“What do you expect me to do when a body turns up? I was afraid it was Mia’s.”

  “Mia’s?” he said with a condescending chuckle. “Apparently you aren’t as smart as I thought you were.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Why don’t you let the FBI tell you? Now that they’re in on our little secret.”

  Jack couldn’t explain away the FBI. He simply had to shift the focus to Mia, no matter how abrupt the transition. “I have your money. I want a simultaneous exchange.”

  “Dream on.”

  “That’s the way it has to be. No cops. Just you and me.”

  “How much are you paying?”

  Jack hesitated, but somehow he couldn’t say a quarter million with a straight face. “Two million.”

  There was silence on the line. Finally, he said, “You got my interest.”

  “No Mia, no money. Simple as that. It’s simultaneous, or it doesn’t happen.”

  “I pick the spot, I pick the time.”

  “Fine. Where do you want to do it?”

  “You already know: the Devil’s Ear.”

  The very words made Jack’s heart sink.

  “Go to wilderness campsite number twenty-seven at two a.m.,” he said. “And this time, leave the FBI at home.”

  “You got it.”

  “I mean it, Swyteck. This is the real deal. No cops. Or your girlfriend ends up exactly like Ashley Thornton. And then I’ll find you.”

  There was something different about his tone—a chilling finality. The response caught in Jack’s throat, and the call ended before he could say another word.

  “You okay?” asked Theo. He walked to the refrigerator and opened it, as if watching Jack negotiate with a kidnapper had worked up an appetite.

  “I think so.”

  “You done good, Jack.” Theo found a leftover slice of pepperoni pizza behind the jar of mayonnaise, sniffed it, then put it back. “Real good.”

  Jack took one last look at the suitcase filled with hundred-dollar bills. He knew it wasn’t enough—that it wasn’t anywhere near what Mia was worth. But what on earth had possessed him to offer two million dollars? “Am I crazy? Or is this the right thing to do?”

  Theo dunked a pickle spear into a jar of mustard. “Close your eyes.”

  “What?”

  “Just close them.”

  Jack complied. Theo said, “Now open them.”

  It seemed like a silly game, but Jack did it.

  “What do you see?” asked Theo.

  “You.”

  “Exactly.” He popped the mustard-coated pickle into his mouth, yellow goop all over his lips. “Now, is this what you want to be lookin’ at the rest of your life? Or do you want to see Mia again?”

  It struck Jack as funny at first, but Theo wasn’t laughing. The big guy put down the pickle jar and looked Jack in the eye. “Do you remember how happy you were the day you introduced me to Mia? Do you?”

  “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I do.”

  “How many fuckheads are lucky enough to find someone who makes them that happy? Seriously, dude. Do you think I’m ever gonna find a woman like that?”

  Theo’s delivery was never the smoothest, but whenever their backs were up against the wall, it seemed that Jack couldn’t argue with a word he was saying.

  Jack closed up the suitcase full of cash. “Okay. Let’s do what we have to do.”

  57

  Andie Henning was in a holding pattern. The medical examiner’s office was making no promises. They might identify the remains in the plastic bag by lunchtime, or they might never make an identification. The final answer depended on test results and, like any successful investigation, a healthy mix of good judgment and good luck.

  Having been up all night, Andie wanted nothing more than to shower and catch a quick nap. First, however, she had to find her way out of the busy medical campus. The ME’s office was in the Joseph H. Davis Center for Forensic Pathology, a three-building complex on the perimeter of the University of Miami Medical Center campus and Jackson Memorial Hospital. It had been dark and relatively quiet when Andie arrived, but at 10 a.m. the campus was bustling with activity, people headed to the spine institute, the eye institute, and other world-class specialists.

