Grief, rage, shock slammed into her, so she tried to rock up in the chair despite the restraints. “She did nothing to you!”

“She took you in when you belonged to me! She looked at me, over your shoulder in that courtroom, she looked at me when they took me away, with satisfaction. She shouldn’t have done that. I’m going to kill you when I’m finished, and sometime, maybe in a year, maybe two, I’m coming back to kill that asshole you’re fucking. I’ll do a better job of it than that drunk rube who thought shooting at a house mattered a damn.”

Not just a batterer, she realized through the screams inside her head. Not just a vicious, violent, selfish man. A murderer.

The mask he’d worn, even in court, had fallen away. She saw not only the killer under it, but one who found pleasure in the killing.

And she would die here, by his hand.

* * *

Though he had plenty of time before court, Zane got dressed, save for the tie, dropped a baseball in his suit coat pocket. Maureen was right about it spoiling the line, but he liked being able to turn it in his hand in there when he listened to his opponent examine a witness.

He folded the tie into his other pocket, then pulled out his phone when it rang.

“Walker. Hey, Roy.”

“Hey there, Zane. Is Darby around?”

“She left nearly an hour ago.” Something crawled up his spine. “Are you at the rentals?”

“Yeah. Might be she made another stop, but she’s not answering her phone. Tried texting and calling. But lotsa spots around here service drops out.”

“Yeah. Look, I’m heading out…” He’d call his contact in Raleigh when he got to Asheville. “I’ll swing by Emily’s. She might have gone by there first, just got caught up. I’ll let you know.”

“Appreciate that. You know, I think we’ll call Best Blooms, just in case she decided she needed something from there.”

“Good idea.”

But he heard the anxiety in Roy’s voice that echoed the voice in his own head. Darby wouldn’t get caught up or make another stop that would make her late for work—not without letting the crew know.

He considered calling Lee as he hurried downstairs. Just go by, he told himself. It’s probably nothing. Better to go by.

He tried her phone as he left the house, got voice mail.

“Call me,” he snapped, and jumped into his car.

When instinct says something’s wrong, he thought, listen to it. He started to hit his hands-free to contact Lee after all, made the turn.

Saw Darby’s truck.

He tried to tell himself she’d just had a breakdown, but he knew, already knew, even before he heard the dog howling. Before he saw the cap, the one she’d put on as she left, on the ground.

The dog leaped into his arms when Zane wrenched open the door. Fighting for calm, he called Lee.

“Somebody’s got Darby. Her truck’s on the side of the road fifty feet from our turnoff. The dog was in the truck. Her cap’s on the ground. Somebody’s got her.”

“I’m on my way.”

He thought of Jed Draper, and following his rage, got back in his car, put the dog on the floor of the passenger seat. “Stay down there.”

He peeled out, floored it. What had made him think Draper would take losing a fight without retribution?

Because he’d seen it, Zane realized. Because he’d seen it in the man’s eyes when he’d gotten up off the ground. But if he’d been wrong …

He took a turn too fast, fishtailed, kept going.

I saw somebody who looked sort of like that out on the lake, Darby had said. He gave me the creeps.

No books in the house, playing computer games, no Bingley at any of the hundred-plus colleges he’d checked so far.

Didn’t make any sense, no damn sense, but …

He aimed the car toward Walker Lakeside Bungalows.

“She wouldn’t have pulled over for Jed Draper. That makes less sense. Stay,” he ordered the dog when he pulled up just out of sight of Bungalow Five. To keep the dog where he was, on the floor of the convertible, Zane tossed Zod his tie.

Then moved quick and quiet to the edge of the drive.

He saw the shades down. Who pulled all the shades with that view? Bedroom maybe, for sleeping, but the rest of the house?

He kept moving, kept to the soft ground, searching for a chink in a shade where he could see inside.

As he circled around, he heard a man’s voice, raised in fury. “You look at me, bitch. You look at me when I talk to you. I’ll shoot you in both knees, then in your gut if you don’t give me some respect!”

Zane took out his phone, texted Lee:

Bungalow Five. He has a gun.

Then turned off his phone.

With no intention of waiting for Lee, he circled back to the front of the house. Get him outside—set off the car alarm—get him outside, rush him. Get him outside, away from Darby.

And before he reached the front, Zod began to howl.

“Good enough,” Zane murmured. He kept moving, felt the weight in his pocket, and curled his hand around the baseball.

“What the hell is that?” Trent demanded.

He moved to the front window, eased back the shade to peer out. Behind him Darby flexed, rocked.

Zod, having jumped out of the car and now tangled with Zane’s tie, lifted his head and began to howl again.

“Stupid fucking dog. I got a spare bullet for a fucking ugly dog.”

He cracked open the door, then stepped out on the porch, grinned as he took aim.

Zane stepped out from beside the pawpaw Darby had planted, winged the ball just like the boy who’d dreamed of playing short at Camden Yards.

It hit Trent’s face with a nasty thud, and as he stumbled, the gun spurted out of his hand. From behind, Darby rammed the chair into him and Zane rushed forward to finish him off. Trent was out cold.

She fell back, nearly tipping over, chair and all, as Zane rushed to her.

“T-t-triple play,” she said through chattering teeth. “Zod to Walker to McCray.”

Then she began to weep as if her heart, and every part of her, was broken.

“It’s all right now. He can’t hurt you now.” He slid the gun over with his foot, kept his foot on it as he stroked her face. “I need to get something to cut you loose, okay? I’m going to get you loose, take you away from here.”

“It’s Trent. He killed my mother. He told me. He killed my mother.”

He had no words, could only press his lips to her face. “You hold on. Just hold on. Let me get something to cut these off you.”

“He took my multi-tool. It’s in his pocket. Is he dead?”

“Here now, here’s Zod.” Zane lifted the dog, set him, trailing tie and all, in Darby’s lap. “You just hold on another minute.”

Not dead. Zane found a pulse, found the multi-tool.

Fresh rage beat inside him when he saw how deep those ties had cut into her flesh.

“I’m going to get you home, okay? Lee’s coming, then I’m going to take you home. I’m going to take care of you, of everything.”

“He killed my mother because she loved me, because she was there for me when I needed her. He killed Clint Draper, he told me. Maybe because he enjoyed it, maybe because he wanted to cause you more trouble. Because I was with you.”