As far as I can see, there appears no man-made light ahead of me.

It feels as if I am standing on the same level as the stars, as if they dance around me and I am miles above the planet.

I've never been this close to the stars while standing on the earth.

"You should see your face," he says to me.

I have forgotten he is here. That he stands beside me, his hand lightly on my wrist. Steadying me as I stand right at the edge of a drop off. Below me, black emptiness. Before me, mountain crests and the tops of canyons that bask in the glow of the moon. I never thought you could have had this much light from the moon, I told him when he first took my hand to edge me up to this point.

"Have you always lived here?" I ask him. "Do you ever get used to this?"

"I have always lived in this area of the country, yes. I have long ago gotten used to this. But seeing it through your eyes, your reaction ... I believe I've grown too cavalier about this hard desert."

"I don't like the desert. At all."

"Yet you like this."

"Well, but it's night. I can't see the landscape."

"It's night when the desert is most dangerous," he says, leaning toward me.

I swallow at the richness of his voice, at its nearness. I turn to look at his face, how it looks in the moon's glow. The way it makes him more mysterious. How, for just a moment, I've forgotten what he is.

"Is that what you're going to do with us, then?" I ask him. "Abandon us in the night out there? Let nature deal with us?"

He looks wounded, as if I've hurt his feelings. Shocked him to harbor such belief about him. He puts a hand to his chest. "I gave you my word, Grace. Out here, a man's word counts for something or the man counts for nothing."

"Then why would you tell me that?"

"So that you fear what is appropriate for you to fear. So that you don't try to do anything stupid because I can't protect you if you run. They will hunt you down. I won't be able to stop that. Or what they'd do once they find you."

It is the third night we have been with him. At breakfast this morning, still just us and no Jeannette, he said he was going to be gone all day but we would see each other when he returned. It gave me this odd feeling of being courted by him.

And I disliked myself for feeling special to have garnered that attention from him.

I asked him about Jeannette, if I could speak with her, even in his presence. Not just yet, he said at first. But when I looked off, when it was obvious what a blow that was to me but that I was too proud to beg ... he must have changed his mind. He let us eat lunch together. They brought us to the kitchen. Sandwiches were set out on two plates. Water in two glasses. Two napkins. Two apples. No utensils.

We ate together under the watch of two of the men.

We spoke in whispers but there was no way they couldn't hear us.

Mostly, it was just knowing the other was okay, strong mentally, nothing bad happening physically. I told her about my breakfasts with Ben. She said she'd not left the room except to come to this lunch. He seeks to divide and conquer, I said. She nodded. He thinks you're the weaker one, she said softly, so prove him wrong.

"Maybe it's just ..." I said, frowning.

"What? You think he's sweet on you?"

"No. Of course not."

"He'd fuck you, no doubt. He'd love to, I saw how he looked at you, how he sounded when he spoke to you. But that's all it would be and you know it. He's a criminal, Grace. Probably a sociopath. Keep that in mind."

"I am. Believe me. I have not crossed the line. Not even close."

My tone was too sharp. Snippy. Offended.

She looked down at her food. Twirled the apple. "I would expect nothing less of you, Grace. We're in this together. We have to trust each other."

"We cannot let him divide us. He will if he can. I'm convinced."

"Has he said what he plans for us?"

"No. Not yet. I don't ... I don't want to ask, frankly."

"Sure. I would be the same way."

"No, you wouldn't."

We chuckled. She's an open book. I'm not.

"They're out there looking for us. I wonder if these guys realize how many agencies will be involved in the manhunt by now? Now that we've been kidnapped during an active investigation, I mean," she said then.

I knew she meant for this to be heard by the men in here. To maybe goad them a bit. Worry them. But from what I'd seen of these men and their iron-clad obedience to Ben Wade, I didn't think we were going to shake them with something like that. I would bet they fully understand the circumstances. And they know, probably, what the plan is to deal with it.

"Do you think AIG's mercenary forces are already deployed?" I asked her, pretending to whisper but wanting them to hear this. "I can't see them not bringing them in for this."

