“Caught the press conference.” Nyle looked up from the computer in the conference room at RCMP headquarters in Halifax, which was fast becoming their point of operations. The building was nearly empty, save for this area. “Sort of surprised the brass didn’t pressure you to release your profile while they had you on TV.”

Alexa grimaced as she strolled into the room. “They tried. We had a phone conference with Captain Campbell prior, and he shared that request from the Commissioner. It took some doing, but I convinced them it would be of little value to the public.” She hadn’t been surprised by the request. It was a common one from law-enforcement departments seeking to calm a jittery public. “Profiles are tools so investigators better understand the offender they’re tracking. Using them in media communications is just a glitzy bone to throw a public that spends too much time watching Hollywood’s idea of investigative work.”

Nyle let loose a surprised laugh. “Agreed. But I’m surprised you managed to change their minds.”

“I had help from Ethan,” she admitted as she drew a chair out from the conference table and sank into it. She couldn’t be completely sure whether it was because Ethan held profiles in low esteem, or if he agreed that making the information public was useless.

“Where is he now?”

“Holed up with Captain Sedgewick.” And he’d been on the phone the entire drive over, giving directives to the other task force members and the police personnel on loan from Halifax PD.

“I heard he was in contact with Toronto police,” Nyle said. “They’ve located Armand

Vance and have spoken to him?”

Her stomach rumbled. With a jolt, she realized they hadn’t eaten since this morning. “Yes. Vance denies that he ever had any plans to travel to Nova Scotia, which, apparently would be a violation of his interim judicial release before trial. When I spoke with Fornier again, he claimed his intel said Vance was coming here secretly for a taping of Jeanette Lawler’s Exposé show.”

“So the information was bait to get Simard to Halifax.”

She nodded. “It seems so.” Not for the first time she thought about how familiar the UNSUB was with his victim. He’d known exactly what it would take to draw Simard to Nova Scotia. “I still don’t understand why the offender didn’t attack Simard in Ontario. That makes him the first victim who was killed outside his home province.”

Nyle pushed away from his laptop, where it appeared he was accessing the DMV website and jotting down information for owners of older Econoline white cargo vans. The list was depressingly long, and probably a waste of time. But they couldn’t rule out the possibility that the UNSUB resided in the province. He could have decided to entice Simard here because it was the offender’s home turf.

“Lots of details about Simard’s killings were different than the other victims,” he reminded her. “I got the idea from Fornier that they hurt this Anis Tera quite badly once they caught up with him after his blackmail attempt. If Tera is the UNSUB, he might have sought to avoid Montreal, where he could be recognized.”

“And where Simard had muscle at his disposal.” Alexa glanced at the door, wondering what was keeping Ethan. “You’re right, it could have been an attempt to isolate him. To level the playing field.” She tapped a finger against the table as she thought. “Before the New Brunswick victims, the UNSUB had been inactive for three years. Fornier claims they had dealings with Anis Tera about that long ago.”

Nyle nodded slowly, rubbing his chin. “Actually, I’m surprised he didn’t kill him. Nothing we know about Simard paints him as the forgiving type.”

And if Alexa had read Fornier correctly, the man enjoyed brutality for its own sake. “If Anis Tera is the offender we’re after, maybe his injuries were severe enough to keep him inactive for three years.”

“You think this escalation is just him making up for lost time?”

“Whatever triggered him—maybe near-fatal injuries if indeed it’s Anis Tera—might have created this urgency in him. Perhaps even a near rage. He feels justified in his killings, remember. And how inherently unfair it must have seemed to him to suffer so.”

Nyle snorted. “Unfair. That’s a good one. So, is he done here or not?”

The door opened, and Ethan walked in on Nyle’s question. “I don’t know,” Alexa admitted. “But I’d feel a lot better if we knew that Jeanette Lawler was safely at home.” The woman might have been part of the elaborate ruse used to bring Simard to Nova Scotia, as Vance was. At least Alexa hoped so. She’d researched the reporter on the way back here, while Ethan had driven and spoken on the phone the entire way. Lawler resided in Vancouver, but she often flew to where her guests lived and filmed on location.

“We need food. And a truckload of Timmies,” Ethan announced as he pulled out a chair and dropped into it.

Alexa smiled. It’d been a long time since she’d heard the uniquely Canadian word for the coffee from the popular Tim Hortons chain. “I could get on board with that. Especially the food.”

