“Where is my boyfriend?” Charlotte asks.

The captive doesn’t answer.

She gives the open door behind her a gentle kick with one heel; it slams shut with enough force to shake the walls. The man before her flinches, squints into the flashlight, but he still doesn’t answer.

“You work for Jordy Clements?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer, so she sinks down to the floor, onto her knees, flashlight angled at him.

“I asked you a question. Two questions, actually. Why aren’t you answering me?”

She balls her free hand into a fist, slams one side of it against the floor. The center of the indentation buckles the wood, sends out a jellyfish of cracks. His jaw tenses and he shakes his head slightly, as if he’s denying what his eyes are telling him.

Then he leaps to his feet, bolting past her.

Any attempt to touch him might accidentally snap his neck. So she moves to the spot he just left, grabs one corner of the bed’s headboard, and sends the entire bed sliding across the room and into the bedroom door, instantly blocking his path.

When he realizes he’s trapped, something inside the man snaps. His back hits the wall and he slides to the floor, pumping his hands in the air in front of him like a toddler having a tantrum. He’s wheezing like the wind’s been knocked out of him. If it has, it’s terror that’s done it.

Charlotte sinks down on the floor next to him. When he sees how close she is, he screws his eyes shut. “What are you? What are you? What the fuck are you?” he screams.

“Someone who needs you to tell the truth. What’s your name?”

His sobs have kicked ropes of snot from his nose. He spits them from his lips before he can speak. “T-Tommy. My name’s Tommy.”

“Where did they take him, Tommy?”

“I don’t know,” he whines.

She punches through the wall next to his head. He lets out a choking, wheezing cry.

“I think that’s a lie, Tommy. And if you tell me another lie, I’m going to break your legs. Slowly, all the way up the bones, every few inches.”

Struggling to catch his breath, Tommy says, “They’re gonna move him. If . . . if they don’t hear from me, they’re going to move him and I don’t know where.”

“Oh, OK,” she says. “Well, it sounds like they need to hear from you, then. I mean, that makes perfect sense, doesn’t it? They need to hear you tell them you’re fine and you just ran in a different direction when the alarm went off. But you got away and you’re on your way to them now and they should wait for you where they are. Right, Tommy? Doesn’t that make sense?”

“Wh-what if they don’t believe me?” he sobs.

“You’re going to make them believe you, or they’re going to listen to you scream. Where’s your phone, Tommy?”

“It’s in my po-pocket.”

“Good. Get it out. And no sudden moves. I’m very jumpy.”

He straightens as much as he can in his seated position and pries his cell phone from his pocket. Then he looks at her like a frightened child.

“Deep breaths, Tommy.”

“What are you?” he whispers.

“I’m very angry you took my boyfriend away. But the good news is, that makes me easy to understand and easy to please. So do both. Make me happy, Tommy. Make me happy and this won’t get any worse.”

“You w-want me to t-tell them I’m OK and I’m coming to meet them.”

“That’s right. And find out where. If they’re moving him, find out where they’re moving him to. And if they’re not moving him, make sure it’s the same place they told you before. Got it?”

“Ye-yes.”

“Good.”

Tommy starts to dial.

It rings, and rings, and then finally goes to someone’s automated voice mail greeting.

“There’s no reception. They’re up the mountain.”

She reaches out and gently lays one hand on top of his head.

His eyes meet hers. His entire body shudders beneath her palm.

“Are you telling me the truth, Tommy?”

“I am,” he sobs. “I am. I am. Please.”

“Where are they?”

“There’s se-seismic stations . . . set up just down the mountain. It’s four miles up mountain on 293. It comes up on the left r-real fast. You gotta be careful. It’s a service road. But they cut it themselves. It’s still dirt and if you keep going . . . about twenty yards . . . you’ll come to a storage shed. That’s where they said they were taking him, b-but . . .”

“But what, Tommy?”

“Since I didn’t come back, they might have moved.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. But all our firepower’s up there. And M-Milo. He likes to work in secret, but the shed . . . The shed is . . . The shed’s where they had Lacey.”

“When?”

“Before they shot her . . . But I think he worked on her somewhere else.”

Worked on her. These words alone have her monitoring every tick of the hand she’s still resting atop his skull. His fragile, breakable skull.

Her mind races through the list of all the possible hideouts along 293’s lonely, twisting passage to the sea. There’s an old Buddhist temple up there somewhere that was volunteer maintained until it wasn’t. It’s a ruin now. Then there’s a spread of ruined limekilns surrounded by redwoods. The ones she visited with Marty when she was in high school; it was a long, grueling hike without a clear trail.