Her eyes flashed. She thought this was a brilliant thing to say, I could tell. AIG does employ mercenaries ... but only overseas so far. But why should we not plant a little disinformation? Maybe introduce a possibility that Ben Wade didn't think about? That the men may whisper to each other about?

"They'd bring them in. A terrain this forbidden? Local law this inept, probably crooked? Yeah, this is what they have them for," she said.

And then I changed the subject, asking her about the clothes they brought her ... and we talked about the gratitude just to shower and wear something clean.

Before long, our lunch was over and we were led back to our rooms.

The time passed slowly. I played cards and waited.

On him to return.

Not that I realized it. Not then. Not until there was a knock at my door, deep into the night, long after they'd served dinner to my room on a tray. Not until I opened the door to find him there.

And felt my heart race to be in my bedroom with him on the threshold, as if ... Oh, I don't know that I admit even now what it was "as if."

He asked if I'd like to stretch my legs. To take a walk with him.

"There's a waterfall near here," he says to me as he leads me away from the edge of the mountain overhang. "Maybe tomorrow, you'd like me to show you?"

"Can Jeannette come as well? I hate the idea of her cooped up inside all the time."

"I'll have someone take her out for walks starting tomorrow. How's that?"

"You don't want us together. Don't you realize how that makes me suspicious of everything you do for me?"

"I am being cautious. You are formidable ladies. You have tracked me when no other law has. If you are together, you would be stronger. I need you weaker if I am to control you without using force or restraints. I would prefer to treat you as ladies. Not as the law."

"You're not going to win my trust, Ben. It's just not going to happen."

"I accept that." 

"Then what do you hope to gain?"

"Why did you use the story you did to try and get people to tell you where I was?" he asks, motioning off to the left, to a path he can probably see clearly but that I would not have noticed. I think maybe it's all his years of living here that make his eyesight adjust to this nightscape of no glowing city lights and only the moon to guide you.

"What did you expect us to say ... that we were down here tracking some nasty outlaws so could y'all please just point the way to them thar bad varmints?"

He chuckles. Shakes his head at me. I see the glint in his amused eyes. I grin in spite of myself.

"Well, I have to say I was flattered by your story. That you opted to make it something about you and me having sex."

"Don't be flattered. It wasn't me who thought it up."

"So you didn't enjoy the idea of us making love and then making a baby?"

"As if!"

"You have a quick tongue," he says.

"You do as well," I say and don't even notice at first that we've stopped and are facing each other.

"Maybe you'd like to make that fantasy come true," he asks, his voice husky, his hand reaching out to take my elbow and draw me up to him.

"It wasn't a fantasy of mine," I whisper.

"I would be so good to you, Grace. A girl like you ... I'd take my time."

God. His voice. Soaked in lust. For me. I feel the heat he gives off. The scent of his cologne. His strength. "No. I don't want that. Not with you."

He leans in over me. I think, I'm about to be challenged on my ability to resist him. This is another test.

And I'm failing.

But apparently, he doesn't notice. Because he slowly releases me. Smiles ruefully at me, as if regretting it will never happen that I will want to be with him. But I think this is still mind games.

"Never let any man take that from you, Grace," he says softly as he starts walking again and looks at me as I catch up.

"Take what?"

"The courage of your convictions."

He stops just then. I stop with him. He puts his finger to his lips. I gaze around, wondering what he hears.

And then I hear something. Something moving. It sounds like a twig breaks and he shoves me behind him then darts off. I am left standing there, in the darkness, not knowing which way to run. Or if I should run. Can I get back to the lodge? Sneak in, find Jeannette, set her free, we both take off into the night?

I turn in a circle, confused. How close am I to the lip of the mountain's edge? The moonlight is enough to see the path but ... but I remember how the path seemed to suddenly fall away at the edge and if not for Ben slowing me down until he could walk me cautiously over to where the toes of my feet balanced on that edge, I would think I could have just kept on walking.