Ethan loosened his tie, which looked as though it had been mangled since the press conference. “To catch you up, I now have the commissioner’s assurances that all evidence from this case will go to the front of the queue in the labs.”

Nyle looked as impressed as Alexa felt. If the crime lab in Ottawa was anything like the ones in the States, evidence could languish for weeks or longer waiting to be processed. It wasn’t unheard of for a case to go to trial before the forensic tests were completed. “He’s also assigned two forensic analysts to work specifically with the task force. One is IT, which should come in handy with these new victims’ computers and other technology devices.”

“But not cell phones,” she recalled.

“We have none in evidence because the UNSUB has always made damn sure to get rid of them. He probably deactivated them immediately to avoid being tracked.” Ethan stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. “However, we’ve gotten the previous victims’ phone records. There’s never been a number on them that could be traced back to the offender.” He took his cell out again. This time, Alexa noted, he was looking up pizza places. “We have a stop-and-search authorization for any white van fitting our description at each exit route from the country. Commissioner Gagnon wouldn’t permit it province-wide at this time.”

Nyle muttered a curse and Ethan nodded in agreement. “He said we needed irrefutable evidence linking the van to the offender before he’d inconvenience the public to that extent.”

“At least now we can hope to contain the offender,” Alexa murmured, transfixed for a moment by the sight of Ethan’s undoing the top button of his shirt. She attempted to slam the door shut on the mental images that threatened. Was unsuccessful.

His fingers moving down the back of her flowered sundress in the front seat of his used Impala, undoing zippers and snaps with a finesse belied by his years. Of his hands moving…everywhere. His touch leaving a path of fire on her skin.

Mortified by her wayward thoughts, she tore her gaze away. She hadn’t recalled those moments in too many years to count. What would elicit them now?

But she knew the answer to that. It was this place. Ethan’s proximity. Both of which made a lie out of her assurances to Raiker that there were no memories here to trip her up. At least, she hadn’t thought so.

“If we’re right and the UNSUB is this Anis Tera that Fornier mentioned. And if he hasn’t dumped the van and is still in the province—” Ethan broke off to order a pizza at the takeout place that answered. Through charm and intimidation, he managed to convince them to have the driver pick up the coffee, as well. Alexa’s lips quirked. His powers of persuasion had always been legendary. How else had he talked her into a relationship that moved outside the library walls and into his world? One that had been utterly foreign to her, but with Ethan as her guide, so completely irresistible.

When he hung up, he picked up the conversation where he’d left off. “Fornier said Simard arrived here on Sunday. We know the offender’s time frame—the last New Brunswick victim was two weeks ago. The chance of the highway and toll-road cameras still having images from that long ago is minimal, but we do have a request in for those images.” He scrubbed both hands over his face for a moment before dropping them to regard them again. “Next moves?”

“I’ve been pulling names of owners of vans like the kids described this morning.” Nyle shoved the list he’d been making toward Ethan. “I assume you have someone from the team in New Brunswick doing the same?”

He nodded, picked up the sheaf of papers and studied them. “McManus. But until we get a clearer connection that it is the UNSUB in that vehicle, chasing down all these owners isn’t the best use of our time.”

“My priority is a safety check on Jeanette Lawler,” Alexa said. She couldn’t put aside the nagging concern that had been growing inside her since they’d talked to Fornier earlier. “How long ago did you speak to the Vancouver RCMP?”

Ethan glanced at the clock on the wall. “You heard me calling them in the car. That was…what? A half hour ago?”

His words did nothing to allay her anxiety. Vance was an unwitting player in the ruse to draw Simard here. It was possible that Lawler was, too. But she wanted to be certain. “Do we still have the manifests we were looking at earlier today?”

Nyle jerked his head to a box near the door. “I packaged them up to be sent downtown. Ethan said Lieutenant Martin would assign a couple of his men to them. Should go a lot faster now that they no longer have to look for names associated with Simard. They just need to cross-check the incoming New Brunswick and Nova Scotia passenger lists for names of people who entered both provinces in the window we’ve defined.”

“So it shouldn’t take long at all for us to look only at the airline manifests for the last week or so and examine them for Jeanette Lawler’s name.”

The glint in Ethan’s eyes told her he wasn’t keen on the idea. But after a moment, he sighed. “Fine. We’ll check them over pizza. And hope that we get a call before we’re through, informing us that Jeanette Lawler is safe and sound in her own province.”

