"Aaaawwww," she cried, sputtering blood. The blow felt as if it shattered two of her healing ribs.

Pain rocketed through her chest.

She nearly blacked out.

He threw his head back. Crack! His skull hit her forehead and crushed the bridge of her nose.

More pain. Agonizing and brutal.

More feeling of drowning in a sea of blood.

She gasped, sputtering and spitting, still holding to her cuffs as if for her life. But her strength was slipping away and he grabbed hard on the chain, pulling it away from his neck, gulping for breath.

No! She couldn't let him get the upper hand.

Oh, for the love of G.o.d...

She fought to hold on, but it was too late. Her muscles no longer obeyed her mind. Vainly, desperately, she tried to keep the chain looped around his neck tight, but he shifted and pulled against her arm, twisting until she yelled.

Don't give up, Regan, do not give up...Oh G.o.d, help me. Please, please, please! Like lightning, blinding pain sizzled up her arm and shoulder.

She felt the tide turning.

She had no strength left...not enough. Nor could she keep up the pressure as he slowly pressed his weight into her, crushing her bruised ribs, intent on breaking them all. He kept up his head-banging as well, hitting her over and over again with the back of his head, pulverizing her face.

Let go, Regan...give up...you can't do it...

She heard the hopelessness and despair in her own words even as her muscles let go. The blood on the chains was slick, and her grip loosened.

With an effort, he peeled her arms over his head and rolled away, the fake beard, now b.l.o.o.d.y, falling off. She caught a glimpse of his jaw in the semidarkness, the line of his nose. But she was gasping, breathing hard, her vision out of focus, her body shuddering. Lying on the cold sharp stones of the floor, feeling blood, hers and his, drying on her body, she couldn't move, couldn't raise her head.

She felt rather than saw him climb to his feet. Still breathing hard, he whispered, "You'll pay for this, you G.o.dd.a.m.ned c.u.n.t." He spat on the floor, his promise still running painfully through her head. "And it starts now."

Fine, she thought. End it. I'm done. She was gasping, dragging in air, the taste and feel of him a revulsion. She loathed the man. Hated him. Wearing only his blood, she rolled her head to one side and tried to see him.

"You just sealed her fate."

What the h.e.l.l was he talking about? Her fate? No, she must've misheard. He meant your fate. Pescoli was too tired, in too much pain to care about his stupid mind games. She'd tried to escape and had failed miserably. Now he planned on punishing her.

Was he planning to take her into the woods, to lash her to a tree and leave her to freeze to death? Fine. Bring it on. She'd find a way to escape. If she could just get her strength back, quit hurting for a minute...

"You don't get it, do you?" he said as he stood in the shadows at the door.

She didn't care. Couldn't answer.

He cleared his throat, spat again, and swore under his breath. She couldn't be sure, but she thought he held one hand over the back of his neck where she'd nearly torn away his muscle...

If she just had been a little stronger.

"You think you're the only one? That there won't be consequences?"

She didn't know what he was talking about.

Didn't care.

She hurt all over. And he'd won.

For now.

"There was a chance she might have survived, but now it's over."

"She?" Did she speak aloud? Or, was it in her head?

He was talking nonsense. Trying to rattle Pescoli, but it wouldn't work. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Just leave me alone, she wanted to scream. Leave me be. She couldn't even muster the strength to try and determine his ident.i.ty.

"You're just too dumb to understand, aren't you, Detective. Too self-centered to think that your actions would affect anyone else."

She was still having trouble breathing, her body starting to shiver almost convulsively with the cold.

"But I'll explain it to Elyssa. She'll get it."

Who's Elyssa...? Her mind was shutting down.

"You're not curious?" he mocked. "Don't you want to know whose death sentence you just signed?"

This is a ploy. Only a ploy. Don't buy into it.

With an effort, she rolled an eye in his direction. Deep down, she wanted to call his bluff, to call him a friggin' liar, but something in the way he stood near the door, in the superior tone of his voice, gave her pause.

"Elyssa O'Leary...surely you have a missing persons report on her."

Oh, please G.o.d, no. The name was familiar.

She could almost feel the depravity of his smile crawl through the darkness. "Yes, I see you know her."

It was all making sense now. Sick, horrifying sense as she remembered thinking she'd heard a woman crying, softly sobbing. Pescoli had convinced herself that the woman's broken sobs were only the product of her imagination.

But how...?

Her heart turned to ice.

Cold, horrifying dread pounded through her brain.

Elyssa O'Leary. Missing for several weeks...Only child...a student of some kind...

"I wasn't sure it was her time. Not yet. I might have given her another week or so...let her live through the holidays...But you convinced me, Red. She's ready."

This wasn't a bluff. He couldn't know about the O'Leary girl...Pescoli licked her lips. Tasted his repugnant sweat and blood all over again. This was wrong. So wrong. "You're a liar," she accused him.

"Only when I have to be, and I certainly don't have to lie about this."

With a sick feeling, she knew he was telling the truth. The son of a b.i.t.c.h had picked this bleak moment for a stab at honesty.

"When the storm breaks tomorrow, she dies. Christmas Eve."