There is a screech in the night. I turn to face where the sound came from. Then a gunshot. Another. The confusing echoing of both shots rumbling almost in prolonged unison. Male voices, calling to each other. I decide to stay where I am. Where he left me.

Footsteps pound my way. Two men burst into view from the darkness beyond the scrub. One is Ben. The other is the one he calls Ham.

They both have their guns out. They look deadly serious. I take a step back and I am half a heartbeat from running because I just have the instant thought they are coming to shoot me.

But Ben grabs around my waist before I can do more than turn. I struggle. Hard. He lifts me in the air and shakes me. I put my hands down to try to squeeze out of his arms but I feel his fist as it grasps the handgun he is holding.

"Calm down," he says, his voice firm. "Stop it, Grace."

I go limp in his hold and he releases me. I stumble forward but he grips my arm and turns me back toward him as he holsters his gun with his free hand. A holster and a gun I've successfully ignored this night until this moment.

"Did you see him?" he asks me, his voice urgent, rough. "Did he come this way?"

"Who?"

"The bobcat."

"Bobcat? What? You're joking with me ... a bobcat? Out here? Just now?"

He turns to Ham. "Get the men inside the inner perimeter. We'll track him tomorrow."

I find myself being swept up into Ben's arms as Ham wheels around and lopes off, calling out to the other men to get back to the lodge. Ben carries me, walking briskly, looking down at me every few steps, looking all around the rest of the time. I am so shocked by the suddenness of an animalistic danger in the desert night that I don't think I even move until he plants my feet on the back porch, the one that leads to the kitchen, the one we left the lodge from not that long ago to walk in the night.

He takes my hand. Pulls me behind him. Leads me to a room I've not been in before. A library with shelves and shelves of books. The walls and the shelves are wood of deep brown. The books loom over me. I feel disoriented when Ben drops my hand.

But he is back soon, bringing me a cut crystal glass with cherry brown fluid in it. Bourbon. I drink it neat, a big gulp at first. Then sips as I realize what it is.

"Here. Grace, have a seat before you collapse," he says softly, his composure back. "Come ... let me help you."

"Okay ... it was really a bobcat?" I ask, my voice shaky, as he guides me to sit in a couch that feels like old leather. Soft and buttery with age. "Why would you have gone after it like you did? Why didn't you just have us run away?"

"I thought it was one of the men."

"Spying on you? That's what you thought?"

He shrugs. "Boys will be boys. Especially where a woman's involved."

I blush as he gazes at me, examining me over the glass he has to his lips. I look in his eyes. Steady. Frank. 

"They think you're sweet on me," I say.

He shrugs. "They figure if you were a man, you'd already be dead."

"Are you going to kill us?"

"No. I promised. Remember?"

"You could be lying."

"I'm not."

"Why would you not? Why would it matter if you lied to me or not? We're not on the same team."

"It would matter because ... because I found myself telling you the truth when we met."

"But you have lied to me since."

"I have?"

"Yes, when you called me you kept saying I was holding something back from the cops. And you knew that was not the truth."

He smiles at me. It is a roguish, evil smile. And at once so engaging. "Well, Grace, I was lying to those who were listening in ... not to you. There's a difference."

"You were trying to set me up."

"I had to do something. Besides, we're planning to hit one of your banks and I thought this might come in quite in handy if we implicated you and made you seem quite unreliable."

"And you don't find that to be dishonesty aimed at me? Jesus. Well, it didn't work."

"No? Are you sure? If it didn't work, then why are you here hunting me rather than the law? Hmm, Grace? Why is that?"

My chin rises. My back stiffens. "Well, it most certainly isn't working now. Not now that you've kidnapped us. Now they know for sure I was onto you from the start."

"Perhaps they will believe you knew me before the job in Memphis. That you being at the lake that night was to see me ... that it was a planned rendezvous. Maybe they will find evidence that you've been helping me for some time. And that this kidnapping was all a ruse for you to come and be with me now, Grace."

"They wouldn't think I was coming here to be with you, like you're my lover."

"Why not?"

"Because men like you don't appeal to me."