It was Nyle who made the discovery. Still on his first coffee, but midway through his third slice of meat-lover’s pizza, he paused, the slice halfway to his mouth. “Jeanette Lawler. Dammit.”

The food she’d consumed turned to a cold brick in Alexa’s stomach. “She flew in?”

Ethan’s chair scraped as he pushed it back and bounded out of it to round the table to peer at the manifest in front of Nyle. “Monday afternoon.” His mouth flattening, he whirled on his heel, grabbing for the phone in his pocket. “Keep looking,” he snapped over his shoulder. “Make sure she hasn’t left the province again.”

Alexa flipped to the beginning of the pile in front of her and skimmed the pages for today. Yesterday. A frigid finger of ice traced down her spine as she quickly scanned the pages. Nothing in the offender profile she’d shared with the task force this morning had offered specifics on the reason for his escalation. After meeting Fornier, she could guess what had triggered the UNSUB. But she still had no idea if he’d selected more victims.

Or whether he had Jeanette Lawler in his sights.

* * *

“How did you even discover the hotel where we’re staying?” Parker Bixby, the tall emaciated looking cameraman of Exposé looked more annoyed than concerned when he made his eventual descent to the Piedmont Hotel lobby a couple of hours later. “No one is supposed to give that information out. There’ll be a big kerfuffle over this, I promise you.”

“Jeanette Lawler,” Ethan interrupted. “Where is she?”

“Who did you say you worked for again?”

Ethan studied the man. Whatever he’d been imbibing in his room was likely illegal in this country. His pupils were dilated and his speech overly enunciated. “Royal Mounted Canadian Police,” he repeated slowly. “We have reason to believe Lawler may be targeted by someone wishing to do her harm.”

“Oh, dear.” A vacant smile tilted the man’s lips. “Those numbers are myriad, I’m afraid.”

Ethan took a step closer and tamped down an urge to grab the man by his shiny purple shirt. “Call her.”

The woman hadn’t responded to their messages or those from the administrative assistant who’d finally been tracked down by Vancouver RCMP officers and persuaded to give up her boss’s number. The reluctant assistant had eventually shared the name of the hotel where the crew was staying, but Lawler wasn’t answering the phone in her room, either. Nor had she responded to repeated knocks on her door.

“Me?” The man trilled a laugh, throwing his head back to show a protruding Adam’s apple. “She isn’t likely to answer a call from me, either.” Still chuckling, he lowered his voice conspiratorially. “She’s got her party panties on by this time, and her colleagues are the last ones she wants to talk to.”

When Ethan only looked at him, the man gave a theatrical sigh. “Fine.” He made a show of drawing his cell out of the back pocket of his tight black jeans and languidly punching in a number. Ethan could feel the impatience rolling off Alexa and Nyle at his side. It mirrored his. It was like a giant clock had lodged in his head, and he was watching the minutes tick off while waiting on the self-important idiot before him.

“See?” Bixby held up the phone so Ethan could hear the voice mail message. Then he disconnected and wedged the phone back into his pocket. “She’s been working like a madwoman for the last few days finalizing the interview we came to this godforsaken province for. Then it got postponed today. Jeanette was pissed. Beyond pissed, actually. Thinks the guest is disrespecting her, which is a dangerous game to play with the host of Exposé. She’s going to be out for blood when we shoot tomorrow.”

“The guest is Armand Vance?”

He abruptly sobered. “How’d you know that? Did Cindy give out that information, too? Oh, that girl is so fired….”

“How did Vance contact her today?”

Bixby lifted a bony shoulder. “Email, I assume. I mean, Jeanette mentioned a couple of times that the man couldn’t be bothered to have a phone conversation. Which is pretty arrogant, considering the guy is probably going to spend the next decade in prison.”

“Listen carefully.” Ethan’s voice was hard, slicing through the man’s ramblings. “Armand Vance is not in Nova Scotia. He doesn’t know anything about this interview. Lawler was scammed by someone who lured her here.”

Finally, the seriousness of the situation seemed to dawn on him. “Lured? But who? How?” He shook his head. “We’re very careful to double-check these things.”

“When did you last see her?”

“Five or so? There are just four of us here. Joey, the producer, Stella, who does makeup and hair, Jeanette and me.”

“Is Stella here?”

“Probably. Girl gets room service every night.” He rolled his eyes. “You ask me, she could stand a little socializing.”

