Chris Jordan - Torn

He comes around a curve and encounters the first residential complex. Condo units, from the look of it. Slowing down, he tries to picture where he is, relative to how it all looked from the campus. If he’s not completely disoriented-and there’s no guarantee of that-the big ski lodge is considerably farther along, in an area of stand-alones, not condos.

Shane speeds up, telling himself not to outrace his own headlights. The shadow of night has already found its way far up the mountainside, and although low-pressure sodium lights mark the edges of the road it would be fairly easy to make a mistake, find himself vaulting into eternity.

A couple of switchbacks farther up, he starts to see single residences. As if the smaller condos are starter homes for the lowly Level Ones and Twos, the impressive ski lodges reserved for high-ranking Rulers. He keeps eyeing the campus below, trying to get his bearings-it can’t be much farther-when he comes around a corner and finds his windshield painted by a flashing blue lights.

He immediately slows, gives a wide berth to the security cruiser parked at the curb. As he passes he can see the officer yakking into a handheld. A quick glance reveals that the large residence is shuttered, without lights.

Damn. He keeps going, not wanting to attract the cruiser’s attention-small chance of avoiding that, in this neighborhood, but what the hell-and waits until the flashing lights are out of sight before pulling over to assess the situation. Is it possible that he’s got it all wrong? That the mysterious Barlows either have nothing to do with Haley’s disappearance, or they’ve stashed her someplace else, maybe far removed from Conklin?

Unless deploying the storm shutters is to keep away the prying eyes.

Only one way to find out.

Shane is trying to find a place to park his vehicle, somewhere it won’t be noticed, where he can recon the shuttered ski lodge without freezing to death, when the night turns blue with lights.

There was this show on A &E once, about the Stockholm syndrome. You probably already know what that is, but in case you don’t, that’s when people taken hostage start to identify with the bad guys who are holding them. The term comes from this incident in Sweden where bank robbers kept people hostage for five days, and by the end the victims were defending the bad guys. It sounds totally whacked, but apparently it has do with what happens to people under stress, and how they gravitate to those with power.

In my particular situation, I seem to have gotten it backward. Missy Barlow, who helped abduct me, and who is holding me prisoner in her own home, has got it into her silly little head that we’re best friends.

When the cop first rings the doorbell, she clutches me and whispers, “Oh my god! They’re coming! You’ve got to help us!”

We’re hiding upstairs in the master bedroom-way too many mirrors, if you ask me-pretending the house is unoccupied. Shades drawn-electronically activated, actually-lights on low, we’re sealed inside. Which means, obviously, that no one can answer the door. But we can see the cop on the monitor, leaning on the buzzer and shouting into the intercom, wanting to know if anybody’s home.

“What do they want?” Missy whimpers. “Eldon, make them stop!”

Her husband, who is slender and somehow heterosexually effeminate, looks to be on the verge of tears. “How do you suggest I do that?” he hisses. “Just be quiet, maybe they’ll go away.”

Missy clings to me like a long-lost sister. “Tell him to make them stop,” she begs, then turns plaintively to her husband. “Oh my god, I wish we were somewhere else! Eldon, why can’t we be somewhere else?”

That makes Eldon roll his eyes, and glance to me as if he expects sympathy. What’s with these people? Can’t they get anything right? Have they forgotten what they did to me? And why do they think I’d share their desire to have the cops-okay, the local security officers-go away?

“It’s Eva,” Eldon says. “Somehow she knows about you.”

“I don’t know Eva from a hole in the ground,” I remind them. “But that’s a cop ringing your doorbell, not some high priestess.”

“Eva’s not a high priestess,” Missy corrects me. “She’s…she’s Eva, okay? She’s dangerously crazy, okay? People she doesn’t like, people who get in her way? Bad things happen to them. Plus the cops are on her side. Right, Eldon?”

The doorbell stops ringing, and on the monitor we watch as the cop walks away and is swallowed up by the darkness. My captors collapse like a couple of rag dolls, gasping with relief.

“Oh my god!” Missy whimpers, flopping back on their enormous bed. “Oh my god!”

“Maybe I should go out before he leaves,” I suggest. “Give myself up.”

“Are you crazy? They’ll kill you!”

“You don’t know that.”

For his part, Eldon shrugs, never meeting my eyes. “You can do what you like,” he says, speaking very carefully. “Ruler Weems said it’s up to you.”

I’m angry enough to do it, just to spite them. On the other hand, the strange little man they call Ruler Weems made an impression. He’s manipulative and charming and obviously can’t be trusted, but he did seem genuinely concerned for my safety. What if they’re right? What if my life really is in danger? Part of me wants to reject everything they say-they kidnapped me!-but some other, cautious voice in my head urges me not to be too hasty. Despite the uniform, that wasn’t really a cop at the door. It was a Ruler security officer, supposedly controlled by the very same people who blew up Noah’s school. The same people holding him captive, feeding him lies, grooming him to be their new Messiah. The New Profit, that’s what they call him. How sick is that? And according to Weems the same people killed my husband. They must know that given the chance I’ll blow their ugly little world to pieces and do everything in my power to see that they spend the rest of their lives in prison.

To do that, I have to survive. I have to live for my son.

“Relax,” I tell them. “I’m not making any hasty decisions.”

Eldon, crouched by the security-cam monitor, goes, “Uh-oh, what’s this?”

Missy whimpers, “Shit, shit, shit!”

What has attracted their attention is more flashing cop lights. Not stopping outside the lodge, but speeding past, heading down the road at high speed. No sirens, just the lights. As if the cop-excuse me, the henchman-has been distracted by some other, more critical event. We can’t see where he’s going, just that he’s leaving in a hurry, following the other cars.

“I counted four vehicles,” Eldon says softly to himself. “That’s just about the entire force. Not exactly a center of criminal activity, Conklin.”

I beg to differ-how about kidnapping, isn’t that a crime?-but don’t bother saying so because there’s something about the last-minute distraction of the officer, pulling him away from our hiding place, that makes me think of Randall Shane.

Could he be out there, setting up a diversion? Are his old friends in the FBI about to stage a rescue?

Get a grip, Haley. Fantasizing about rescue attempts is probably part of the Stockholm syndrome. How could Shane know where you are? How could he even know you’ve been abducted rather than, say, murdered and left in the woods? Remember, he warned you to go back home and lock the doors. He knew you were in danger, and like a stubborn fool you ignored him. You hired a professional and then ignored his advice, how dumb is that? So don’t assume that after you screwed up that he’ll somehow figure it out and arrive with the cavalry. You’re on your own. If anybody is going to find a way to rescue Noah, it will have to be you.