Amanda was too terrified to answer. She braced for punishment, but no one hit her.
'Now listen to me. I'm going to tell you how you can save yourself.' Amanda stared into space.
'I'm going to tell you to do something. If you do it, you'll be safe. If you don't, those you love will die and you will be taken away to spend the rest of your life in agony. And it will be a long life, very long. Now ask me how you can save yourself.'
'How . . . how can I save myself?'
Amanda's teeth chattered and she barely got the words out.
'You will stop investigating Jon Dupre's case and you will make certain that Dupre is convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Do that and you will survive. Keep poking your nose into the case and you know the consequences. Now get dressed.'
Amanda wasn't sure she'd heard the man correctly until her panties fell across her face. They were sopping wet and covered with mud, but she scrambled into them. She rolled over and found the rest of her clothes. As she dressed, her keys landed next to her feet.
'Walk straight ahead for a quarter mile and you'll find a logging road and your car.'
The men turned their backs to her and faded into the darkness. Amanda struggled into her shoes and stood up. Her body was trembling uncontrollably. She wanted to get to her car and the heater, but she was afraid that the men were waiting for her in the woods, that they had built up her hopes so that they could capture her again and crush them. When the shaking began to rattle her teeth, she forced her feet forward. Then she ran. Normally, Amanda could run a quarter mile in a little over a minute, but tonight her feet tripped over themselves. When she broke out of the woods onto the logging road, she sobbed with relief. The men were gone and her car was at the side of the road. Amanda got in and locked the doors. Her hand shook so badly that it took forever to fit the car key in the ignition. Then the car started and the heater, cranked to maximum, began pumping out hot air. She started driving, sobbing quietly. What was she going to do? She couldn't bear being alone. She wanted to run to her father, but what if she was followed? They could kill Frank to demonstrate their power. They were right. They could do anything they wanted to do.
Amanda parked her car in the condo garage but she didn't get out immediately. She imagined her kidnappers lurking in the dark waiting to take her again--the punch line to a cruel joke. When she mustered the courage to leave her car, she took the stairs instead of the elevator and peered down the hall before racing to her condo. Once inside, she double-bolted her door. Then she checked every inch of her loft. When she was certain that she was alone, she went into the bathroom and ripped off her clothes. In the shower, tears of shame and frustration flowed as the hot water washed away the grime.
Amanda lost track of how long she stood under the cascading water and how many times she soaped herself. At some point, she left the shower stall and dressed in sweats and heavy socks. Her body felt clean, but she felt soiled and empty. She curled up on her couch and stared through her high windows at the lights of nighttime Portland. What was she going to do? If she was responsible for Jon Dupre's execution, she would be a murderer. If she didn't follow her captors' instructions, innocent people, including her father, could die. She didn't want to think about what might happen to her.
Amanda wrapped her arms across her breasts. She felt so helpless and she hated that feeling. But she was helpless. These people knew exactly how to control her. They'd made her relive her terror at the hands of the surgeon and they had threatened her father--the person she loved most in the world. But who were they?
This was the first time since she'd been attacked in the parking garage that Amanda had been composed enough to ask that question. Once she did, the answer was obvious. The Vaughn Street Glee Club did exist.
Part Five
AN EYE FOR AN EYE
Chapter Thirty-Nine.
Amanda dragged herself into the bedroom at eleven-thirty and tried to sleep, but every time she closed her eyes she was back in the woods. She curled into a fetal ball, shivering despite the blankets. Exhaustion finally knocked her out a little after two-thirty, but she jerked awake several times with night sweats from bad dreams. When she woke up for good, it was still dark. A machine-gun rain rattled her windowpanes. She had no energy for calisthenics. Amanda went to the kitchen, but all she could tolerate was toast and tea. She cried while the water boiled.
Amanda would not even think of leaving her apartment. What if the men were waiting for her in her garage or outside her door? At nine, she called the office to say that she was sick. She asked Daniel Ames to cover an afternoon court appearance, then got back into bed but she could not sleep. She tried to read but she couldn't concentrate. She kept on reliving the terror of the kidnapping.
Amanda went into the living room and turned on the television. An old movie distracted her for a while, but she started crying in the middle of it. At noon, she forced herself to fix lunch because it gave her something to do. She was making a sandwich when the phone rang, startling her so much that her knife clattered to the floor. She let the answering machine take the call but picked up when she heard Kate's voice.
'How are you feeling?' Kate asked.
'Not so good.'
'A cold?'
'Yeah, a bad one.'
'Well, I may be able to cheer you up.'
Kate told Amanda about her visit to the medical examiner and what she'd learned about Michael Israel's death. A day ago, Kate's news would have excited Amanda, but today she just felt numb.
'When I left the ME I started looking for similar suicides in Oregon,' Kate said. 'I only found one, but it was very interesting. Twelve years ago, Albert Hammond was on the Multnomah County circuit court. Do you remember