“Call her. Get her down here.” They needed to question both the woman and Bixby, zeroing in on a list of Lawler’s potential enemies. After the man had obeyed, Ethan reached into his suit jacket and brought out a copy of the sketch the forensic artist had done. Unfolded it and showed it the other man. “Have you seen this individual before?”

Bixby squinted at it. “Hard to say. Sort of looks like half the people you pass on the street, doesn’t he? Doesn’t look familiar, though.”

Ethan tamped down his rising frustration. “Was the original contact set up by email, too?”

Spreading his hands, the man said, “I assume so. With the type of guests we schedule, the set-up is often hush-hush, but usually there are phone calls. Not this time, though.”

He caught Alexa’s glance. Recognized what she was thinking. Fornier had mentioned Anis Tera using emails that disappeared. But the man wouldn’t have utilized that technique when masquerading as a potential guest for the show. Lawler’s computer might give them valuable information.

“Any idea who Jeanette Lawler might be with right now?”

This time the man’s shrug seemed sincere. “We don’t really hang outside of work hours. I know Jeanette stayed in the last few nights we’ve been here, and that’s not usual for her. I’m assuming she caught some dinner and then went out for a night on the town. Joey probably did the same, although they wouldn’t be together because they both hunt the same prey.”

The word was unfortunate, given the circumstances. “What do you mean?”

“Pretty young boys.” Parker smirked. “Jeanette likes her music loud, her drinks strong, and her men barely legal. Find the clubs in town that offer all three, and you’ll likely find Jeanette.”

Ethan stepped away and used his phone to look up Lawler’s cell phone provider. Then he placed a call to them. The exigent circumstances were urgent enough to waive a warrant. He requested a phone ping to get Lawler’s location, then looked up when Nyle made a subtle gesture toward Bixby. Ethan nodded. The man had given them all he could. He could be dismissed.

A moment later Ethan disconnected, cursing his luck. “Lawler’s phone is dead or shut off.”

“So now what?” Alexa asked.

He placed a call to Lieutenant Martin as he answered her. “We get a group of officers together and spread out.”

* * *

It was a far cry from the clubs in Vancouver. Jeanette brushed her hair back over her shoulder and leaned against the bar as she scanned the occupants. In this dress, sitting down wasn’t an option. The place was only three-quarters full. But it was early yet. Barely ten. And the dim lighting, the music pumping through the speakers and the better-than-average-looking bartender who’d yet to charge her for a drink tempted her to give this place a chance.

Jeanette picked up her phone, intent on looking up other clubs in case she wanted to ditch this one later. Discovering the cell dead, she set it back on the bar, disgruntled. She’d already forgotten the club names from her earlier research.

She turned to catch the bartender’s eye. He hurried over. Definitely attentive. A possibility if she struck out with the younger patrons. “What time do things get going in here?”

“Wednesday nights aren’t usually our busiest.” He crossed his arms and leaned over them across the bar, raising his voice to be heard over the music. “But we’ve been having Hump Days specials to draw in the crowds. Give it another hour, it’ll be shoulder to shoulder in here. You gonna stick around?”

“I don’t know.” She twirled the straw of her drink between two fingers. The guy didn’t seem to recognize her, which was a plus. The place was dimly lit enough that maybe no one else would either. Not the way she was dressed.

“I think you should.” Someone called to the bartender, and he shot them a quick look before turning to smile at her again. “Take my word for it. You won’t be sorry.”

* * *

Ethan used his credentials to avoid the line and cover charge at Zoomey’s nightclub. When he and Alexa walked inside, the lights and sounds that met them was an assault on the senses.

She reared back a little at the visual onslaught. The place was a gyrating wall of people, the strobes making them look like a solid mass of human JELL-O, jiggling and moving to the heart-pumping bass beat.

They were constantly jostled as they attempted to move forward. To ensure they weren’t separated, Ethan slipped his arm around Alexa’s waist. Tried to ignore the zing of electricity that touching her elicited. She turned her head at that moment, her hair brushing his jaw. “And people come here for fun?”

A hard smile of agreement settled on his lips. It wouldn’t be his idea of entertainment either, although there’d been a time years earlier when he’d tried the club scene. Paying for overpriced liquor and leaving stained with others’ drinks and vomit had lost its allure in a hurry.

A loose-hipped young man who’d obviously been over-served danced up to them, his hand on Alexa’s arm. “Dance with me, gorgeous.” He exerted enough force to pull her forward a few steps.

