He Kills Me, He Kills Me Not

she didn’t have a chance. She fisted her hands around the chain, hissing at the sting of metal on her open cuts. Her palms were a mess, slippery with blood from trying to yank the chain free. So far, no amount of tugging had budged that stubborn loop of metal. All she’d managed to do was stir up dust when the chain rapped against the floor. But she couldn’t give up. If she did, Logan would blame himself for her death.
    She couldn’t imagine the anguish he must be suffering right now. For ten years he’d worried that the killer he’d accidentally let go might have hurt someone else. Now he knew the answer was yes, and that she was one of the ones hurt.
    If she didn’t survive, he would always blame himself. She couldn’t give up. She had to make it, for Logan.
    She lowered herself to the floor, wrapped the chain around her hands and braced her sneakers against the wall.
    One.
    Two.
    Three. She pushed and strained, gritting her teeth against the sharp, fiery burn in her hands. Her legs quivered and her thighs began to cramp, but she fought through the pain, arching her back, panting with exertion. The wood floor creaked. Did the metal hook move, just a tiny bit? A spark of hope had her pulling harder, but the muscles in her arms gave out. She lost her grip on the chain and pitched backward, crying out when her head smacked the hard floor.
    “Damn it.” She pounded a fist against the floor and rubbed the back of her head. Unshed tears burned her eyes and clogged her throat. It would be so easy to give in, to lie on the floor and wait for the inevitable. Before she’d met Logan, that’s what she would have done. She would have felt she deserved her fate because she owed it to Dana.
    Logan had made her whole again. He’d made her realize she had worth, that Dana’s death wasn’t her fault. She deserved another chance at life, another chance at happiness. The only one responsible for Dana’s death was the man who’d killed her. Logan had done that for Amanda, he’d given her back her life. Now she had to return the favor. She had to make it out of here and teach Logan the same lesson he’d taught her. He had to learn to forgive himself. He deserved to be happy again, too.
    She took a deep breath, coughing when the humid air hit her tortured lungs. Bracing her feet against the wall again, she gritted her teeth against the sharp stab of pain in her palms and took up the slack in the chain.
    One.
    Two.
    Three.
    Pull.
    T he sun was sinking, along with Logan’s hopes of finding Amanda alive. He and Pierce had driven to the park where Carolyn O’Donnell was killed, but the park was flooded with volunteers who were already searching every inch.
    They drove to Amanda’s house but saw no signs of anyone having been there since the police finished their last investigation only a few days ago.
    They’d driven down I–10 to the condo that was supposed to be a safe house. Even though the fire department had used their hoses to clean the blood from the parking lot, a dark stain still remained. Logan steeled himself against the pain that shot through him, and he steered his Mustang to the edge of the woods that bordered the condominium complex.
    He and Pierce searched the woods but didn’t find any fresh tracks to indicate the killer had waited there for Amanda, or that he’d taken her back into the woods after abducting her.
    FBI agents had searched both Bennett’s apartment in town and Riley’s home outside of town, but found no signs of Amanda. Riley was still missing. Logan had issued a statewide BOLO alert, telling everyone in law enforcement to be on the lookout for Riley as well as Tom Bennett.
    If Riley was innocent, as Pierce still believed, he’d better come back with a damn good excuse for not answering his phone. If he had a good lead on Amanda’s location, he should have phoned it in, called for backup. Riley was young, inexperienced. If he tried to be a hero, Amanda might be the one who paid the price.
    In desperation, Logan drove back to his house and retraced the route Karen had taken to the safe house, looking for tire tracks along the side of the road, hoping he could spot where the killer might have pulled out behind her. If he could do that, he could backtrack and see where the car came from. Of course that theory only worked if the car had driven through grass or dirt to get to the paved road, definitely a long shot.
    Any reasonable man would have given up hours ago.
    Pierce had