Troy wanted to see. In his mind he could already see her long, smooth legs and her rounded ass. She had to be hot in a bathing suit. Or out of a bathing suit. “We’ll see. We’re supposed to be in the lecture hall after dinner tonight.”

“It’s not like they take roll. What will they do to us? Flunk us out of camp? It’s not school. It doesn’t go on our permanent record. You need to loosen up.”

Rick had a point.

Sometimes Troy took things too seriously. What harm could come from watching Colleen swim? “Okay. It better be as good as you say it is.”

“Oh, it’s better.”

Troy rubbed at his eyes; the memory of that summer before his senior year of high school was permanently branded on his brain. It’d been life-changing. But in a way that no one could know.

Rick had gotten his teeth fixed. It’d been one of the first things Troy had noticed when he’d gotten close enough on the street yesterday. He hadn’t lied about the braces. And he hadn’t lied about how good Colleen had looked in a swimming suit. But according to Colleen, the stories about her sleeping with teenage guys weren’t true. She’d claimed to be a virgin. Rick had called her a liar.

Troy had stared at the new Colleen as she lay unconscious at his home. She’d aged. Hadn’t they all? There were small lines near her eyes and her hair was shorter. But she still had that luster to her skin. The one that had made him want to simply touch her over fifteen years ago. He’d touched her cheek today, drawing a finger along her cheekbone. Her lashes had fluttered and he’d jerked his hand back. She hadn’t woken. He’d waited a while, hoping she would, but he didn’t want to let too much time elapse for Rick and the fake Colleen to hide.

He turned down an alley, quickening his stride as his gaze studied the shadows. This time he was armed. He’d never used the handgun before. He’d only showed it to his three victims, and he hoped that was all he’d need to do for Rick. But Rick had a sense of desperation about him. He seemed like the type to fight back or run. He smelled scared and had the shadowed look of a man being hunted.

He was being hunted. Rick must have known Troy was looking for him. The other three men’s names had been in the news along with a weak description of the Bridge Killer. Unless Rick had been living under a rock, he had to know he was next on the list. Troy stopped, smirking at his thought. From the looks of things, Rick had been living under a rock. He was unwashed and stank of drugs. He’d looked feral.

Good. Rick deserved to suffer for the agony he’d caused Colleen. Just wait until he was in Troy’s grasp. He planned to put him through every suffering and indignity that Colleen had endured. And Colleen could watch. The Colleen who’d spoken in his head had gently guided him through the other abductions and stagings. But now she was available in person.

She would love him for making them pay.

He froze, eyeing a small shed inside the chain-link-fenced yard of a house. The shed backed up to the alley, a good fifty feet away from the house. If I were Rick . . .

Stepping quietly, Troy moved closer to the shed. Leaning over the low fence he placed one ear on the wall of the shed. Inside he could hear a quiet sobbing. A man hissed a command, too low for Troy to understand, and the sobbing stopped.

He stepped back and smiled. He’d parked his van less than half a block away, and they were a good six blocks from the convenience store. Driving through the area, he’d seen the signs of police activity and kept his distance.

Removing his handgun from his inner coat pocket, he lifted the latch on the gate of the fence and stepped into the yard.

This was going to be easy.

23

Ava’s left shoulder and upper arm were on fire. She tried to move her head to look at her arm, believing someone had stuck her with a red-hot poker, but her jaw screamed as she turned her head against the hard floor. Rough carpet scraped her cheek, and she forced her eyes open. A narrow strip of gray lay just beyond her nose.

Duct tape on the carpet.

She was at the academy. Her lids fell shut. She must have gotten hit harder than she realized in her hand-to-hand combat class. She needed to get up. What if one of her instructors found her collapsed on the dormitory floor?

Haul your ass up!

Her arms wouldn’t move. She tried again and realized her hands were fastened together behind her back. Her eyes flew open.

Not Quantico.

Yes, there was duct tape covering holes in the carpet near where she lay, but this was not one of the rooms at the dorm. She rolled onto her right side and cried out as her jaw brushed the carpet again.

He hit you.

The tall man in the store who’d frightened away Jayne and her boyfriend. He’d seemed so happy to see Ava at first, but then . . . he’d taken a crack at her jaw that still resonated through her head.

How long have I been out?

She twisted her neck, looking for a window or clock, and found neither. The room she was in had thick insulation, the type you see on a roll that looks like cotton candy, lining the walls. She cranked her head and looked up. It was on the ceiling, too. If there were any windows, they had been covered up. The flooring was rough industrial carpet in an uneven shade of brown. Several places had been repaired with duct tape. She spotted an outline of a door that had also been covered by the pink fluff. Someone hadn’t wanted any sound to escape from the room.

Mason. Does he know I’m gone? Crap. He would be out of his head with worry. No doubt he’d tried to call her a half dozen times and had alerted the police and the FBI. If anyone was going to push hard to figure out where she was, he was the man. His strong face appeared in her mind, and she drew courage from her no-nonsense better half. He knew how to support her when she was struggling. Like now.