deep within her, pouring from the depths of her soul. "No, it's not." She felt an other sudden pain in her abdomen, this one more penetrating, and she began to cry harder. It was a cry of loss. "No, it's not going to be all right. It's never going to be all right"

Lisa Miller was beginning to bleed.

After they returned home from the hospital to deal with the miscarriage shortly after midnight, Lisa Miller told her husband what really happened.

Everything.