the garage, around the corner to the back.

Behind the garage, she raised the baton with her right hand, shielding her eyes with her left. She waited in the silence until she heard the bark of the neighbor’s dog, then swung as hard as she could, hoping that the combination of the riled animal and the wall between the garage and the house would muffle the sound of the shattering glass. She used the baton to clear away the broken shards of glass from the frame and then threw the baton to the grass at her feet. She pulled off her jacket and tossed it across the threshold.

The fabric protecting her hands, she hoisted herself through the window, landing in a crouch on the concrete of the garage floor. She immediately reached for the butt of her Glock and twisted the gun free from her holster.

Holding her breath, she felt a bead of sweat form at her temple and creep slowly down her cheek, but she remained still, ready for Dillon to appear from the house to inspect the sound of the disruption.

Nothing.

The sound of the zippers on her ankle-length boots was deafening in the silence. She stepped out of them in her socks, remembering how she had removed these same boots at Sam Sparks’s apartment on the night Robert Mancini was killed. She tiptoed to the interior door and reached for the knob with her left hand, the Glock held firmly in the right. She turned the knob and allowed herself to inhale as she felt the cylinder retract, grateful that Dillon, like most homeowners, had not bothered to lock the door between the garage and his house.

She pushed the door open slowly, inch by inch, and then stepped onto the slate tile floor of a mudroom. She saw two steps in front of her, leading to an empty kitchen. She pulled up a mental image of the exterior of the house: the picture window at the front porch probably led to a living room at the front of the house; the sliding glass doors in back must have been for a family room in the back. Given the size of the house’s footprint, Dillon probably had three bedrooms upstairs. Subterraneous windows around the property indicated a basement.

Dillon and Stacy could be anywhere.

She took one step up from the mudroom, preparing for the squeaks and creeks that might come with the transition from tile to hardwood. Silence. She took the second step with more confidence, swinging her Glock to the right at the turn from the kitchen into the living room. Still no sign of Dillon or Stacy.

She had reached a fork in the floor plan. To the right were the living room and a staircase leading from the front door to the second floor. Ahead of her, she saw the remainder of the kitchen, followed by a hallway to what she guessed was the family room.

She took three steps toward the front door when a sound stopped her frozen. Without context, she would have pictured an injured dog. A whimper. Desperation. Resignation. Stacy.

The noise was distant. She allowed herself to close her eyes. To close off all her senses as her mind replayed the sound. In front of her and to the left. And down. Beneath the floor. Muffled. In the basement.

She turned to the left, stepping carefully past the kitchen. A well-appointed sunken family room—sectional sofa, upholstered ottoman, plasma television over a fireplace—sat unoccupied at the back of the house. Still further, down the hall past the family room, was a door—not fully closed, not open, ajar just an inch. She knew it would lead to the basement.

She made her way down the hall until she stood just outside the cracked door. She heard voices.

“Just do it. Please, do it.” A whimper. Desperation. Resignation. Stacy.

“May 27. Two-one-two Lafayette. I set it up. Miranda was supposed to be the girl, just Mancini’s type. But it turns out she wasn’t the girl hiding in the bathroom after all. She called you to cover.”

“No.”

“Stop lying. Miranda withstood a lot more than this, but in the end, she couldn’t take anymore. She called you, Stacy Schecter, the ‘honest and attractive brunette.’ You were the one who was there.”

“No.”

“Admit you were there, and I’ll do it.”

“Fine, I was there.”

“Then tell me what you heard. Tell me.”

Silence. Then a whimper. “I don’t know. I told you. It was Heather. The girl on the news. Tanya Abbott.”

This time the sound wasn’t a whimper, but a wail.

“I was in Afghanistan, Stacy. I learned these moves from watching men trained by Al Qaeda. Men who worked for the Taliban. Stop lying.”

“I’m not lying.”

“You are saying that name because you’ve seen the missing girl on the news. Tanya Abbott’s picture has been plastered across the city all week.”

“I swear. It was her.”

Ellie pressed her back against the wall outside the door, trying to process the conversation. She’d been right. Dillon was trying to find the woman from the 212 that night. But he didn’t know it was Tanya Abbott. He’d started with Katie Battle. Katie had led him to Stacy. And now he was convinced that Stacy was lying because, as far as the public knew, Tanya Abbott was the girl who’d gone missing after her roommate was stabbed.

Ellie reached into her pocket for the compact and then used her index finger to slowly widen the crack in the basement door. She crouched toward the floor and slipped the mirror into the crack above the stairs, adjusting the mirror to view the activity in the basement below.

The glass was tiny. Four inches at best. She made out isolated images, like the staccato flashes of a strobe light. She saw enough to know it was bad. Stacy on her side, her bent legs pulled behind her. Arms over her head. Her face against the concrete floor at Dillon’s feet. Dillon bent over her contorted body. And the whimpers.

Ellie was startled by a sound behind her. Her instincts pulled her to the right one hundred and eighty degrees, her Glock held steady in front of her. The garage door through which she’d entered pushed farther open.

She stepped to her right toward a closed door farther down the hallway and smelled the familiar scent of laundry. She held the mirror in front of her to watch the garage entrance.

But where she expected to see Sam Sparks stood her lieutenant, Robin Tucker, her own Glock at the ready.

Ellie slowly peered around the corner and, when she caught Tucker’s eye, raised her left index finger to her lips. Tucker nodded. Ellie watched as her lieutenant took one careful step after the next, making her way down the hall toward her. She pressed her back against the wall on the opposite side of the basement door. She was still catching her breath, but the two of them now had Dillon’s exit straddled.

Ellie glanced at her watch. Where was backup? And did she really want it after all? If they stormed the house now, Dillon might panic and take Stacy out immediately. Or they’d be looking at a hostage situation in which Dillon had nothing to lose and nothing to gain either.

The voices continued downstairs.

“I was in the NYPD, Stacy. And I still have sources. In fact, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I have a near, dear friend in the department who absolutely adores me. Tells me everything I need to know. If Tanya Abbott were the girl I was interested in, I think she would’ve mentioned it. Think of another story, Stacy.”

Ellie stole a glance at Tucker, who swallowed and blinked a couple of times before returning Ellie’s gaze. Based on that very brief change in her expression, Ellie guessed that something inside her lieutenant had broken as she realized the truth about her role in Nick Dillon’s life.

Her attention was pulled back to the basement by more sounds—sobs followed by a thud and then a moan.

“You might not care about this, Stacy, but I mean it when I say, I take no pleasure in this. I’m not some rapist or sadist or sex-crazed killer. All I want is information.”

She heard Stacy’s pained voice, but could not make out the words.

“I’m sorry. I don’t believe you. How about I show you what I can do with a pair of pliers? I’m walking out to the garage, and when I get back, you’re going to start telling me the truth.”

In the reflection of the mirror, she saw Dillon turn toward the staircase and tuck his handgun into his waistband. Ellie jerked her arm out of view and pulled her body farther from the basement door, waving two fingers at Tucker to indicate that she should reposition herself farther down the hallway. Tucker took two steps to her left and raised her eyebrows to signal she was ready.

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