I found my husband's custom platinum cufflink in our murdered daughter's coat pocket—and his reaction proved he knew she was dead before the police arrived.

Miller swore violently.

He didn't hesitate. He slammed the butt of his service weapon against my temple.

A flash of blinding white light exploded in my skull. My knees buckled, and darkness rushed in around the edges of my vision as I hit the wet pavement.

When my eyes fluttered open, the world was spinning and cold.

The smell of brine, rust, and damp earth filled my nose. My wrists were bound tightly behind my back with heavy plastic zip ties, cutting into my skin. I was sitting on a cold concrete floor against an iron pillar.

"She’s awake," a voice growled from the gloom.

I blinked through the haze of a throbbing concussion.

We were inside an immense, cavernous warehouse. Rain drummed loudly on the corrugated steel roof high above. Through the open loading bay doors, I could see the dark, choppy gray waters of Long Island Sound.

Standing ten feet away was Vance Kane. The scar across his eyebrow was jagged and red in the dim industrial lighting.

Beside him stood Detective Miller, pacing back and forth like a caged predator, his gun still drawn, sweat pouring down his pale face. "The feds are raiding my house, Vance! My wife is calling me! The state police have barricaded the highway exits! We’re burned! The whole thing is blown!"

"Shut up, Tommy," Kane barked, never taking his eyes off me. "As long as we have the bearer bond codes and the authorization token, we can be on a private freighter to Venezuela in forty minutes. The feds can raid whatever they want."

Then a pathetic groan came from the shadows behind the loading ramp.

A figure was tied to an overturned wooden pallet.

It was Caleb.

His designer suit was shredded, soaked in mud and dark, coagulated blood. His left eye was swollen shut, his nose crooked and broken. When he heard my movement, his good eye opened, glazed with tears and unbearable agony.

"Audrey..." he wept, his voice a broken rasp. "Audrey... give them the code... please... they broke my fingers... they’re going to shoot me in the knees..."

I looked at the man I had slept beside for twelve years. The man who had held my hand in the delivery room when Rosie took her first breath.

I felt nothing. No anger. No pity. Only a vast, hollow void.

"You look terrible, Caleb," I said quietly.

Kane stepped forward, crouching down in front of me. He pulled a silver laptop from a steel briefcase and set it on an overturned crate. On the screen was the authorization portal for my father’s multi-family trust account.

"Twelve million dollars, Mrs. Kessler," Kane said, his voice deceptively gentle. "You type in the twenty-four-character master passkey, scan your retina on the webcam, and I let you walk out of here. Caleb dies. Miller runs. You survive. That’s the deal."

"You killed my daughter," I said, looking directly into his cold, reptilian eyes.

"Caleb killed your daughter," Kane replied without blinking. "He’s the one who owed the money. He’s the one who pointed out the window of her dance studio and said, *'Take her at four o'clock.'* I’m just a collector, Audrey. Business is business."

"And what happens after I type the passkey?" I asked. "You put a bullet in the back of my head just like you did to Rosie?"

Kane’s face hardened. He pulled a suppressed pistol from his waistband and pressed the cold steel barrel between my eyes.

"You have ten seconds, Mrs. Kessler. Type the code, or I shoot Caleb through the throat, then I take your hand and use your dead thumbprint to unlock the offshore mirror. Either way, I get the money. The only question is how many people die in this room."

"Audrey, please!" Caleb screamed, thrashing against the ropes. "Give him the code! I don't want to die! AUDREY!"