Ethan’s brows lowered. “Back. Off.” He doubted the man could hear him, but something in his stance had the other guy glancing in his direction. What he saw in Ethan’s expression made him release Alexa and retreating quickly into the mob behind him.

As Ethan forced their way forward, it soon became apparent that the crowd parted naturally for the woman at his side. Not so much for the two of them. He turned a shoulder into the mass of people and wedged a hole for them to pass through. In the ten minutes it took them to make their way to the vicinity of the bar, no fewer than three guys tried to halt Alexa’s progress.

Which was exactly the reason he’d insisted the two of them pair up for the search for Lawler. Alexa had made no secret of her annoyance. They could cover twice as much area if they split up, she’d insisted. An assurance that now proved false. Alone, she would have been accosted continually.

The people were lined up three and four deep waiting for service. Ethan was about to flash his credentials again when Alexa slipped away from him and headed to a group of raucous young men draped over the bar a few feet away. He watched as they turned as one at her presence and parted like the Red Sea for Moses.

Ethan shook his head, unwillingly amused. Maybe he’d underestimated her after all. He took a moment to scan the room behind him. More crowded than the other establishments they’d been to, but the places seemed to get more jammed with the passing hours. It was going to be impossible to pick a lone woman out of the masses at tables, booths and the dance floor. It was going to take forever to search the whole area.

He faced the bar again and saw a bartender leaning attentively toward Alexa as she showed him what was likely a copy of Jeanette Lawler’s professional photo. The man with the bar rag leaned forward to take a long look before nodding. He later shrugged at something Alexa said and waved an arm at the mob that had to be a violation of the fire code. As she fought her way back to him, Ethan stepped in front of a harried-looking waitress balancing a tray of drinks.

“Have you seen this woman tonight?”

She barely gave the picture a glance. “Not that I recall, but look around. She could be anywhere.”

Alexa reached Ethan’s side then. “According to the bartender, she was here earlier. But he hasn’t seen her recently.”

Which meant she may have left, or she was among the sea of occupants. With a mental sigh, he nodded. “We’ll look here first.”

“We split up.”

He opened his mouth to argue, then shut it again and nodded. She could go where he couldn’t. And she’d already proven that she was more than adept than he at garnering the attention needed to show people the picture. Men would be far more likely to notice the woman in the image than another female would. And Alexa had already proven that she had no trouble eliciting male cooperation.

For some reason, that thought wasn’t comforting.

* * *

The bartender was right. The place drew a decent crowd and there were more than enough young men here to take advantage of the Hump Day specials. Jeanette was glad she hadn’t left earlier. Now it was time to narrow her focus because she had to be up early for the interview tomorrow, which meant a short night in bed with her favored selection.

She was squeezed into a booth with five prospects, and she needed to choose while she could still focus. One of the enterprising souls had hooked his finger in the narrow strap of her dress and lowered it to write his number on the back of her shoulder with a Sharpie. She didn’t bother telling him that whoever she took home tonight wasn’t going to get a callback.

As if they recognized that she was on the prowl, all of the young men were plying her with drinks and what they probably thought passed for witty conversation. The conversation was part sophomoric laughter and part one-upmanship, with lines thrown in from the latest juvenile movie that guys always thought was hilarious.

It was one of the downfalls of selecting outside her age group, but as long as she made her choice early enough in the night, she could overlook a few faults. She studied each of them in turn and decided that when it came time to make her exit, she’d just grab the one that seemed soberest. Because she definitely wasn’t.

He was going to have to do all the work. Laughter spilled from her lips, and she clapped a hand over her mouth, shocked. The guys seemed to take her amusement as encouragement. Their voices rose and their gestures grew wild. A drink was knocked over, which of course landed straight in her lap to pool in her bare thighs. She’d forgotten her vow earlier not to sit in the dress. Right now, it resembled a short glittering shirt.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” One of the young men reached over to sop up the liquid with a damp napkin. His hand lingered where it met bare skin, then skated upward. She batted it away. He was out of the running, she decided, disgruntled. Not only a slob but one who’d take every advantage as well.

“I’m going to the restroom.” She grabbed the small purse she’d brought.

“We’ll save your place,” one proclaimed.

“On my lap,” another said.

“On my face,” one of the others put in and then of course they all laughed like the young fools they were.