  Andie stopped at the traffic light near the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. A patient in a wheelchair crossed with the green WALK signal, a bit of sad irony. At first, Andie surmised that the handsome young man pushing the chair was the woman’s son or grandson. As they passed before Andie’s vehicle, however, it became apparent that she was actually quite young, disease having robbed her of her youth. Andie tried not to stare, but she was unable to look away. She wondered if the woman had just received good news or bad, if she was still hoping for recovery or clinging to what little life she had left. Andie herself knew those feelings all too well. Fear and hopelessness had driven her to utter desperation—and, ultimately, to the state penitentiary in Walla Walla, Washington, where she visited the man who had murdered her mother. It wasn’t something she’d wanted to do. It wasn’t mere idle curiosity about her genealogical roots. That pathetic excuse for a human being was the only living person who could tell her who her biological father was. In her entire life, Andie had never even considered searching him out. Suddenly, however, finding him became a matter of life and death, as the oncologist had made so clear on that cloudy gray morning in Seattle.

  “How bad is it?” Andie asked. She’d been waiting for hours to speak with her sister’s treating physician at the University of Washington Medical Center, and she ambushed him as soon as he stepped out of the elevator.

  “It’s an uphill battle,” he said.

  “What does that mean exactly?”

  His deep sigh almost made an answer unnecessary. “Your sister is a fighter, but we can’t give her the level of chemotherapy she needs without a successful bone marrow transplant.”

  Andie tried to keep her composure, but after all the sleepless nights and unanswered prayers, fear and frustration were taking control. “I don’t understand. We’re twins. Why didn’t her body accept my bone marrow?”

  “Because you’re not identical twins. That puts you in the same category as any other sibling, which means that this was an allogeneic transplant, not syngeneic. The chances of an HLA match between siblings is only about thirty to forty percent.”

  “Okay, so I’m not a match. What about unrelated donors? Can we try that route?”

  “I’m afraid the chances of a match would be small. Siblings or parents are our best alternative. Do you have any other brothers or sisters?”

  “No. I mean, like I told you before, none that I know of. Both my sister and I were raised by adoptive families. And our biological mother is dead.”

  “What about your father?”

  Andie looked away, embarrassed. She’d anticipated the question, but that didn’t make it any easier. “I don’t know. I would have to find him.”

  “How long would that take?”

  “How much time do I have?”

  Again, the heavy sigh. “Leukemia is curable, but like any cancer, the sooner the better. I wouldn’t want to wait more than eight weeks to resume treatment. Ten weeks, tops. And remember, even after a successful transplant, the engraftment process takes anywhere from ten to twenty-eight days. So you have just a few weeks to find him and get him in here for the harvest.”

  Andie had no reason for optimism, and it made her skin crawl just to think about the perverse terms Mr. Wicasa had spelled out for information about her biological father. But with her sister’s life hanging in the balance, only one response came to mind. “Don’t worry. I’ll find him. Whatever it takes, I’ll find him.”

  A symphony of car horns blasted impatiently from behind her. Andie looked up to see that the traffic light outside the University of Miami cancer center had turned green. Her cell phone rang at the same instant. She shook off her memories of Seattle, drove through the intersection, and answered the phone. “Henning here.”

  It was Agent Crenshaw. “I can’t locate him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s not answering any of his phones. I drove to his house, he doesn’t answer the intercom. I checked two of his job sites. Nothing.”

  “Was his car in the driveway?”

  “No, but he has a five-car garage, and I couldn’t get close enough to see inside.”

  “So he could just be avoiding us.”

  “Yeah,” said Crenshaw. “Or my instincts could be right: That was Ernesto Salazar in the bag Swyteck dug up.”

  58

  Mia woke from a deep sleep, deeper than any before in her captivity. She felt languid and confused, like a patient shaking off the effects of general anesthesia. The throbbing pain on the side of her left thigh was a poignant reminder of what had happened. The needle went in, and she blacked out. It had been that quick.

  She had no memory of moving from one location to another, but her surroundings were surely different. This new room was even smaller than the last one, perhaps eight by ten. It was dimly lit by a single low-wattage ceiling fixture. The floor was bare concrete. There were no windows and no air-conditioning, and the smell of mildew lingered in the air. The room temperature was in the high eighties, she figured, perhaps ninety. Her skin glistened with a thin layer of sweat. Just sitting on the floor, no physical exertion whatever, she could feel her clothing cling to her body. She probably would have slept even longer but for the smothering effects of the hot, heavy air.

