Chapter 1
SOMETHING WAS NOT RIGHT.
Doctor Samantha Parish noticed an odor as she pulled the door of her Prius closed. An earthy, almost metallic smell, the distinct reek of male sweat. As soon as the lock clicked, she knew one corner of her world was out of place.
When he spoke from the back seat, a part of her wasn’t even surprised.
“Try to stay calm,” he said.
But his deep, soothing tone made staying calm impossible. His self-assurance told her he was speaking from experience. This was the moment his victim usually panicked.
Doctor Parish’s first impulse was to push open the door and roll out of the vehicle. The quickly darkening parking lot was full of cars where other mothers waited. Teenage girls in black leotards, matching pink silk bags hanging from thin shoulders, were filing between the vehicles from the door of the nearby hall. When Samantha tried to move, she found her body was frozen.
“Don’t make a sound,” the man said. “Put your hands on the wheel. Eyes straight ahead.”
Her shaking hands moved to the steering wheel, gripped hard. She smelled blood. Rain or stagnant water, something almost swampy.
She chanced a look in the rearview mirror. He was silhouetted against the sun setting beyond the nearby park. Shaved head. Tall. Broad, powerful shoulders.
“What do you want?” Her voice was far smaller than she had intended.
A click. The sound of a gun.
Doctor Parish felt tears sliding down her cheeks. “Please, just take the car.”
He said nothing. What are we waiting for? she wondered. Then it hit her, hard in the chest, like a punch. She’d forgotten all about Isobel. She turned, her mouth twisted in a silent howl just as her eleven-year-old daughter opened the passenger-side door.
“No!” Doctor Parish could hardly form the words. “Isobel, ru—”
The child didn’t even look at her mother. She was wearing those little white headphones, cut off from the world around her. She flopped into the car and pulled the door shut behind her with a whump, locking her inside their nightmare.
When they arrived at the clinic, Isobel gave a moan of terror, huddling against her mother as they exited the car. In her ballet getup, she was the frightened black swan, shoulders bent forward, trying to disappear under her mother’s wing.
They walked to the doors, and Samantha swiped their way into the darkened space.
She guessed where he wanted to go and turned and walked through the consulting room into theater three. They passed a large poster of a woman with perfectly symmetrical breasts, a chart showing liposuction before-and-after shots. Parish Lifestyle and Body Enhancement Clinic was embossed in thin letters on a stainless-steel plate above the door.
What he wanted from them was becoming clear, at least to Samantha. She watched him undressing carefully in the surgery room, easing a messily bandaged shoulder out of the torn shirt. His clothes were filthy, his skin covered in a fine sheen of sweat. She could smell already that the wounds were septic. Trying to control her shaking, she straightened, let go of her daughter, and took a step toward him.
“You want me to help you,” she said. It was the first time such a concept had ever repulsed her.
She helped him peel away the bandages. Three puncture wounds, one in the side, two in the shoulder. The wound in his side had an exit hole at the back. A bullet. It was the ones in the shoulder that bothered him the most. The bullets were still in there. As he peeled the last of the blackened bandages away, blood began seeping from the wounds.
“Lie down,” she instructed, gesturing to the operating table.
He didn’t lie, but sat on the edge of the table with some difficulty, the gun pinned under one hand, a finger on the trigger guard. Samantha went to the shelves and began filling a tray with tools.
“I’ll need to administer an anesthetic,” she said.
“No,” he answered. He was panting now with pain. “No injections.”
“But I can’t—” She whirled around, gestured to his wounds. “I can’t perform surgery on you without a local anesthetic at least.”
“You’ll have to,” he said. She waited for more, but there was none. He wasn’t willing to let her inject him with something—didn’t trust her not to administer a general anesthetic and knock him out. But he trusted her with a scalpel. Why? She could slash him. Stab him. Then, of course, what good would that do? A nicked artery would put him down in three minutes, maybe longer. Long enough for him to