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“You’ve got to help me.” He looked down into her white face. There was no choice. He could haul her into the car and drive to the sheriff ’s office, but he knew in his gut that she’d fight him like a madwoman. He saw her urgency, her fear, pumping off her in vicious waves. “Listen to me. I’ll take you back to the house. It will be all right. Come back to the car with me.”

He put the groceries back in the bag and moved the bag to the backseat. He picked up the watermelon and heaved it into the trees, then helped her into the car and fastened her seatbelt. She whispered thank you a dozen times, maybe more, over and over. In that moment, there was no doubt in his mind that someone was trying to hurt her. He shook his head at the vagaries of fate. All he’d wanted was a nice long weekend where he could go for walks in the woods with his wife and his son, teaching him how to tell a spruce from a pine, and now he was back on the job. He turned the heater on high, but she didn’t seem to notice. She didn’t even seem to be cold.

“Where do you live?”

She pointed to a side road, up off the main road, to the right. “Up there, please hurry. He’s going to kill me, he’s waiting, he’ll—”

Savich turned onto Clayton Road, narrow, but nicely paved. “This is the way?”

She nodded. “Please, hurry, hurry—” She was heaving for breath, gasping. He drove in the middle of the road. Snow was piled up around them.

He drove around a corner to see a large house on a gentle rise to the left, lights shining from the windows on the first floor.

“That’s it, yes, that’s my house, please hurry, please God, you have to hurry—”

“Yes, we’re here. I want you to stay here—”

But she was out the door, running to the front door, shouting over her shoulder, “Hurry, hurry, hurry! You’ve got to stop him!”

Savich pulled out his SIG, caught up with her, and grabbed her arm. “Slow down. This man—do you know him?”

She said nothing, wildly shook her head, sending her hair flying, and kept repeating, “Hurry, hurry!”

The front door was unlocked. Savich held her behind him as he opened the door, swinging his gun from side to side. He saw nothing, heard nothing.

He nearly lost her as she tried to jerk free, but he held her, saying, “Where’s the living room?”

She seemed more terrified now than before, her pupils wildly dilated, and she was sobbing, incapable of speech. She pointed to the right.

“All right, it’s okay, we’re going in the living room.” He moved slowly, carefully, fanning his SIG in every direction.

There was no sign of anyone. Nothing. It seemed to be an empty house except for the two of them.

There was a lovely fire burning in the fireplace, so she couldn’t have been gone long. It was warm in the large room, even cozy, with all the lamps lit against the blackness and the bitter cold outside.

“Listen to me,” he said, easing her down onto the sofa. “No, don’t say anything, just listen. I want you to stay right here, do you understand?”

Her mouth was working, and he was afraid she was going to fold in on herself, but she slowly nodded.

“Don’t move. I mean it. I want you safe, so don’t move from this sofa. I’m going to search the house. If you see anyone or hear anyone, yell as loudly as you can, all right?”

Again, she nodded.

Savich looked back at her once again before he left the living room. She was sitting frozen, her hands on her knees, looking straight ahead at nothing in particular. One of the thin straps of her summer dress had fallen off her shoulder. Summer dress?

The house was large, one room opening into the next. Every single light was on, and why was that? Who would want to hide in a lighted room? He walked through the dining room and into the large kitchen, then into a mudroom. From the right side of the wide hallway, he looked through a library, a study, a half bath, and a small sitting room that looked like an old-fashioned woman’s space, with a small writing desk, a plush love seat, and a lovely Persian carpet on the wood floor. There were lots of file cabinets