He chuckles and then leans in a bit closer. He slowly, softly runs a finger along my jaw and then down my throat but I refuse to flinch at this action. I know he wants me to react.

"Are you sure, Grace? Quite sure you are not in the least taken with me?"

My heart is beating fast. I reach inside myself. Stop the hammering in my chest. Put my hand on his shoulder and push him away. When I go to rise, he yanks me back down and tries to kiss me. I hit him. He grabs both my hands, shoves them behind my back and now he is pressed up close, trying to control my struggles. His face is serious; his eyes intense.

"You know what I wonder about you, Grace?" he says, low and dark. He is leaning in on me and it is hard for me to move with his weight pressing me down. When I don't answer with anything but this loud grunt of frustration to not be able to dislodge him, he says, "I wonder if good girls like you taste the same as bad girls when you come."

Something about the rawness of the remark. About how it sounds real, as if he's thought this, pondered it ... it surprises me. Catches me out. My mouth opens to say something, anything ... but all I do is breathe.

This is when he kisses me.

When I am open-mouthed and panting ... and no longer struggling.

"You're in luck. It's been a good rainy season this year. So the waterfall is running now ... can you hear it?" he asks me.

I have not said a word to him all day. Not a word. Not even 'please' or 'go to hell.' It does not faze him in the least. It is now almost high noon. I am walking with him only because he said he'd lash me to a horse and have me carried here if I didn't just walk along, obediently. Silently. He says he likes my silence but I think he says that because he knows I won't talk. He has to have the upper hand.

"Grace?" he asks, turning to look at me. "I asked you a question."

I nod my head.

He chuckles and takes my hand in his. "The walk will do you good. Burn off some of that bullheadedness. Make you more reasonable."

I don't respond.

Another 15 minutes or so and we reach the stream that he says we will follow. He tells me about the clear, sweet pool of water at the end. The pool formed by the waterfall. I would never have guessed there'd be a waterfall in the desert. But I am too proud to ask him about it even though I'd like to know.

He carries a picnic basket as if it is a Sunday and he is taking his best girl to the church social. Only I would bet he's never been inside a church as an adult.

We did not eat breakfast together this morning. He was out with some of the men, tracking the bobcat from last night. They found it and I was watching out the window when they returned, on horseback, the cat slung over one of the horses. I did not stay at the window for I did not want to see what they did to the dead animal.

I carry a quilt. It is deep blue cotton on one side and various squares of cotton on the other. It is machine-made, you can tell that right up front. He made a comment about it when he pressed it into my hands, about how in his day women made their reputations on the quality of their quilts. "Mind you, not the women I knew intimately, but the ladies did," he added, looking at me as if taking my temperature.

We have hiked about 45 minutes. I am hot, thirsty. I am desperate to see Jeannette but I won't ask him because I won't speak.

"Spread the quilt there, under the tree ... in the shade. You look all done in from the sun, Grace," he says when we reach the edge of the pool.

I stand for a minute, just looking at what seems a miracle to me. A mirage. There is before me a wall of granite that juts up maybe three stories. At the top, a small ledge extends out and this is where the water falls, rushing down over and over until it splashes into a pool of water that spreads before me. The pool has rocks along several parts of its edges, boulders really. But near the spot where he has pointed me, the edge of the pool is muddy and open. Reeds grow along the far bank.

He waits on me. He must realize this is not disobedience but awe that such a place is possible in the desert that I always believed was nothing but barren rocks and sand and cacti. When I spread the quilt out, he plops the picnic basket on one corner and lets the canteen down from where he's carried it over his shoulder.

"Are you thirsty?" he asks me, holding out the canteen.

If I were not about to pass out from thirst, I would not approach him and take it from him. I am so wary of him. But I am more thirsty than wary. It reminds me of a dog my father coaxed into our car once ... a poor, bedraggled dog who had wandered across our path when we were out walking. He was so scared, bone thin, tail between his legs, panting. My dad said, look, his paw's bleeding, see the bloody footprints. He made me stay with him, said to talk softly, see if I could get him to let me help him. My dad ran all the way home and brought the car back. He brought a bowl of clean water and it's how he got the dog to follow him to the car and to let him lift him up and put him on the floor. The dog lapped the water for blocks. When we got to the vet, the dog was passed out in the back, asleep.

