He stood just outside the cab door, thirty feet from her, stretching almost lazily. He 
rolled his big shoulders as if to shake weariness from them, and he massaged the back of 
his neck.
  If he turned his head to the left, he would see her at once. If she didn't remain 
absolutely still, he would surely spot her slightest movement even from the corner of his 
eye.
  He was downwind of her, and she was half afraid that he would smell her fear. He seemed 
more animal than human, even in the fluid grace with which he moved, and she had no 
trouble believing that he was gifted with wild talents and preternatural senses.
  Although he wasn't holding the silencer-fitted gun with which he had killed Paul 
Templeton, it might be tucked under his belt. If she tried to flee, he could draw the 
weapon and shoot her dead before she got far.
  But he wouldn't shoot her dead. Nothing that easy. He'd pop her in the leg, bring her 
down, and take her captive. Load her into the motor home with Laura. He'd want to play 
with her later.
  Finished stretching, he moved briskly toward the house. Up the walkway. Onto the porch. 
Inside.
  He never looked back. Chyna's pent-up breath stuttered from her in a tattoo of fear, 
and she inhaled with a shudder.
  Before her courage faded further, she hurried forward to the cab door and climbed 
behind the steering wheel. Her best hope was to find keys in the ignition, in which case 
she would be able to start the engine and drive away with Laura, go into Napa to the 
police.
  No keys. She glanced at the house, wondering how long he would be gone. Maybe he was 
searching for valuables now that the killing was done. Or selecting souvenirs. That could 
take five minutes, ten minutes, even longer. Which might be enough time to get Laura out 
of the motor home and hide her somewhere. Somehow.
  She still had the knife. And now that she was in the killer's domain without his 
knowledge, she had regained the precious element of surprise.
  Nevertheless, her heart raced, and her dry mouth was filled with the sliahtly metallic 
taste of feverish anxiety.
  The seat swiveled, clearing the console. She was able to step from behind the steering 
wheel into the lounge area, which featured builtin sofas upholstered in a hunter-plaid 
fabric.
  The steel floor was carpeted, of course, but after long years of hard travel, it 
creaked softly under her feet.
  She had expected the place to smell like a Grand Guignol theater where the sadistic 
plays involved no make-believe, but instead the air was redolent of recently brewed 
coffee and cinnamon rolls. How odd-and somehow profoundly disturbing-that a man like this 
should find any satisfaction at all in innocent pleasures. 
  “Laura,” she whispered, as though the killer might hear her all the way from the house. 
Then more fiercely than ever, yet in a whisper: “Laura!"
  Beyond the lounge and open to it were a kitchenette and a cozy dining alcove with a 
booth upholstered in red vinyl. Running off the battery, a lamp hung aglow over the 
dining-nook table.
  Laura was not to be seen anywhere. Moving swiftly out of the dining area, Chyna came to 
the rear door standing open on the right, through which the killer had entered with the 
unconscious girl in his arms. 
  “Laura."
  Aft of the outer door, a short cramped hall led along the driver's side of the vehicle, 
illuminated by a low-voltage safety fixture. There was also a skylight, now black. On the 
left were two closed doors, and at the end a third stood ajar.
  The first door opened into a tiny bath. The space was a marvel of efficient design: a 
toilet, a sink, a medicine cabinet, and a corner shower stall.
  Behind the second door was a closet. A few changes of clothes hung from a chrome rod.
  At the end of the hall was a small bedroom with imitation-wood paneling and a closet 
with an accordion-style vinyl door. The meager light from the hall didn't brighten the 
place much, but Chyna could see well enough to identify Laura; the girl was lying 
facedown on the narrow bed, swaddled in a sheet, with only her small bare feet and her 
golden hair revealed.
  Urgently whispering her friend's name, Chyna stepped to the bed and dropped to her 
knees.
  Laura didn't respond. Still unconscious. Chyna couldn't lift the girl, couldn't carry 
her as the killer had done, so she had to try to rouse her instead. She pulled aside a 
flap of sheet and was eye-to-eye with her friend.
  They were sapphire-blue eyes now, not pale-sky blue, perhaps because the light in the 
room was so poor or perhaps because they were occluded with death. Her mouth was open, 
and blood moistened her lips.
  The crazy fucking hateful bastard had taken her with him even though she was dead, for 
God-knew-what purposes, maybe because she was something he could touch and look at and 
talk to for a few days to remind him of the glory. A souvenir.
  Chyna's stomach cramped painfully, not with revulsion or disgust but with guilt, with 
failure and futility and sheer black despair.
  “Oh, baby,” she said to the dead girl. “Oh, baby, sweetie, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry."
  Not that she could have done anything more than she had tried to do. What could she 
have done? She couldn't have attacked the bastard bare-handed when she had stood behind 
him in the upstairs hall, when he had been cooing to the dangling spider. What could she 
have done? She couldn't have gotten to the kitchen any sooner, found the knife any 
faster, climbed the back stairs any quicker.
  “I'm so sorry."
  This beautiful girl, this dear heart, would never find the husband about whom she had 
fantasized, never have the children who would have been a betterment to the world by the 
simple virtue of having been her children. Twenty-three years of getting ready to make a 
contribution, to make a difference in the lives of others, so full of ideals and hope: 
But now her gift would never be given, and the world would be immeasurably poorer for it. 
  “I love you, Laura. We all love you.”
  Any words, any sentiment, any expression of grief was horribly inadequate; worse than 
inadequate-meaningless. Laura was gone, all that warmth and kindness gone forever, and 
even the most heartfelt words were only words.
  Chyna's stomach cramped with a sense of loss, clenched tight and pulled her 
relentlessly into a black hole within herself.
  At the same time she felt her breast swelling with a sob that, if voiced, would be 
explosive. A single tear would loose a flood. Even one soft sob would bring on an 
uncontrollable wail.
  She couldn't risk grief. Not while she was in the motor home. The killer would be 
returning at any minute, and she couldn't moum Laura until she was safely out of there 
and until he was gone. She no longer had any reason to stay, for Laura was indisputably 
dead and irretrievable.
  Nearby a door slammed hard, shaking the thin metal walls around Chyna.
  The killer was back. Something rattled. Rattled. With the butcher knife in hand, Chyna