The old wooden stairs protested under her, but she moved fast, heedless of the noise. 
Whether Laura was alive or dead, the killer would be at play, distracted by his games, 
unlikely to hear anything other than the thunderous rush of his own blood in his ears and 
over whatever urgent inner voices spoke to him at that very moment when he held a life in 
his hands.
  She stepped into the upstairs hall. Propelled by her fear for Laura and by a rage born 
from self-disgust at her moment of weakness on the landing, she hurried past the closed 
door of the guest room to the turn in the L-shaped corridor, around the corner, past the 
half-open door of the master suite and through the amber light that spilled from it. She 
dashed along the arbor of faded roses, rage swelling into fury as she went, shocked by 
her own boldness, seeming to glide along the carpet, as swift as if sliding down an icy 
slope, straight to the open door of Laura's room, without hesitation, knife raised high, 
her arm no longer shaking, steady and sure, crazy with terror and despair and 
righteousness, across the threshold and into the bedroom, where Freud was unshaken by 
what had happened under his gaze-and where the rumpled bed was empty.
  Laura was gone. The room was deserted.
  Over the rush of her breathing and the booming of her heart, she heard the rattle-clink 
of a shackle chain. Not in the room. Elsewhere.
  Careless of danger, she returned to the hall, to the balustrade that overlooked the 
foyer.
  Below, barely illuminated by the pale light from the upstairs hallway, the killer went 
through the open front door onto the porch. He was carrying Laura in his arms. She was 
wrapped in a bedsheet, one pale arm trailing limply, head lolling to the side, and face 
concealed by her golden hair: unconscious, offering no resistance.
  He must have been descending the shadowy stairs when Chyna had passed them. She had 
been so focused on getting to Laura's room, so pumped for the attack, that she hadn't 
been aware of him, even though the chain and the cuffs must have been rattling then as 
well.
  Evidently, he'd been making enough noise that he hadn't heard Chyna either.
  Instinct had told her to take the back stairs, and she'd been wise to listen. If she'd 
been ascending the front stairs, she'd have met him as he'd been coming down. He would 
have thrown Laura at her, followed the two of them as they tumbled into the foyer, kicked 
the knife out of Chyna's hand if she hadn't lost it already, and savaged her where she'd 
fallen.
  She couldn't let him take Laura away. Afraid that thinking about the situation would 
paralyze her again, Chyna recklessly descended the stairs. If she could take him by 
surprise and plunge the knife into his back, Laura might yet have a chance.
  She could do it too. She wasn't squeamish. She could slam the blade deep, try for his 
heart from the back, puncture a lung, yank the knife out of him and ram it in again, stab 
the son of a bitch and listen to him squealing for mercy and stab stab stab him until he 
was silent forever. Never had she done anything like that; never had she hurt anyone. But 
she could do it now, waste him, because she was terrified for Laura, because she was sick 
at the thought of failing her friendand because she was a natural-born vengeance machine, 
a human being.
  At the bottom of the stairs, the oval rug didn't spin out from under her as it had done 
before, and she went straight toward the open door.
  She no longer held the knife high but held it low, at her side. If he heard her coming, 
he would turn, and then she could swing the knife up in an arc, under the girl that he 
held in his arms, and into his belly. That was better than trying to plunge it into his 
back, where the point might be deflected by a shoulder blade or rib, or might skid off 
his spine. Go for the softest part of him. She'd be face-to-face with him that way. 
Looking straight into his eyes. Would that make her hesitate? He had it coming. The 
bastard. She thought of Sarah on the floor of the shower stall, huddled naked in the cold 
drizzle. She could do it. She could do it.
  Into the doorway, across the threshold, onto the porch, she was not only ready to kill 
but prepared to die in the attempt to get him. Yet as swift as she had been, she hadn't 
been swift enough, because he was not just that moment going down the porch steps, as she 
had hoped, but was already nearing the motor home. The burden of Laura hadn't slowed him 
at all. He was inhumanly quick.
  She landed on only one stair tread from the front porch to the walkway, and the rubber 
soles of her shoes slapped the flagstones loud enough to carry even over the moaning of 
the wind. The moon was gone, and half the stars as well, displaced by towering palisades 
of clouds, but if the killer heard her and turned, he would be able to see her clearly.
  Evidently, he didn't hear, for he didn't glance back, and Chyna angled off the walkway, 
onto the quieter grass, determinedly going after him.
  Two doors were open on the motor home: one at the driver's side of the cockpit, the 
other on that same flank of the vehicle but two-thirds of the way toward the back. The 
killer chose the rear door.
  With Laura in his arms, he was forced to turn sideways, pulling her tightly to him as 
he squeezed through the open door and crabbed up the two interior steps, but he was as 
agile as he was strong. He disappeared into the vehicle before Chyna could reach him.
  She considered going inside after him. But all the windows were curtained, so she 
didn't know if he had turned left or right. And if he had put Laura down immediately upon 
entering, he would now be better able to defend himself against an attack. That was his 
turf, beyond the door, and she wasn't sufficiently reckless with vengeance to want to 
confront him there.
  She pressed her back to the wall of the motor home, beside the open door, waiting for 
him. If he came outside again, she'd go at him even as his foot was reaching for the 
ground. The element of surprise was still working for her, maybe better than ever-because 
the killer was ciose to a ciean getaway ana teeang so good about himself that he might be 
careless.
  Maybe he wouldn't come outside again, but at least he would have to reach out to pull 
the door shut. Standing on the step, leaning to grab at the handle, he would not be well 
balanced, and she would have the knife deep into him before he had a chance to jerk back.
  Movement inside. A thump. She tensed. He didn't appear. Silence again. The scent of 
blood was suddenly heavy out of the northwest, as though a slaughterhouse lay upwind of 
her. Then it passed, and she realized that she hadn't actually smelled blood but had 
flashed back on the smell of the sodden sheets in the Templetons' master suite.
  The aluminum wall of the motor home was cold against her spine, and she shivered 
because it seemed that some of the coldness of the man inside was seeping through to her.
  Waiting, she began to lose her nerve. Resurgent fear tempered her rage, shifting the 
balance from vengeance to survival. But she could still do it. She could do it. She 
struggled to hold on to her crazy-hot anger.
  Then the killer came out of the motor home, but he didn't use the exit beside her. He 
stepped from the open cab door at the front of the vehicle.
  Chyna's breath caught in her throat, and the chill wind from the oncoming storm seemed 
bitter with the scent of failure.
  He was too far away. No longer distracted by the weight of Laura in his arms and the 
rattling of her shackles, he would hear Chyna coming. She no longer had the element of 
surprise to even the odds.