This is how I feel.

I understand the dog now.

The water is cool and tastes sweet, tinny. I would drink and drink and drink until I fill my body with it. But Ben takes it from me, gently, saying not so much, not so fast.

"Sit on the quilt, Grace. Here ... that's right. Look in the hamper ... there's apples ... would you like an apple?"

My hands dig through the basket and I suddenly see myself. Have I been reduced to this craven, messy girl by a simple hike in the hot sun? What's wrong here? I catch myself and change what I'm doing. I start bringing things out, one at a time, carefully, placing them on the quilt.

I build a row of plates, glasses and food containers. A wall of them demarcating his side of the quilt from mine. He stretches out on his side but then moves the plates so his elbow can be on my side of the line. I pretend not to notice.

"Would you like to serve us, Grace? I bet a good girl like you knows just how to do it the right way."

My eyes flash up to his. He is mocking me. I bunch my hand into a fist but do nothing with it. And then I dutifully make us plates of food. I have eaten nothing all day and I am so hungry. But I force myself to eat with manners. I will not watch myself degenerate before this man.

"Why are you so angry with me, Grace? What have I done that has so wronged you between last night and today?"

I look off toward the waterfall.

"If you continue this behavior, there will be consequences."

I look in his eyes.

"Grace, are you mad at me because I kissed you last night? Or because all I did was kiss you?"

"You are never going to break me," I tell him. "I will never trust you. Never."

"Do you know what I think is the matter with you? I think you wanted me to force myself on you. I think you liked that kiss a hell of a lot more than you wanted to believe you would. And when I stopped, you were the one pulling me down to do it again. You're feeling guilty about that but it's not my fault you did that, Grace. It's yours."

I feel tears prick my eyes.

His voice turns soft. "Gracie, I would have taken you to my bed last night. I wanted to. I have for a while. But I have no experience with good girls like you. That's why I stopped."

"Don't say that ... this is ridiculous."

"It's the truth."

"Men like you ... they fuck good girls all the time."

"Not me, Gracie. Fallen angels, maybe, when I've been lucky. But not girls like you. They're always married to fine upstanding men. Or engaged to them. They may look at me, but ..."

"That's a laugh. You know what really happens with men like you ... men who divide women into 'good' or 'bad'? You figure any woman who gives in to your seduction, who goes to bed with you ... she may have been in your 'good' category, which is why you chased after her, but as soon as she crawls into bed with you, she's instantly moved into the 'bad' category."

He munches on an apple and considers this. He is watching me, focused on me. I put a sandwich in my mouth, bite off a chunk and chew it. I don't even know what I'm eating. I have no taste buds.

"Is that why you're not married, Gracie?"

"I am not going to talk about my personal life with you."

"How much money do you make each year?"

"Oh, now we're down to it. You're going to bribe me to forget that we found you?"

"A little late for that, don't you think?"

I swallow. Yes, it is far too late.

"Jeannette ... she's more than just someone you work with. She's a friend. A good one. You're worried about her. About her making it out of here. Aren't you?"

I nod. Breathe in the fear. Let it go. Nothing I can do but accept it. Where is he going with this? He's probing my weak points, trying to find an advantage, a way in so he can compromise me. The sexual come on was only the starting point.

"What if there was a way you could save her from harm in all of this, Grace? What if you had the power to set her free?" he says, now turning over onto his back, stretching out, his hands cupping the back of his head after he tosses the apple core away.

This is it, then. What it will all come down to.

"What is it you really want from us?"

"Not from both of you. Just from you."

"What? Sex? That's what you want? You fuck me and then you'll let us go?"

"Don't be crude. It does not become you," he says sharply. And then takes a deep breath before saying calmly, "We're negotiating for Jeannette's freedom ... not yours."

