Intensity

after she had died of starvation or thirst in her basement cell. He might have the girl locked under his house, which they would probably be able to locate from whatever identification he was carrying, but he might have stashed her elsewhere, in a place remote, to which he and only he could lead them. Chyna had pursued the killer to disable him, so the cops would be able to wrench from him the location at which Ariel was being held. If she could have caught up with the motor home, she would have tried to yank open the driver's door, shoot the vicious bastard in the leg as she ran alongside, wound him badly enough that he would have to stop the vehicle. But she'd had to hide that truth from herself because trying to wound him was a lot riskier than going for a head shot through the window, and she might not have had the courage to run so fast and try so hard if she had admitted to herself what, in fact, had needed to be done.
        With its burden of corpses, with its driver whose name might well be Legion, the big motor home dwindled down the service road toward Highway 101, quite literally Hell on wheels.
        Somewhere he had a house, and under the house was a basement, and in the basement was a sixteen-year-old girl named Ariel, held prisoner for a year, untouched but soon to be violated, alive but not for long.
        "She's real," Chyna whispered to the wind.
        The taillights receded into the night.
        She frantically surveyed the lonely stretch of countryside. She was unable to see help in any direction. No house lights in the immediate vicinity. Just trees and darkness. Something glowed faintly to the north, beyond a hill or two, but she didn't know the source, and anyway she couldn't get that far quickly on foot.
        On the highway, a truck appeared from the south behind a blaze of headlights, but it didn't pull off to tank up at the shuttered service station. It shrieked past, the driver oblivious of Chyna.
        The lumbering motor home was almost to the far end of the connecting road.
        Sobbing with frustration, with anger, with fear for the girl whom she had never met, and with despair for her own culpability if that girl died, Chyna turned away from the motor home. Hurried past the gasoline pumps. Around the building, back the way she had come.
        Throughout her own childhood, no one had ever held out a hand to her. No one had ever cared that she was trapped, frightened, and helpless.
        Now, when she thought of the Polaroid snapshot, the image was like one of those holograms that changed depending on the angle at which it was viewed. Sometimes it was Ariel's face, but sometimes it was Chyna's own.
        As she ran, she prayed that she wouldn't have to go inside again. And search the bodies.
        Distant lightning flickered, and faraway thunder clattered like boot heels on hollow basement stairs. On the steep hills behind the building, black trees thrashed in the escalating wind.
        The first car was a white Chevrolet. Ten years old. Unlocked.
        When she scrambled in behind the steering wheel, the worn-out seat springs creaked, and a candy-bar wrapper or something crackled underfoot. The interior stank of stale cigarette smoke.
        The keys were not in the ignition. She checked behind the sun visor. Under the driver's seat. Nothing.
        The second car was a Honda, newer than the Chevy. It smelled of a lemon-scented air freshener, and the keys were in a coin tray on the console.
        She placed the revolver on the passenger seat, within easy reach, reluctant to let it out of her hand. As an adult, she had always relied on prudence and caution to stay out of harm's way. She hadn't held a gun since she'd walked out on her mother at the age of sixteen. Now she could not imagine living without a weapon at her side, and she doubted that she ever would do so again-which was a development that dismayed her.
        The engine turned over at once. The tires shrieked, and she peeled rubber getting started. Smoke bloomed from the spinning wheels, but then she shot out from behind the building and rocketed past the service islands.
        The connecting road to the freeway was deserted. The motor home was out of sight.
        At this point, 101 was a four-lane divided highway, so the motor home couldn't have gotten across the median to turn south. The killer had to have gone north, and he couldn't have traveled far in the little