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3

Lien-hua awoke lying on her left side.

She was dizzy, her head thrumming, and it took a few seconds to get her bearings. When she tried to move, she found that her legs were free, but her hands were somehow restrained behind her back. Not handcuffs, though. It felt like some type of packaging tape or duct tape.

For now, at least, whoever had taken her hadn’t removed her clothes — thank God.

Dim light in the room. A ball of twisted, discarded duct tape lay on the floor nearby, perhaps from her abductor binding her legs while he brought her here. She couldn’t think of many reasons he would free her legs, but she could think of a few.

Her heartbeat began to quicken.

She was on a wooden floor, and by the faint glimmer of neon lights outside the dark window, she knew it was night. No idea how late.

Her holster and gun were missing.

The walls of the living room were sooty — there’d been a fire in here at some point. A tattered couch sat in the corner facing an old television with a crooked floor lamp stationed beside it. A pile of bloody bandages and a spool of black thread lay on the cheap Formica end table.

Still somewhat groggy, she tried to collect her thoughts and remember exactly what had happened before she arrived here.

The picnic.

Saying good-bye to Patrick.

Getting into her car.

Then a strap around her neck, yes, a belt.

The terrible desperate feeling of struggling uselessly to breathe.

Then a calm male voice beside her ear. She hadn’t recognized it, and her vision had been blurry, so she hadn’t been able to identify whose face it was in the rearview mirror.

He’d called her Lien-hua, though — that, she remembered. So he knew her first name. And he’d had long hair for a man. It might have been a wig.

In those few moments she’d had before blacking out, she’d been transported back to the time last year in San Diego when she’d drowned and Patrick had brought her back to life — literally — with a defibrillator. Both that day and this, as she was losing consciousness, aware that she might never awaken again, she’d thought of him, only of him, and sensed an all-encompassing sadness that she would never be with him, never see him again.

Now, she noticed sounds coming from behind her and she tried to decide what to do. If she moved, if she rolled over, whoever was there might see her do it. On the other hand, she needed to know how many people she was dealing with here.

It sounded like someone was going through some pots and pans, and Lien-hua took the chance that there was only that one person and that, if he was going through the cupboards, he would be facing the other way. Slowly, she eased onto her back and tilted her head toward the sounds.

It was a man.

His back was to her.

The kitchen wasn’t separated from the living room, and she could see that he was rooting through a cabinet beside the gas stove.

His face was hidden, but his strongly muscled back and hefty build were evident even when he was kneeling down. With a deepening chill she thought she might know who it was. She couldn’t be certain, though, not from this angle.

Evidently, he found what he was looking for, because he stood, holding a frying pan. He laid it on the burner and dialed the gas on, then turned toward the refrigerator and opened the door. And when he did, she caught his profile.

Yes, it was him.

Richard Devin Basque.

He was the man Pat had arrested fourteen years before. He was the man who, during his criminal career, had kidnapped more than two dozen women, kept them alive for hours or even days on end as he slowly sliced out their intestines and lungs and ate them before finally ending their suffering and taking the women’s lives. He’d been freed last year after a retrial and had started killing again almost immediately upon his release.

Based on what he’d done to most of his past victims, Lien-hua knew he would be removing her jeans and panties before carving into her.

Get out. You have to—

He retrieved a small jar from the refrigerator. She couldn’t tell what was inside it, but she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know what it contained.

When he picked up a scalpel from the counter, she knew she’d never have enough time to get to her feet before he’d notice that she was awake. Quickly, quietly, she rolled back into the position he’d left her in, then closed her eyes and lay still.

As he walked toward her, she heard the sound of a slight hitch in each step. He was limping. Taking into account the bloody bandages on the end table, she decided she must have hit him after all when she fired her Glock behind her through the driver’s seat.

He’s vulnerable. Use that. Capitalize. Attack him where he’s weakest. Strike at the wound.

She’d been in situations before when her life was threatened, and she’d found that, rather than being filled with uncontrollable terror or desperation, she was able to think remarkably clearly. It’d happened on a case in Wisconsin a few months earlier, once in Florida, and then that time when she was drowning in San Diego.

That day she’d been able to use sign language to communicate to Pat a way to save her. And today, she hoped that the thing she’d done immediately before firing her gun would save her: tapping in 911 on her phone and tossing it beneath her seat so the call could be traced.

In DC there are a staggering number of hoax 911 calls, and Metro’s dispatch didn’t always send out a car when they received calls during which no one on the other end of the line spoke. However, she was confident that when her number came up on the system and they realized it was an FBI agent’s phone, they would dispatch officers. As long as her phone was still on, they should easily be able to track the GPS location. It might not lead them to this specific apartment, but it would get them close.

Unless Basque had switched cars, or unless he’d found the phone and destroyed it.

You need to buy some time.

By the sound of the footsteps, Basque was about halfway to her.

He was a large man, well trained, a fighter. She knew from the warden that during all of his years in prison Basque had never lost a fight, even when cornered by multiple assailants. They’d never been able to prove that he killed any other prisoners, but he had disabled four and put one gang leader into a coma.

The sound of footsteps grew closer.

Wait, Lien-hua, wait…

With her wrists restrained behind her, taking him down wasn’t going to be easy at all; her years of sparring and kickboxing needed to come into play. And they needed to do so now.

If she could buy a few seconds, she could jump and swing her arms forward beneath her feet to get her hands in front of her. Then things would be a little more evenly matched. Having her arms in front would at least help her to block any kicks or punches he might throw.

Attack him where he’s wounded or take out his knee, then slide backward, put some distance between the two of you, and get to your feet.

Get your hands to the front and go at him.

The footsteps stopped. Basque paused.

Wait…

He was right beside her.

Now. Do it.

Lien-hua snapped her eyes open as she rolled onto her back. A flash of surprise crossed Basque’s face, but he was too slow to get out of the way. She couldn’t immediately identify where he was wounded, so she planted her left foot against the floor for support, twisted her body to get the angle right, and drove a hard, controlled kick with her right foot toward his knee to take him down.

The placement wasn’t as ideal as she’d hoped, and at the last moment he pivoted so she ended up kicking the back of his leg rather than the side. It brought him down, but didn’t break the knee. As she used her feet to push away from him, he dived at her with the scalpel and buried it into her right thigh just above her knee.