under the door. Cold air roared through the crack and made her face cold. She put her eye to the carpet but didn't see anyone standing in the room.
Not waiting, she cocked her knee and kicked her heel into the door, connecting near the flimsy metal knob. The door flew round and banged into the wall, and Kasey stepped into the doorway and blocked the door with her shoulder as it bounced back. She surveyed the room. The crib, undisturbed. The pirate wallpaper. The baby monitor on top of the white dresser. The closet door, closed.
She eyed the window, which was open. The blinds danced and flapped crazily against each other as the night air swirled through the room. She made her way to the window frame, but with each step, she watched the closet door, in case the knob began to turn. At the window, she pushed the blinds aside and squinted at the darkness outside. She gauged the distance below her. It was a long way down, and the ground was hard.
The height was too far to jump, she realized, but by then it was too late.
She caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. The closet door flew open. He was inside, tall, masked, dressed in black, the same way he had been two nights earlier. She turned to aim her gun, but he leaped across the narrow bedroom before she could bring her arm around. His momentum drove her into the window frame. His hand locked around her wrist and jammed her knuckles into the glass, which shattered and made stinging cuts across her skin. Instinctively, her fist uncurled, and her gun dropped away, tumbling past the window ledge to the ground below.
He backhanded her chin with his forearm. Her head snapped back, colliding hard with the wall. The impact rattled her teeth. Before she could clear her head, she was airborne; he lifted her bodily off the carpet and hurled her toward the opposite wall. Her feet hit the ground first, and she pitched forward into the closet. Her cheekbone struck the wooden floor.
Dazed and bleeding, she twisted on to her back. She expected him to throw himself on her, but instead, he watched her, frozen. His eyes were bright behind the mask. The intimacy of his expression made her sick. She suddenly felt exposed, as if he could see all her secrets, see past her clothes, see what she cared about and fantasized about. He knew exactly who she was, and it terrified her.
Then the moment passed, and he ran.
Kasey got dizzily to her feet. Distantly, she heard the thumping of his footfalls on the stairs, getting further away. She felt the pressure in the house change as the front door was ripped open.
He was gone. Everything fell silent again, except for the twisting of the blinds.
Kasey realized that she couldn't run away from him. He wouldn't let her. That was her last thought before she passed out.
Chapter Fourteen
As Serena hunted for Regan Conrad's home on Lismore Road, a black van approached from behind at extreme speed. One headlight was broken, but its single remaining beam grew blinding in her mirror like a searchlight. As the van careened past her Mustang in the adjacent lane, a rush of air pushed her toward the shoulder. The van continued east into the no-man's-land of farm towns like Stewart and Buckthorn, leaving her alone on the two-lane highway.
She slowed to a crawl at McQuade Road and scouted the numbers posted on the mailboxes on the opposite side of the rural road. Half a mile later, she spotted the address for Regan Conrad and turned into the nurse's long driveway. The houses in the countryside were built far back from the road, with several hundred yards of fields and trees separating neighbors. When she reached the house, she was surprised to find the kind of luxury country home that local professionals like doctors or lawyers afforded. Not nurses. A swimming pool, now closed for the season, sat amid a sprawling expanse of brown lawn. A multi-level redwood deck was built off the side of the house, with access from dual sets of French doors.
The living-room window was brightly lit with a broad bay window, but she didn't see anyone inside. She parked beyond the house, where the driveway ended, and got out. As she walked to the front door, she spotted two cars parked in front of the garage. One was a black Hummer. The other was a 1980s-era Ford Escort.
Serena rang the bell and waited nearly a minute before Regan Conrad opened the door a few inches and studied her suspiciously.
From inside, Serena heard the bluesy strains of a soul singer on the stereo.
'May I help you?'
'Ms Conrad? My name is Serena Dial. I'm an investigator working for the Itasca County Sheriff's office on the disappearance of Marcus Glenn's daughter.'
Regan's mouth twisted into a frown. Her lipstick was so dark that her lips looked purple. 'What does that have to do with me?'
'I'd like to ask you some questions.'
'Why? Do you think I swooped in and stole the baby and I'm hiding her here in my house?'
'I don't know,' Serena said. 'Did you?'
Regan didn't answer, but a ghost of a smile flitted across her ivory face. She invited Serena inside with a flick of her hand. She led the way to the living room on her right, where the bay window overlooked the yard.
'I'll be back in a minute,' Regan told her.
Serena ran her hand along a sofa that had a plush, almost velvet finish. 'This is quite the place,' she said. 'Did you win the lottery?'
Regan stopped in the doorway and folded her arms over her chest, it was my break-up box, courtesy of a corporate lawyer from Minneapolis.'
She disappeared.
Serena examined the living room. Regan liked blown glass; there were several multi-colored bowls shaped like flowers. An original oil painting, abstract with thick squiggles of color, hung over the fireplace. From somewhere inside the house, the volume of the music increased. Serena realized there were hidden speakers in the living room. She recognized the singer now; it was Duffy belting out 'Mercy'. Just as the volume went up, she thought she heard something else, like a faint echo from another room. The noise didn't recur, but she wondered if the music was meant to drown it out.
She thought she had heard a baby crying.
Serena was on the verge of investigating when Regan reappeared in the doorway with a glass of red wine. 'Do you want something to drink?' she asked.
'No.' She added, 'Did I hear a baby?'
'Only if you brought one with you,' Regan replied. 'Come on, we can talk in the library.'
Regan led her out of the living room into the foyer. Walking beside Regan, Serena finally had a chance to study the nurse up close. She wasn't as tall as Serena, and she had a gaunt but attractive face. Her skin was paper white and appeared even paler against the dark make-up on her eyes and mouth. She had a pierced lower lip, four earrings in her left ear, and three in her right. She wore a black tank top that hung straight down, barely swelled by her small breasts, and Serena saw an elaborate serpent tattoo stretching down her forearm to her bony wrist. The head of the snake poked out of Regan's shirt near her neck. Her black hair was short and spiky with strands of blue highlights. Serena guessed that she was about thirty years old.
'Do I look like a biker chick?' Regan asked, catching Serena's eye. 'Or just white trash?'
'More like a goth Kate Moss,' Serena said.
Regan smiled.
'You live out here alone?' Serena asked.
'That's right.'
'I hope you're careful.'
'I sleep with a shotgun by my bed,' Regan told her. 'I know how to use it.'
She led Serena into a small den and used a remote control to replay 'Mercy' on her iPod dock. She mouthed,
