“Gina is still salvageable.” He added, “If you find her in time.”

Sara frantically searched for a way to stop him. He was going to inject himself. What could she do? Take the revolver out of her pocket and threaten him? Shoot him? Say the codeword and hope that Will killed Brock before he could kill himself?

Gina Vogel.

Still salvageable.

“You’re a smart woman, Sara. You’ll put the pieces together.” His eyes flicked down to the binders. He was telling her what was inside. “I don’t want a trial.”

“Tell me where Gina is,” Sara pleaded. “We can stop this right now.”

His hands moved methodically behind the binder. He uncapped the syringe. Pushed the air out of the plastic barrel. “You know they’ll put me to death. Maybe I deserve it. I didn’t really give those women a choice. I’m not so far gone that I can’t see that.”

“Please,” she begged.

“I want to thank you for your friendship, Sara. I really mean it.”

“Dan. We can work something out. Just tell me where she is.”

“Wallace Road intersects at 515 about a mile south of Ellijay.”

“Please …”

The needle slid into his vein. He rested his thumb on the plunger. “Gina is two miles west, about fifty yards from the fire road. I always did like a fire road.”

Sara said the last word that he would ever hear. “Salad.”

Brock looked confused, but his thumb was already pressing down the plunger. The brown liquid shot into his vein. His mouth dropped opened. His pupils constricted.

“Oh,” he gasped, surprised by the rush.

By the time Will busted down the door, Brock was dead.

29

Gina felt something wet hitting her face. She thought a dog was pissing on her, then she thought she was in the shower, then she remembered that she was in the woods.

Her eyes opened.

The trees swayed overhead. Dark clouds. Still daylight. A drop of rain tapped against her eyeball.

Her eyes were open!

She blinked. Then she blinked again to prove that she could do it. She was controlling her eyes. She was looking up, seeing things. It was daylight. She was alone. He wasn’t here.

She had to leave!

Gina thought about the muscles in her stomach. The—the abs. The six-pack. The eight-pack. What was wrong with her? Why did her only knowledge of stomach muscles come from Jersey Shore?

For fucksakes.

He was going to come back. He had told her that he would be back.

She clenched her muscles. All of them. Every single streaky slab in her body. She opened her mouth. She screamed as loud as she could, as long as she could, one single word.

“Go!”

Her body flopped onto its side. She had no idea how she had managed to turn, but she had managed to turn, so she could probably manage other things.

But she was so tired.

And so dizzy that the world flipped upside down.

Vomit spewed up her throat. The pain from clenching her stomach was a razor inside her body. She couldn’t stop vomiting. The smell made her feel sicker. Her face was in it. She sniffed it up her nose. It was blue with specks of black. She was vomiting blue.

A moan came out of her throat. She sniffed. The chunk of vomit in her nose slid back down her throat.

She closed her eyes.

Don’t close your eyes!

She saw her hand in the puddle of vomit. Close to her face. She could smell it. Taste it. She watched her fingers move through the thick, blue lumps. She was going to stand. She knew how to stand. She could feel everything now. Every nerve in her body was alive and on fire.

The pain …

She couldn’t let the pain stop her. She had to move. She needed to get out of here. He was going to come back. He had promised he would come back.

He had begged her to wait for him.

Move! Move! Move!

She tried to push herself up. Knees on the ground. A girl pushup. She could do this. Her head was pounding. Her heart rolled like a wheel. Her eyelids fluttered. She was so tired.

She heard footsteps.

Move, dammit, move!

She saw shoes. Black Nikes. Black swoops. Black pants.

He was going to rape her.

He was going to rape her.

Again.

She squeezed her eyes closed.

Don’t drink it. Spit it up. Run.

She heard the punch of his knees hitting the ground as he knelt down beside her.

His fingers pressed open her eyelids. He was making her look at him. She had tried so hard not to see his face, to be able to honestly tell him that she had no idea what he looked like, that she wouldn’t tell the police, that she could not identify him, that he could trust her because she would never tell and now he was making her, forcing her, to look at his face.

She felt her eyes roll wildly, like a rabid dog, as she looked at the ground, the vomit, the trees, anything but his face.

“Gina Vogel?” the man said.

Her eyes moved of their own accord. He was younger than she had thought. He was wearing a black baseball cap. She saw the word above the brim. Bright white letters stitched against the black.

POLICE.

“Wha—” she croaked. Her throat was too sore. From the cold. From the stuff he was making her drink. From the vomit.

From him.

“You’re going to be okay,” POLICE told her. “I’m going to stay with you until the ambulance comes.”

He wrapped a blanket around her body. She couldn’t sit up. She was so dizzy. Light kept flashing in her eyes. So many lights. Her brain was like that turny thing inside of a police light, swirling and swirling, occasionally catching reality, then just as quickly letting it slip away.

“The man who did this to you is dead,” POLICE told her. “He will never hurt another woman again.”

Gina’s fist went to her lips. She tried to hold onto his words, to not let them slip away. She had survived this. She was alive. She would go home. She would make changes. She would become a healthier eater. She would work out three days a week. She would call her mother more often. She would be kind to her sulky, sullen niece. She would tell her twelve-year-old boss that she actually did know how to sync her Outlook calendar.

POLICE rubbed her arm. “Just try to breathe through it, okay? You’ve been drugged.”

No shit sir that is abundantly clear!

“They’re almost here,” POLICE said. “Go on and cry if you need to. I’m not going to leave you.”

Gina realized she had shoved her fist into her mouth. She looked at her fingers like a mindless baby. Pointer. Middle. Ring. Pinky. Thumb. She could move them all. She closed her eyes. She could still feel them moving. She didn’t even have to think about it.

A laugh fluttered out of her mouth. Holy shit she was so stoned. How could she be this high when she had literally thrown up her stomach? It was lying on the ground like a Smurf shit. She waved her fingers again, trying to catch the soap bubbles floating like amoeba through the air. The colors were glorious. Gina was glorious! She was a gemstone tumbling inside a kaleidoscope. A warm, fluffy sock lazily dancing around other warm, fuzzy socks in a clothes dryer.

“Ma’am?” POLICE said, “Ma’am?”

God dammit, she was still old.

One week later

30

Sara stared out her office window. The sun was setting. The parking lot at GBI headquarters was nearly empty. She could see Will’s car parked beside Faith’s Mini. Sara’s car was at home. Will had insisted on driving her the last few days. Amanda’s Acura was several spaces closer to the front entrance.

She turned back to her laptop. She had paused the video from Brock’s office. The only part she cared about was the last sixteen seconds.

Sara studied Brock’s face.

She wanted to see madness there, danger, aggression—

But it was just his face.

He had asked her to take care of his mother. Myrna Brock had been found lying dead in her room at the assisted-living home. Her hair and make-up had been done. An empty syringe was on her bedside table. The residue inside was dirty brown. Analysis showed that she had been injected with what was called a hotshot, heroin mixed with a lethal substance, in this case, embalming fluid.

The same chemicals had been found in the syringe that Brock had injected into his own arm.

He had designated Sara as the executor of his estate. He’d left exact instructions on how his mother’s remains were to be handled. He’d pre-paid for everything, a common practice in the industry. Sara had ensured that Myrna had been given a proper Christian burial in the Heartsdale Memory Gardens. Her own mother had attended the graveside, but the rest of the town had stayed away.

As for Brock’s remains, nothing had been specified in any of his documents. He had left it to Sara to dispose of his body. She imagined that he’d assumed Sara would be kind.

She had paid for his cremation out of her own pocket. She had stood over the toilet in the funeral home and kept flushing until every last bit of his ashes were gone.

Sara pressed the space bar to start the video.