Denial tore through Pescoli's soul. She couldn't let this happen! Wouldn't! "Take me," she whispered.

"Oh, so you do believe me."

She closed her eyes and repeated hoa.r.s.ely, "Take me." Where there was hope, there was life. If she could buy the girl a few more days, Alvarez and the rest of the department might be able to locate this lair.

"You need to think about what you just did. And there are others, before you..."

Others? Plural? Oh, Lord, he plans to harvest more and keep me alive, then taunt me with their deaths! He intends to tell me about each one, every innocent woman that I will be unable to save. This could take weeks, or months...or years.

Who knew how many women he planned to kill?

"Then punish me. Please." She hated to plead with him, to buy into his twisted game, but she couldn't have another woman's death on her hands.

"Oh, believe me, I am," he said, his voice smooth as snake oil. "I'm punishing you and tormenting you. Forever. Elyssa O'Leary's death. It will be your fault, Pescoli. Hers and the others. All your fault. Think about that. You signed their death sentences and you'll live knowing you sent them to their fates."

She felt battered inside. Stripped bare. How many did this sick, sick man plan to kill? How many would she know were going to be slaughtered? "You can't do this," she whispered.

"Who's going to stop me? You?"

"The police-"

"Grayson? That c.o.c.ky buffoon? Or that shrewd little partner of yours?" he taunted. "How about Nate Santana?"

"You better hope he never finds you."

"Oh. I'm scared. Shivering in my boots."

"You should be." Her voice cut like steel and for a second he actually quit treating her with contempt. "He'll make you wish you were never born."

"Right."

"You can't do this," she repeated and watched as his mouth twisted into a smile of pure evil.

"Watch me."

And then he was gone, the door opening and closing with a thud.

"No, oh...oh, please, no," she whispered, bleeding to her soul. Naked, shivering on the floor, Pescoli stared at the dark, closed door and knew with terrifying certainty that she'd just sent an innocent woman to her death.

As surely as if she'd stabbed Elyssa O'Leary in the heart.

Chapter Twenty-One.

Screw playing by the rules!

Santana climbed out of his cabin desk chair and walked to the window. There was still a cop car at the main house on the Long estate, but as he watched, it, like all the other county-owned vehicles, pulled away and drove down the long lane, taillights reflecting red against the snow, blinking as the Jeep pa.s.sed behind trees.

He wondered if he was being watched and found he didn't care. Regan was missing, a maniac was on the loose, and somehow Brady Long's death might be tied to the d.a.m.ned Star-Crossed Killer.

After leaving the police to look into the tire tracks running along the edge of the property, Santana had returned to his cabin with Nakita. The dog had taken up his favorite position near the fire and was snoring softly, but Santana was too keyed up to relax. He'd already taken care of the livestock, then pulled out several maps of the area, including one issued by the forest service, then on the Internet he'd checked the latest satellite and topographical maps.

"Where are you, you son of a b.i.t.c.h?" he muttered as he marked all the locations where the bodies and wrecked cars had been found and decided his map probably duplicated what the Pinewood County Sheriff's Department and FBI had already created. "And who are you?"

Someone who knew Brady Long.

Someone who lives nearby.

Someone who gets his rocks off by taunting the police.

Though the contents of the notes the police had received hadn't been made public, the fact that they existed was well known.

How did it make any sense?

Santana tossed another chunk of oak on the fire, then adjusted the logs with his poker. As he stared at the flames he thought of Regan. Was she alive? Injured? Or...was it already too late? His fingers clenched over the smooth metal of the poker and his shoulder muscles bunched.

Inside, he felt a vast hole. An emptiness borne of the unknown, and his own deepening fears.

Never had he felt so useless, so impotent.

"G.o.d d.a.m.n it," he gritted through clenched teeth. He refused to let this beat him down. He would find her. One way or another.

Slamming away from the desk, he grabbed his jacket and gloves and headed outside into a clear night, the stars glimmering, tiny pinpoints against the velvety black sky. The first truly clear night in how long? He couldn't remember.

Brady Long's death was tied in with Star-Crossed somehow. If he knew why, he'd be a lot closer to learning who Star-Crossed was. A lot closer to finding Regan.

So why Brady? He'd worked for the man for quite a while; had known him for years. Brady was a privileged, selfish pain in the a.s.s who used people to his own advantage. Clementine was a case in point, though she never disparaged her boss.

Brady had enemies in abundance: two ex-wives, jilted girlfriends, and a slew of business partners he'd screwed over. Any one of them could have wanted him dead. Were probably happy, if the news of his death had reached their ears. But would one of them actually carry out their wish? Pull the trigger and shoot the man in his shriveled heart?

A lot of hate for that.

Nate walked into the barn and turned on the light. The horses snorted and shifted in their stalls. He looked in on Lucifer, whose eyes showed the whites, and he soothed the horse with a soft chant of nonsensical words that calmed the beast enough to have him shuffle close to Nate and even head b.u.t.t his proffered hand. Nate scratched the colt's head. Animal whisperer? Maybe. But right now all he felt like was a scared, insignificant, and ineffectual human being.

"Brady has two ex-wives," he said aloud.