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Gordon looked at Max, lying on the gurney. “Time to get him on his feet,” he said.

MAX HEARD THE exchange. He had no idea what they were talking about until he remembered the script. It was difficult to concentrate, but he needed to. In the script, there was a woman and her daughter. There was a killer, threatening them. Max was the hero in the scene.

He knew it was all made up. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond, but he knew that this was something planted in the back of his mind. He knew they were manipulating him, treating him like Pavlov’s dog.

Freeze!

He steeled himself against the word. In his mind, “Freeze” meant move. It meant that he should fight back. And he would.

He was lifted off the gurney. It was a struggle to get him off. His feet skated under him for a moment before gaining traction. His blindfold was stripped away like a Band-Aid. The earmuffs jerked away. The light was so bright. He knew they were actually fluorescents, and dim. The lights that had been brought to the set weren’t turned on yet. But after all the time in the darkness, anything was too bright. He squeezed his eyes shut. Whatever he’d been bundled up in came off. Hands pulling, unsnapping, ripping. He felt like a mannequin. It was hard to move.

Steel yourself.

He did. He gritted his teeth. He tensed up his body. Contracted every muscle group. Made himself as rigid as a board. He held the energy inside him, then let go. Everything flowed out. It left him empty. He waited for energy to fill him back up again, but felt like a deflated balloon.

No reserves, a voice cried in the darkness of his mind. You have no reserves left.

He tensed up again. Gritted his teeth. Tightened his muscles like a fist.

Heard Talia saying, “What’s he doing?”

“Maybe it’s some kind of stroke or something.”

He could hear them. He could see. His eyes were adjusting to the light. He stayed tensed up. Ground his teeth. Held his breath.

When he couldn’t wait another moment, he let go again.

This time, he felt the power. The power seemed to flow into him, filling every nook and cranny.

Hatred.

Channel it.

THE CONQUISTADOR OUTLET Mall was located on Interstate 17 in Camp Verde, just off the exit for Distantdrums RV Park. The outlet mall had gone under. The anchor store, the Diane von Furstenberg outlet, was the largest in square footage; Tess estimated it at between ten thousand and fifteen thousand square feet.

The empty parking lot was enormous. Scattered here and there throughout, were sickly looking mesquite trees, all of them saplings tied down like small airplanes, offering sketchy shade in the summer.

Tess approached the Conquistador Outlet Mall from the front and saw nothing. The parking lot was empty. She drove around to the other side to get the lay of the land. She came in from the direction where she was able to see down the loading ramp to the anchor store. Sure enough, there were cars there.

She would check out the back entrance, but first she would make another sweep around. When she did, she saw a car turn off the freeway and cruise along Middle Verde Road. Tess was just at the edge of the farthest shop, the defunct shoe store. She thought it unlikely she’d been seen, since one of the trees blocked part of the view.

The car slowed and turned in to the parking lot. It was a green sedan, which matched the description of a car that had been stolen from a forty-eight-year-old man named Marvin Crowley, who had been found shot execution-style in the bushes below the Jerome-Prescott road. DPS and Yavapai County were at the scene, investigating not only the death of Crowley, but the burned truck down in the gorge.

Tess had known immediately that the truck would be a Silverado 2500HD registered to Sandstone Adventures.

The woman—the killer—was on the move.

Tess called Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office for backup. She wanted them to come in fast, but silent. She wanted SWAT. This was an unusual request, especially from someone who had been a detective with a neighboring county for all of a day, and Tess understood the lieutenant’s queasiness. He told her they would send a car when available, but they were shorthanded and it would take time to pull someone from the accident-slash-crime scene on Highway 89A.

Tess knew Yavapai County would be in touch with Bonny Bonneville. And she knew time was wasting. God only knew how much damage the woman could do in the meantime.

So she drew her weapon and left her car, skirting the building and looking for the green car.

SHAUN HAD DRIVEN to the Conquistador Outlet Mall parking lot and once there turned left, heading for the back entrance. She’d known exactly where to go, because Gordon had told her about the outlet mall store when the plan was for her to shoot Max Conroy.

And she had come to kill Max Conroy, but she would do it her way. She would kill him slowly. She wanted him to beg for his life, and then, to beg for his death. Shaun’s stolen 9 mm had a full magazine. She would shoot both kneecaps. Both elbows. Then one to the stomach. She’d stand over and watch him die by inches.

The kill shot—one in the ass.

Anyone who got in the way would die too.

Max Conroy had shot and killed her son. A silly movie actor, who wasn’t worthy to be in Jimmy’s presence. He wasn’t worthy to speak to him or look at him or breathe his air, and yet Conroy was alive and Jimmy was dead. Her boy . Her son. Jimmy was brave, intelligent, ruthless, and strong. She could not picture life without him, yet now he lay at the bottom of the canyon in the dark, the whiff of brimstone rising from the broken truck. And she’d had to leave him.

The least she could do was avenge his death.

Shaun felt different. She was usually cool under pressure. She feared nothing. She did her job. But now she felt as if the world were rushing at the speed of light underneath her feet. Everything sped up, going so fast, whipping by. She was one long line of hatred and righteous fury. Her body was bruised and battered, and she still wondered if there were internal injuries. But the need was so great, so overwhelming, the well of anger so deep, she could not rest until she had him. She would finish this now. The closer Shaun came to her quarry the stronger she felt. She could sniff him out, she could find him anywhere. That solid, unbreakable cable, thin but tensile, ran from her to him; her hatred for him reanimated her, kept her going. One foot in front of the other. She could smell her own hatred. It was rank like the smell of an animal, enveloping her. Pure need .

He had killed her boy.

And now he would beg for her to kill him.

TESS STAYED CLOSE to the building and peered around the corner. It was almost full dark now, thanks to the thunderheads covering the last sliver of sunlight. She spotted the green car and could see a shape— thought she saw a shape—sitting in the driver’s seat. Just the sight of the old car, the sight of the silhouette in the car, touched something atavistic deep inside her—the urge to fight or flee. Tess could almost feel the woman planning, see the wheels in her head turning—the woman who had tried to kill her and tried to kill Max Conroy. Tess had dealt with many drug dealers, killers who made examples of enemies by torturing them and decapitating them. But she sensed this woman was worse.