"And you'd let her go?"

He closes his eyes. Long minutes pass. Now we both know I have a price. Despite what I told him the night before. His mouth pulling away from mine. My hand wrapped in his hair, not meaning to. It pulled him back into me. He settled in atop me. I was lost in the second kiss.

But then I pictured her ... Jeannette ... pictured her finding out I'd let go of my principles ... that I'd endangered us by letting him divide us. Because that's how it starts. With something like that kiss ... and if I'd gone further, if I'd taken what he was offering, then I'd have slid down the slippery slope. And the danger would have been that she would have been expendable if I'd shown that I'd cooperate with him once I was compromised that way.

He'd felt me stiffen under him. Mistook it for fear when it was disgust at myself. He whispered to me ... shh, it's all right, Grace, I won't hurt you.

He was hard. He put my hand there, to feel. Looked at me. And I said I would not betray her. And I couldn't do it. No, I couldn't do it. There was something I read in his eyes, something that looked so true and open, and it haunts me that I believed I was seeing something inside him worth exploring. And felt contrite in that moment. And had this instant agony that maybe I was wrong about what he was feeling about me.

But then he climbed off of me. Put his hand out to help me up. Walked me to my door. Opened it, stepped inside as I went in. Stood there looking around. I was still breathing hard. And I do know that if he'd touched me again, fought for me, I would have let go.

And I have been so ashamed ever since. And frightened. It's me I'm so angry with this morning ... not him. I know what he's doing - trying to get me to his side. Stockholm Syndrome. I know all this and I am shocked how vulnerable I am to him.

I have a price now.

It is out on the table between us to negotiate.

It is Jeannette's freedom. Probably her life, as well.

For I have endangered her by my actions. I could never live a second if she was harmed because of something I did. I would never deal with it.

He rolls back on his side and gazes at me before speaking. "You have thought, haven't you, Grace, about what I really want? You know it's not your virtue I'm after. What is it you think I really am after, keeping you and Jeannette here? Why did we take you in the first place?"

"I think you took us at first because we were too close. But I think you knew even when you were planning it that I was really going to make it easy on you to blackmail me into helping you rob another transport. The one in Little Rock."

His hand reaches across. Past the wall of food containers. Strokes my knee idly. "I am not always certain such schemes will work."

"It wouldn't have worked if I'd stayed in Memphis. I knew you were setting me up. Ironic, isn't it? That's why I came here ... to keep you from being successful in making it look like I had been helping you set up the bank."

"Maybe this was fate then?"

"This is you breaking the law."

"Come to the water with me, Grace. Go for a swim? Cool off a bit?"

He rises slowly. Holds a hand out to help me up.

These are the negotiations he always wanted with me. He was always setting me up. I guess we just didn't realize it'd take this turn.

We're walking toward the water. He sits on one of the boulders. Kicks off his boots. Unbuttons his shirt, not looking at me. Leaving it on the boulder. Now stripping a t-shirt off, over his head. And I see the expanse of his chest ... and remember feeling it against mine the night before as I moved under him on the couch. Remember feeling safe and in danger. Remember knowing he was a man, not a boy, experienced and wanting. Testosterone on two feet.

I walk around to another side, where boulders seem made to climb on.

There is a splash and I know he's jumped in. I glance back and see scattered clothing on the boulder. And then watch him swimming slowly, notice his skin, bare skin, sliding through the water.

Leaning against the boulder I'm near, I untie my hiking boots and then drop my jeans. He is swimming fast toward the waterfall when I step into the pool, wearing my bra and panties. I have reasoned that my bikinis show more than this so it's okay. I gasp at the chill against my heated skin. Mud is beneath my bare feet. And then the water is deep enough to swim in.

I swim along one side; he swims near the foaming water where the waterfall cascades. He calls my name. Wants me to come over there. To feel the force of the water. To fully experience this.

