Intensity

the furniture and the walls, like an enraged animal throwing itself against the bars of its cage. Chyna had been barefoot, dressed in blue shorts and a white tube top, and the palmetto beetle had raced in a frenzy over all that exposed skin, between her toes, up and down her legs and up again, across her back, along her neck, into her hair, over her shoulder, the length of her slender arm. She hadn't dared to squeal in revulsion, afraid of drawing Woltz's attention. He had been wild that night, like a monster from a dream, and she had been convinced that, like all monsters, he possessed supernaturally keen sight and hearing, the better to hunt children. She hadn't even found the courage to strike out at the beetle or knock it away, for fear that Woltz would hear the smallest sound even over the shriek of the storm and the incessant crashing of thunder. She had endured the palmetto's attentions in order to avoid those of Woltz, clenching her teeth to bite off a scream, praying desperately for God to save her, then praying harder for God to take her, praying for an end to the torment even if by a bolt of lightning, an end to the torment, an end, dear God, an end.
        Now, although she wasn't sharing the space under this galbe-leg bed with any cockroach, Chyna could feel one crawling over her toes as if she were that barefoot girl again, scurrying up her legs as if she were wearing not jeans but cotton shorts. She had never again worn her hair long since the night of her eighth birthday, when the bug had burrowed through her tresses, but now she felt the ghost of that palmetto in her closely cropped hair.
        The man in the closet, perhaps capable of atrocities infinitely worse than the wickedest dreams of Woltz, tugged on the chain-pull. The light went out with a click followed by a tinkle of metal beads.
        The booted feet reappeared and approached the bed. A fresh tear of blood glistened on the curve of black leather.
        He was going to drop to one knee beside the bed.
         Dear God, he'll find me cowering like a child, choking on my own stifled scream, in a cold sweat, all dignity lost in the desperate struggle to stay alive, untouched and alive, untouched and alive.
        She had the crazy feeling that when he peered under the side rail, face-to-face with her, he would be not a man but an enormous palmetto with multifaceted black eyes.
        She had been reduced to the helplessness of childhood, to the primal fear that she had hoped never to know again. He had stolen from her the self-respect that she had earned from years of endurance-that she had earned , God damn him-and the injustice of it filled her eyes with bitter tears.
        But then his blurred boots turned away from her and kept moving. He walked past the bed to the open door.
        Whatever he'd thought about the clothes hanging in the closet, apparently he had not inferred from them that the guest room was occupied.
        She blinked furiously, clearing her tear-blurred vision.
        He stopped and turned, evidently studying the bedroom one last time.
        Lest he hear her child-shallow exhalations, Chyna held her breath.
        She was glad that she wore no perfume. She was certain that he would have smelled her.
        He switched off the light, stepped into the hall, and pulled the door shut as he went.
        His footsteps moved off the way he had come, for her room was the last on the second floor. His tread swiftly faded, cloaked by the fierce pounding of her heart.
        Her first inclination was to remain in that narrow haven between the carpet and the box springs, wait until daybreak or even longer, wait until there came a long silence that ceased to seem like the stillness of a crouched predator.
        But she didn't know what had happened to Laura, Paul, or Sarah. Any of them-all of them-might be alive, grievously wounded but drawing breath. The intruder might even be keeping them alive to torture them at his leisure. Any newspaper regularly reported stories of cruelty no worse than the possible scenarios that now unreeled vividly in her mind. And if any of the Templetons still lived, Chyna might be their only hope of survival.
        She had crawled out of all the many hideaways of her childhood with less fear than she felt when she hesitantly slid out from under this bed. Of course she had more to lose now than before she had walked out on her mother, ten years ago: a decent