  She quieted her breathing and listened. Nothing. Her new prison was as silent as the old one. She tried to change position, but it was difficult. Her wrists were cuffed in front of her body so that she could feed herself. Her ankles were chained to an exposed wall stud. He had actually cut a hole in the Sheetrock and drilled a hole through the wooden stud so that he could fasten her securely. She wasn’t going anywhere unless she planned to take the entire building with her. She slid closer to the wall and inspected the opening. It was just large enough to snake the chain through one end and out the other. Not exactly a yawning invitation to the great escape—unless you were a millipede. She noticed one inching across the concrete floor. It was black and wiggly, no longer than her little finger. She spotted another one on the floor, then another on the wall, then a half dozen more climbing toward the ceiling. They had come through the hole in the drywall, which gave her pause. Millipedes had once infested her flower garden in Palm Beach, and the pest control company told her it was because of all the decaying wet leaves in the neighbor’s yard. A few had crawled inside her house, but as a rule they didn’t go far from their food source. It was a little thing, but at this stage of the game, even tidbits of information seemed important. If the millipedes were on this side of the wall, food was on the other side. That meant leaves or vegetation of some kind. The outdoors. Freedom.

  She gave the chain a tug, and the metal cuff pinched her ankle, no give whatsoever. The millipedes were showing her the way, but it was no more useful than birds showing her how to fly. Irrational as it was, she pulled even harder, as if determined to yank the chain from the stud or even the stud from the frame. The four-foot length of chain stretched like a steel rod, taut and tense with her considerable leg strength. The force only savaged the point of least resistance, the tender skin around her anklebone. She stopped pulling. The chain went limp and rattled onto the floor. The edge of the metal ankle cuff was sharper than it appeared. There was a small cut above her anklebone, and it was beginning to bleed. She reached to blot it dry, then stopped short. She withdrew her hand and sat perfectly still, watching the slow trickle of blood from the fresh wound. Just the sight of it triggered memories of her own blood oozing down her thigh in long, narrow stripes, like veins without casings. A plastic surgeon could have fixed that old scar years ago, much the same way she had changed her nose and chin to disguise her true identity. She’d left the scar alone, however. Part of her wanted never to forget why she was running.

  And why she had to keep running.

  There were footsteps outside the door. Instinctively, she sat up straight and assumed a state of readiness, though she never knew what to expect. She heard a key enter the lock, the tumblers turning. Her gaze was fixed on the doorknob. It squeaked as it turned, and the door opened. The sudden burst of brightness told her that it was daytime, but it lasted only an instant. He entered quickly and closed the door, dropping a bulky duffel bag on the floor. He was dressed in black, his body a shadow in the dim lighting. Mia didn’t look at his face. She was focused more on the duffel bag at his feet. She feared another film in the making, but he would never have dropped sensitive camera equipment on the concrete floor so carelessly.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  Mia wasn’t sure how to respond. He’d never asked before. “Okay, I guess.”

  “Good.” He got down on one knee, unzipped the bag, and rummaged through it. He removed something and came toward her, stopping just a foot away. “Kneel for me.”

  It was the position she hated most, him towering over her while she knelt before him. She hesitated, but only for a second, fearing his reprimand.

  “Look up at me,” he said.

  Her head rolled back slowly. She was gazing upward, focusing on nothing, really—just this dark torso somewhere above his belt buckle. Sometimes, bad lighting was a blessing. She tried not to cringe as he brushed her hair aside, clearing her face.

  “Try this on,” he said.

  A ring of cold latex suddenly surrounded her face, and instinctively she withdrew.

  “Hold still!” he shouted.

  She stiffened, and he pressed harder. It was a mask, she realized. A diving mask.

  “Close your mouth, breathe in through your nose,” he said.