My eyes are wide open. And I can do anything now. Now that I know I am going to successfully bargain for Jeannette's freedom. That will absolve me of falling down on the job. It had to come to this. If not, we'd both die ... I really see no other final conclusion to something like this hostage situation. He will simply realize we stand between him and what he wants. Like the two men in Memphis who were just doing their jobs. Just like we are doing ours.

Except I am not really doing mine.

"Do you know what it is you will give me in exchange for me letting her go free and safe?"

"It has something to do with the Little Rock shipment."

"It has nothing to do with Little Rock. And everything."

My chin is in the water as I swim toward him and then we are circling each other. I can feel bits of the outer edges of the spray hitting my head.

"We are going after the next Atlanta shipment to the main Chase bank in Nashville."

"From the federal reserve there?"

"Exactly."

"You'll never get near it. Too many security measures. The route changes every time."

He smiles and reaches for me, pulling me in. I do not resist. I am curious what he thinks I can help with. "I have it on good authority that if you were to give us your password and user ID for your company's secure site ..."

"You must be joking!"

"... then we can gain the details of the itinerary for that shipment. And codes for the warehouse in Little Rock."

"Little Rock? You said Atlanta!"

He tilts his head to the side and pulls me along with him as he swims backwards, closer to the spray. "I want them to think it's Little Rock. They already do. Don't they?"

"Yes."

"So I want to confuse them. And then we will take the second car leaving the Atlanta facility, heading to the airport for the plane transport to Nashville. We will not be in Little Rock where they are beefing up security."

"And if I give you this ... the passwords ..."

"When I leave, I will take Jeannette with me. I will leave her in New Mexico at a location where she will be discovered about an hour or so before we are ready to move in Atlanta ... just before the shipment is set to leave the airport warehouse in Little Rock."

"So it's all happening at once that way ... I see."

"Maximize confusion. Generate mistakes."

"But you promise she will be safe?"

"Of course. It benefits my plan the most that she be found alive ... she will tell them we are in Little Rock because that is what she will 'accidentally' overhear one of the boys say."

I picture the two guards in Memphis. And know that the same thing can happen in Atlanta. I can only save so many people.

"Do we have a deal, Grace?"

"I have one condition."

"Of course."

"Do not tell her what I've done. Let her have some doubt as to whether or not I'd do this. Can you do that?"

He pulls me in until I am in his arms. They circle me. I let my arms float in the water. I don't want to touch him. Not voluntarily. He is nude against me. He should be the one who's vulnerable but his naked maleness is anything but vulnerable.

"Yes, I can do that for you, Gracie. I'm curious, though. You haven't asked what I will do with you once Jeannette is free," he says against my ear.

We are suddenly in the midst of the force of the water that tumults from the high ledge. I lose my breath, gasping at the suddenness of the attack, the stinging, the cold, the power. He is gripping me tightly to him. My arms go around his neck, my legs around his waist. I cling to him and struggle to breathe. The noise is deafening. And then we are through. Into a blessed stillness inside a cave formed behind the waterfall. It is dark. Cold. It is all that exists in the world.

I do not release him.

He rubs my back and then kisses me.

When he breaks it, we look at each other.

"You'll kill me," I say softly, my forefinger playing with his lips, running along their outline. "And I'll be okay with that because my life's not going to be worth living after this anyway."

"I am not going to kill you."

"You'll have to. Eventually. This cannot end any other way."

"When I come back, I'll set you free, Grace."

"Because I won't be any use to you anymore."

"Maybe it's like you said before. Maybe because you won't be a good girl to me anymore, Grace."

"I never was the good girl you thought I was."

"What's good about you is what's in here," he whispers, his mouth now just under my ear, his hand over my heart. "The way you stay true to what you believe in. It's not about virtue. It's your morality."

"You bought me off. That's not very moral."

"I never was just the man you thought I was. I'm not perfect but inside me, I know there's more to me than you see. Didn't you ever once want to know more?"

"From the first moment I saw you wearing that shirt ..."

But this much I know. Once Jeannette is safe, once she's long gone, then he can't hold me. Once it's only my life I will have to risk, I will risk it all. I will be long gone before he ever returns.