Day Zero. Chris Jayne

was either a pickup truck or an SUV, Sylvia’s black Escalade was nondescript. Plus, it was parked behind the building, not in the front, towards the opposite end of the truck parking lot, right by the dog run area. Lori held her breath. Unless someone actually saw the Florida plates, it wouldn't stick out.

      The monster that was trying to kill her walked across the parking lot to one of the cars in the row facing away, and got into a small SUV. Even at this distance Lori could see the vehicle had Montana plates: it had to be a rental. It was nearly directly opposite the building’s doors, and as the car’s reverse lights flashed on, Lori realized with horror that, as he backed up, he’d be looking in the rear view mirror. Shaking, she ducked back towards the restroom door and slid between two snack machines. She had no idea if he could see through the glass doors into the foyer area, but she wasn’t taking any chances.

      As the car pulled away, her heart stopped all over again: he wasn’t alone. As soon as she saw the car in profile, she saw that there were two other occupants of the vehicle. In the passenger seat sat a man Lori recognized all too well. He’d been in Saldata’s house both times she’d been there, first for the original visit when she’d met the housekeeper and checked out the kitchen and then, the second time on the night of the party.

      Actually, he’d been there all three times she’d been to Saldata’s house. The last time she’d seen him, he had tried to kill her.

      The other occupant, the one in the back seat? Her vision spun and she staggered. Just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, it did.

      It was the woman she’d just seen in the restroom.

      The woman at the snack machine was watching her again with a look of concern. “Honey,” she repeated, “you sure you’re okay?” She reached out and caught Lori’s arm, obviously noticing that Lori was not steady on her feet.

      The SUV moved out of her field of vision and Lori shook her head, pulled out of the woman’s gentle grasp, and cautiously approached the glass doors. She held her breath in terror, imagining the worst, imaging that somehow her kids would be on the sidewalk, standing right there, in plain sight, but no. The car never slowed, and within a couple seconds zoomed down the on-ramp towards the interstate.

      Lori exhaled, a loud frantic sound that was almost a whimper.

      Behind her the woman spoke. “That bad, huh?”

      “Yeah,” Lori said, and walked out the door.

      A path divided the front area of the rest stop, containing the restroom and snack building, from the back area, where the tractor-trailers parked next to the dog run. The tractor-trailer parking, she saw now, completely shielded the area where she’d parked the Escalade. Relief slammed through her as she saw that neither her car nor the children were even visible from this vantage point.

      They had passed through Billings about an hour and half earlier; she’d even seen signs on the Interstate directing traffic to the airport. Given the fact that he was in a car with Montana plates, he’d obviously flown in and rented a car.

      Had she been spotted somewhere along the road and it was just a good guess? No, if she’d been seen somewhere, Denver for example, it would take a huge leap of faith to randomly fly three people to Montana, and, for heaven’s sake, for Saldata to come himself. Lori had no idea who Raoul Saldata was, but he wasn’t someone who put himself out in public. Raoul Saldata had others do his dirty work for him. As she sped along the path, she knew it must be more than that. This was no fishing expedition. For Saldata to fly here - with “buddies” - he had to be positive. He had to know she was here.

      There was only one way he could have known: Saldata had almost certainly found Michelle and Salvadore and they had been forced to reveal her plans and destination. For the last week, she’d been trying not to think about grim images of a tortured man but now they exploded in her head. She knew what lengths this man would go to.

      Lori forced herself to focus on the here-and-now. Whatever had happened to her employees, it was done. The only way forward for Lori was to get protection, and make absolutely sure that Saldata never found her or her children.

      Then, a startling awareness dawned, so staggering she stopped moving for a moment. Saldata was looking for her, obviously, but he wasn’t looking for her here. He’d never even glanced around, never scanned his surroundings as he’d walked out towards the rented vehicle. What did that mean?

      Somehow Saldata had figured out that she was on the way to her sister’s. How no longer mattered, but once he’d known that, he probably guessed she’d left Miami almost immediately, last Monday, Tuesday at the latest, and he could read a map. He wasn’t looking for her here because he assumed she was ahead of him, already at Louise and Roger’s, which she would have been if Grace hadn’t gotten so sick. When they’d left Florida last Monday, a week ago, she’d hoped they could make the trip to her sister’s home in Montana by Friday night. They should have been to Louise’s two days ago already.

      And that’s where Saldata was headed. Panicked, she knew she had to warn her sister, and she started to run so fast on the path she almost stumbled, but then she forced herself to calm down. It was one hundred and thirty miles from where they were to north of Lewiston, where Lou and Roger’s farm was. He might be a monster but he wasn’t a magician.

      Plus, he had traveled here himself instead of calling the local authorities and giving them a made-up story, which would have been easy enough to do if all he wanted was that she be “picked up” for questioning. No, he was only interested in one outcome, and while he might have connections and influence in Miami, in Montana he had to go it alone.

      Lori reached the Escalade and scanned the dog walk area. It was a nice fenced area, and Sasha was off the leash, cavorting ridiculously with a Dachshund about one-tenth her size. Simone, and Grace were sitting on a bench within the fenced area; Brandon was running around with the dogs. Good. She could call her sister and talk without the children overhearing.

      As long as a steady supply of new toys and videos showed up on the journey, six-year-old Brandon seemed nearly oblivious to what was going on. Grace, however, had realized that something was very wrong, and it was starting to show in her face and in her demeanor. Lori had seen the ten year old crying several times when she thought no one was looking, though whether that was stress or ongoing consequences from her brief but violent illness, it was hard to tell.

      She grabbed the burner phone from the central console and looked at it. So far, the few times she’d checked in with Louise, she’d called from a pay phone, not wanting to risk that someone was watching Louise’s phone line and then could somehow track the disposable. Should she go back up to the building and see if they had pay phones?

      Lori didn’t want to take the time. Every time she called from a pay phone it took about five minutes of fooling around with the prepaid calling card, and half the time the pay phones didn’t even work. She wanted to call Lou this second, tell her what was going on and figure out what to do. Her safe haven had just been burned to the ground and now there was no way she could go to their house.

      Taking a deep breath, she dialed Lou’s number on the burner phone. Now, she prayed that her brother-in-law, a person she had avoided talking to for five years would be the one to answer.

      It was. “Hello?” a deep voice rumbled into the phone.

      “It’s Lori.”

      “Where are you? Louise said you’d be here last night.” Her brother-in-law certainly got right to the point.

      Still, for a moment, Lori felt as if she was in la-la land. She’d tried to get through to Louise last night, getting a busy tone repeatedly, but then this morning she had finally gotten through. How did Roger not know? “I called this morning. Didn’t Lou tell you?”

      “You called this morning?” Lori heard her brother-in-law’s rough exhalation. “Okay, that explains it. We actually had a little accident this morning on the place. The child of one of our friends fell off a swing and broke her arm. Louise went to the hospital with the mother. They were in such a hurry