  Her compliance brought suction around her face, the mask clinging to her skin. It popped when he pulled it off, breaking the watertight seal.

  “Excellent.” He turned and walked back to the duffel bag, then dropped the mask inside. “You ever dived before?”

  “You mean scuba dive?”

  “Yeah. You ever done it?”

  Again, she wasn’t sure how to answer. “Once. In Cozumel.”

  “Cozumel, huh? Good cave diving there.”

  “We didn’t do caves.”

  He snorted, or perhaps it was a chuckle. “First time for everything, honey.”

  Mia said nothing, though she understood completely. By first he meant last.

  The door opened and closed quickly. He was gone, but he’d left the duffel bag behind. He would return soon, she was sure of it. And they weren’t just going for a swim.

  Mia could feel her spirits sagging, but then she remembered a little surprise of her own. Whatever drug he’d used to knock her out had almost washed her memory clean, but clearer thoughts brought renewed hopes. She raised her pant leg just above the ankle and checked to make sure her ace was still there. She wasn’t disappointed. Tucked inside the hem was a long shard of glass from the broken lightbulb. She was careful not to break it—and not to cut herself. It wasn’t the biggest piece, but it was big enough, maybe two inches long. She’d managed to squirrel it away after the last videotaping, when he’d ordered her to clean up her wounds. She felt good about herself now, the way she’d managed to get her hands on a weapon of sorts. It was crude but effective, and she wasn’t afraid to use it.

  The only question was when.

  59

  Jack had been to quieter places, but they were usually dotted with gravestones. At two o’clock in the morning, the Ginnie Springs campground was two hundred wooded acres of black silence. Visitors were allowed entry twenty-four hours a day, so Jack and Theo had no trouble getting in. Finding their way around in the dark was another matter.

  “Says here that Hernando de Soto explored these parts in 1539.” Theo was seated in the passenger seat, flashlight aimed at his souvenir map. “You think he stopped at the Hardee’s on his way through High Springs?”

  “Could you cut the jokes and just navigate, please?”

  “Just trying to loosen you up, dude. That’s all.”

  Jack checked his grip on the steering wheel. Any tighter and he would have snapped it in half. He was wound too tightly, but there was a fine line between relaxing and letting your guard down. “Sorry, man. The psychos I’m used to dealing with are judges, not kidnappers.”

  The first turn after the entrance gate took them past the combination dive center–country store, which was closed. Directly across the road, clearly marked on the map, were fifty-three campsites with electrical hookups. About half of them were occupied, roughly an equal number of tents, RVs, and trailers. The lone sign of life was a drunk old man peeing behind his pickup truck. Jack’s headlights hit him squarely in the privates, lighting him up like a casting call for The Full Monty. Busted at 2 a.m. He had to feel like the unluckiest guy on earth—though, considering what lay ahead, Jack would have gladly traded places with him.

  “You want campsite number twenty-seven, right?” said Theo.

  “Yeah, but it’s definitely not one of these.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he said wilderness campsite twenty-seven. You don’t get electrical hookups with a wilderness campsite.”

  Theo layered on the street talk and said, “I’d like to argue with you, but there be certain things they jis don’t teach us boys in duh hood.”

  It didn’t seem possible, but the winding road got even darker and quieter as they continued away from the dive center and main campground. Jack spotted a small wooden sign just beyond the point where the pavement gave way to gravel. He stopped the car and flipped on the high beams. WILDERNESS CAMPSITES 12 TO 31, it read. An arrow pointed to a footpath just off the road.

  “Looks like you hoof it from here, boss,” said Theo.

  Jack checked his watch. Twenty minutes before his two o’clock deadline. Jack got out of the car and went to the trunk. Everything was bathed in the orange-red glow of the taillights, though he saw more red than orange, which reminded him of blood. He wasn’t sure if it symbolized his blood or Mia’s, but it didn’t matter. He had to shake off such morbid thoughts or he’d never get through the night. He inserted the key into the trunk and popped the lid. For a moment, he didn’t move, his gaze fixed on the precious cargo.