She remembered seeing a large rearview mirror when she'd briefly occupied the driver's 
seat earlier. The vehicle had no rear window, so the mirror was there to provide the 
driver with a view of the lounge and the dining area behind him. He would be able to see 
all the way into the end hall that served the bath and bedroom, and if the devil's luck 
was with him, he would glance up just when Chyna opened the door, stepped out, and was 
exposed.
  When the moment felt right, Chyna opened the door. A small blessing, a good omen: The 
ceiling light in the hall was out. Standing in gloom, she quietly pulled shut the bedroom 
door. The lamp above the dining table was on as before. At the front of the vehicle was 
the green glow of the instrument panel-and beyond the windshield, the headlights were 
silver swords.
  After moving forward past the bathroom and out of the welcome shadows, she crouched 
behind the paneled side of the dining nook. She peered across the crescent booth to the 
back of the driver's head, about twenty feet away.
  He seemed so close-and, for the first time, vulnerable. Nevertheless, Chyna wasn't 
foolish enough to creep forward and attack him while he was driving. If he heard her 
coming or glanced at the rearview mirror and spotted her, he could wrench the steering 
wheel or slam on the brakes, sending her sprawling. Then he might be able to stop the 
vehicle and get to her before she could reach the rear door-or he might swivel in his 
chair and shoot her down.
  The entrance through which he had carried Laura was immediately to Chyna's left. She 
sat on the floor with her feet in the step well, facing this door, concealed from the 
driver by the dining nook.
  She put the butcher knife aside. When she leaped out, she would probably fall and 
roll-and she might easily stab herself with the knife if she tried to take it with her.
  She didn't intend to jump until the driver either stopped at an intersection or entered 
a turn sharp enough to require him to cut his speed dramatically. She couldn't risk 
breaking a leg or being knocked unconscious in a fall, because then she wouldn't be able 
to get away from the road and safely into hiding.
  .jne alan't ciouut that he would be aware of her escape even as it began. He would hear 
the door open or the wind whistling at it, and he would see her either in his rearview or 
in his side-mounted mirror as she made her break for freedom. Even in the unlikely event 
that she was not seen, the wind would slam the door hard behind her the instant she was 
gone; the killer would suspect that he hadn't been alone with his collection of corpses, 
and he'd pull off the highway and come back along the pavement, panicky, to have a look.
  Or perhaps not panicky. Not panicky at all. More likely, he would search with grim, 
methodical, machine efficiency. This guy was all about control and power, and Chyna found 
it difficult to imagine him ever succumbing to panic.
  The motor home slowed, and Chyna's heart quickened. As the driver reduced speed 
further, Chyna rose into a crouch in the step well and put a hand on the lever-action 
door handle.
  They came to a full stop, and she pressed down on the handle, but the door was locked. 
Quietly but insistently she pressed up, down, up-to no avail.
  She couldn't find any latch button. just a keyhole. She remembered the rattling that 
she'd heard when she'd been in the bedroom and the spider eater had come back inside and 
closed this door. Rattle, rattle. The rattle of a key, perhaps.
  Maybe this was a safety feature to prevent kids from tumbling out into traffic. Or 
maybe the crazy bastard had modified the door lock to enhance security, to make it more 
difficult for a burglar or casual intruder to stumble upon any lip-sewn or shackled 
cadavers that might just happen to be aboard. Can't be too careful when you have dead 
bodies stacked in the bedroom. Prudence requires certain security measures.
  The motor home pulled forward through the intersection and began to pick up speed again.
  She should have known that escape wouldn't be easy. Notbing was easy. Ever.
  She sat down, leaning against the breakfast-nook paneling, still facing the door, 
thinking furiously.
  Earlier, on her way back through the vehicle from the driver's seat, she'd seen a door 
on the other side, toward the front, behind the co-pilot's chair. Most motor homes had 
two doors, but this was a rare older model with three. She was reluctant to go forward to 
escape, however, and for the same reason that she didn't want to attack him: He might see 
her coming, rock her off her feet, and shoot her before she could get up.
  All right, she had one advantage. He didn't know that she was aboard.
  If she couldn't just open a door and jump out, if she was going to have to kill him, 
she could lie in wait here past the dining nook, surprise the bastard, gut him, step over 
him, and leave by the front. Just minutes ago she had been ready to kill him, and she 
could make herself be ready again.
  The engine vibrations rose through the floor, half numbing her butt. Total numbing 
would have been welcome; the carpet soon proved to be inadequate padding, and her 
tailbone began to ache. She shifted her weight from cheek to cheek, leaned forward and 
then leaned back; nothing provided more than a few seconds of relief. The ache spread to 
the small of her back, and mild discomfort escalated into serious pain.
  Twenty minutes, half an hour, forty minutes, an hour, longer, she endured the agony by 
striving to imagine all the ways that her escape might unfold once the motor home stopped 
and the killer got out from behind the wheel. Concentrating. Thinking it through. 
Planning for myriad eventualities. Finally, however, she couldn't think about anything 
but the pain.
  The motor home was cool, and down in the step well, there was no heat at all. The 
engine and road vibrations penetrated her shoes, beatingy relentlessly on her heels and 
soles. She flexed her toes, afraid that her cold, achy feet and stiffening calf muscles 
would develop cramps and hobble her when the time came for action.
  With a strange hilarity unnervingly close to despair, she thought, Forget about grief. 
Forget aboutjustice. Rigbt now just give me a comfortable cbair to pamper my assjust let 
me sitfor a wbile until myftet are warm again, and lateryou can bave my life ifyou want 
it.
  The prolonged inactivity not only took a physical toll but soon began to depress her. 
Back at the house when she'd first heard the intruder, before he had even come to the 
guest room, Chyna had known that safety lay in movement. Now emotional safety lay in 
movement, distraction. But circumstances required her to be still and wait. She had too 
much time to think-and too many disturbing thoughts on which to dwell.
  ',)he worked herself into such a state of distress that tears welledwhich was when she 
realized that she was not suffering unduly from butt ache or back pain or the cold 
throbbing in her feet. The real pain was in her heart, the anguish that she had been 
forced to repress since she'd found Paul and Sarah, since she'd detected the vague 
ammoniacal scent of semen in Laura's bedroom and had seen the dimly gleaming links of the 
shackling chain. Her physical pain was only a lame excuse for tears.
  If she dared weep in self-pity, however, then aflood would come for Paul, for Sarah, 
for Laura, for the whole sorry damn screwed-up human race, and in useless resentment at 
the fact that hard-won hope so often spiraled into nightmare. She would bury her face in 
her hands, uselessly wailing the question that had been asked of God more often than any 
other: “why, why, why, why, why?”
  Surrendering to tears would be so easy, satisfying. These were selfish tears of defeat;