Morons. Jeanette weaved through the wall of bodies, barely managing to avoid a flailing arm from one of the dancers. “Here, don’t forget your drink,” someone said. She didn’t even turn around. If she ever did get to the ladies’ room, she wouldn’t be returning to that table of dickheads.

But suddenly the drink was in her hand, and she looked down at it, before scanning the moving crowd behind her. Her benefactor was lost in the ocean of people, but he was right about one thing. There was no reason to leave a half-full Crown and coke behind. Especially when it’d been free.

She managed to make her way to the back corner of the structure, groaning when she saw the line to the ladies’ room. Now that she’d stood up, she needed to pee as well as mop herself off. Propping herself against the wall behind a girl who really shouldn’t have been wearing the middriff top and Daisy Dukes she was sporting, Jeanette sipped at the drink and looked around. She remembered the bartender from earlier and craned her neck trying to get a look at him. But he wouldn’t be off for hours, and there was no way she was going to last much longer.

There was a guy leaning on the bar. A little older than she liked them, but she appreciated the day’s scruff of beard, as dark as his hair. In the next moment, a woman next to him craned her neck to see what he was looking at, and, noting Jeanette’s interest, flipped her the bird.

She was tempted to take the guy home, just to prove that she could. She was Jeanette Fucking Lawler! Sure, she might have come from nothing, but she’d clawed her way to a good place now. Bitch at the bar would never rise as far as she had.

The queue moved infinitesimally. As soon as she got close enough, she was going to invade the men’s room and the fuck with everyone else. A new couple entered the bar. Their faces appeared and disappeared in the swell of people, but the man pushed his way through the crowd with determined intent.

She felt a spark of interest, and tipped her glass to her mouth again, studying him over the rim. He wouldn’t be able to see her in the crowded hallway so she could spy on him to her heart’s content. Wide shoulders. Trim hips. A face that looked hard. Experienced. A trickle of regret traced down her spine. Not her type, unfortunately. She liked to be in control, and he looked like he had a hard time giving it up.

Her gaze flicked to the woman at his side. Buttoned up. Smoothly professional. An odd type of look to wear to a place like this. Her focus returned to the man. There was an air of familiarity about him…something recent… Then the two were lost to sight as patrons crowded past them to the front entrance.

“Ouch! Dammit!” She slapped a hand to her neck where the sting had occurred and whirled on the woman behind her. “What the hell did you do to me?”

The woman gave her a push, which, given the way they were packed inside the hallway, reverberated all the way up the line. “I didn’t do anything, bitch.”

Guys were starting to line up near them, which meant the men’s room would be as impossible to get into as the women’s.

“You poked me with something.” Her vision blurred and she swayed, slapping a hand on the wall again for balance. Jeanette didn’t feel good. Not at all. There was something wrong with her equilibrium, and her eyes wouldn’t focus.

“You’re drunk, bitch.” Another shove, and this time she stumbled, dropping her drink on the floor. The glass shattered. One of the flying shards jabbed at her ankle. It felt just like what had stabbed her neck. She reached up to finger the site that still stung. “Go home before you barf on your skyscraper heels.”

“Don’t mind her. She’s not feeling well, are you love? Here, now.” Her arm was lifted, draped over narrow shoulders. She was propelled forward, through the mob in the hallway that had swelled dramatically since she’d first walked back here.

One of the guys from the table. Her thoughts were scattered. Probably thought they’d get… She searched for the word as she teetered on her high heels. Plucky. Fucky. Lucky. She wanted to smile in triumph at finding the word, but the man at her side was making her move too fast. Slow down she wanted to tell him, and managed to turn her gaze toward him.

Oh, shit. Not one of the boy toy prospects at all. Not even close. This guy was a stranger. And he was old, with gray bushy hair and a matching mustache that looked like something from a Halloween costume. With her heels, he barely came up to her shoulder. Nausea rose, and she thought she was going to be sick. Hell, no, she wasn’t going anywhere with this guy.

“Get…away. Get…off…me.” The floor tilted beneath her and she nearly face-planted. And then there was a door with a big red warning sign on it. You couldn’t get out this way. She stopped and ducked her head, managing to dislodge his arm, but it was back a moment later, and the door was opening in front of them.

“Not much longer,” the cheery voice sounded. “A little tap on the head and we’ll get you all curled in, nice and cozy.”

No alarm sounded when they stumbled through the door. She wished for an alarm. She wished everyone would look. Because something was very wrong and she couldn’t even manage to scream.