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He could be dead in a closet.

But no, she was sure he was still alive.

Shaun had these feelings. They came to her almost like pronouncements. And the pronouncement she heard in her head was this: he’s alive.

Not in good shape, maybe, but alive.

And still worth the price on his head.

THIS TIME, THEY found the entrance to the fallout shelter. Hard not to notice with the nuclear symbol on the door. Shaun opened the door into the small space behind the pantry and immediately saw the padlock on the trapdoor. She glanced around and saw the key on the hook. She took down the key, squatted down beside the trapdoor, and put the key in the lock. “Cover me,” she said.

Jimmy stood at her shoulder, his gun leveled.

She could feel his excitement.

The lid came up.

Two men squinted up at them.

Another man lay propped up against the far wall. He looked to be in bad shape. His shoulder and bicep were bloody. But he glared at her. A real hard-ass. She liked how defiant he was.

Defiance on its own was never enough, though.

“Hello, Miss—I am so glad you found us!” said the bigger of the two fat ones. “We might have died in here.”

“What makes you think I care?”

The man stepped back. He reminded her of a big fat rabbit. A big fat terrified rabbit. Except for his long, lank hair. “Please, madam, could you point that gun in another direction? This has been a difficult time for all of us. Our…friend, here, is wounded, as you can see. He’s lost a lot of blood. We’re harmless—this is our home. A bad man came to rob us, injured our friend, and left us here to die.”

“Can I?” Jimmy asked.

“No.”

“Just one of them.”

“We need them—they can tell us what happened to the movie star.” She looked at the bigger, fatter, older one. “Isn’t that right?”

“Yes, madam, anything you want to know. But please, can you get us out of here?”

“I think we can do our talking from here.”

“But our friend…”

Shaun said to the defiant one, “Who shot you?”

“Fuck you.”

“Ah,” said Shaun with a smile. “We have a winner.”

IT DIDN’T TAKE long. They hauled the hard-ass out of the bomb shelter and tied him to a chair. He told them what they wanted to know quickly enough—how they had kidnapped Max Conroy and demanded a ransom, only to be turned down flat by Conroy’s wife. “Worthless piece of shit,” the hard-ass growled. “Even his wife wouldn’t bail him out.” Every other word was an expletive. Spittle formed on his lips like a rabid dog. But he talked. Shaun knew the right spots to deliver pain with very little leverage, and the moron wanted to talk anyway. He had a lot of bile to unload on just about everybody. He told them how Max got the drop on Luther and Sam P. He was less forthcoming about the gunfight in the carport and how he ended up in the bomb shelter with the other two. Embarrassed, Shaun thought. He should be. Thought he was such a tough guy, and some movie actor outwits him.

Max Conroy went up in Shaun’s estimation. She would have to be on her toes when she found him.

When they returned him to the bomb shelter, he flipped them the bird with his good hand.

The only thing they debated was what to do with them next. Jimmy voted to shoot them.

Too much, too fast, thought Shaun. “No.”

“But why not? They’re the bad guys.”

Shaun looked down at the three men. Two anxious faces and a rabid dog.

“Please, madam. Let us go. Please, I beg you!”

Shaun relented. “OK, you can have one.”

“Why just one?”

“Discipline,” she said. “There’s no need to kill more than one of them.”

Why couldn’t she refuse this boy?

He’d had his kill. It was an important milestone, but it was only one lesson of many she had to teach him.

Maybe she just hated to deny him anything.

Jimmy looked at her with calm eyes. Adult’s eyes. “OK. Which one?”

“Your choice.”

“The older fat guy is a suck-up. Maybe I should do him.”

“No!” cried the fat man. “Please, no! Kill Corey.”

“Which one’s Corey again?” Shaun asked.

The older fat man jerked his thumb toward the wall. “Our friend with the bullet wound. He might not make it anyway. It would be a mercy.”

Corey shot the fat man an ugly look. “Fuck you.”

“Well?” Shaun said. “Which one?”

“Please don’t kill me,” cried the younger fat one. He had a whiny voice, and for a moment, Shaun thought they should kill all three—just make a clean breast of it. But no, she had to stick to her principles. She’d given Jimmy permission to kill one, and that was what he’d have to be satisfied with.

Time to pluck the rat out of the cage. “Well?” she said to Jimmy.

“Can I use the forty-five?”

Shaun removed it from her paddle holster and handed it to her boy. He hefted it. Small kid, big gun.

“Who’s it gonna be?” asked Shaun.

Jimmy didn’t reply.

He just pulled the trigger.

Chapter Twenty-One

GORDON COULDN’T REACH Shaun. But he was sure she was on her way back with Max in her custody.

Everything would be all right.

So they’d gone off the rails a little. Providing the kidnappers didn’t broadcast it to the world—and so far they had not—he could continue on with the original plan. Although it might yet put a crimp in their schedule. Max had been gone for almost three days. Who knew who he’d talked to or what he’d done during that time?

The brainwashing techniques Gordon had used were effective, but it was not an exact science. Max had been out of Gordon’s influence for a while now, interacting with other people, trying to come to grips with the breaks in his memory. Hallucinating, probably.

Gordon assumed Max would hallucinate a great deal, his mind coming back to one or two images, as often happened with sensory deprivation therapy taken to its extreme. It was fine if Max saw flying toasters or hot dogs in suits, but the important image, the one Gordon had planted so carefully during hypnosis, had to dominate: the image of a woman and a girl standing by a car broken down by the side of the road. That would be the trigger, in combination with the audible command, “Freeze!”

If Gordon was completely honest with himself—and he always was—using the mother and the girl was gilding the lily. He didn’t really need to use them. The word “Freeze” should be enough. Jerry thought it was better just to stick with the command.

Keep it simple, Gordon. That way there’s no room for ambiguity.

Jerry should talk. He was rewriting the script every time Gordon turned around. Jerry’s constant tinkering with the story—that was the real problem. The simpler the scenario was, the better. At least the mother and little girl would reinforce the message: just one more cue to drive the point home.

Still, Gordon was worried, which wasn’t like him. Usually he let everything roll off his back. He was basically a centered person.

He took a walk out by the pool. The women were beautiful. Lots of starlets—did they even use that term now?—who had already lived twenty years in just two. They’d been big names for a time but now were drifting downward, which sent them into even deeper spirals. Some of them he’d pleasured. It had made some of them whole again.

Although one or two had threatened to call the cops.

Misunderstandings, easily smoothed over.

Fortunately, Gordon didn’t have a license to lose. He was a self-made man, a true guru. He did not need a wall full of degrees and plaques to demonstrate his abilities—although he had them anyway. They might not be from the best schools, they might not be from real schools, but they were from the best schools money could buy.