Not that they had any suspects to begin with.

Once Rob was off the phone, she spoke up. “I want to leave tomorrow, Sir,” Laura said. “I can’t live like this anymore. I want it over with, one way or another. Either this son of a bitch is going to come after me or he’s full of hot air and gets off by sending me messages. I don’t care anymore. I want it settled. Please, Sir?”

“We could be talking your life here.” He looked at her belly and laid his hand on it. “Or more.”

“Sir, I promise, I’ll carry that gun twenty-four-seven. If he’s stupid enough to try something, I won’t hesitate to blow his friggin’ head off. You know I can do it, too.” While in Montana, she’d started practicing with Bill’s guns.

She’d gotten good. Damn good.

They spent the afternoon packing. Laura took one last short ride on the horses while Rob changed the oil in the Explorer.

She hoped she’d be around to visit next summer. It was very chilly now, totally unlike what she was used to in Florida. At home she would still be in shorts and tank tops and sweating to death in the humidity. The AC would be running full blast, with no relief in sight for at least a month.

But she loved it. And she would remember how much she loved it while Bill regaled her of stories over the winter of Montana’s frigid temperatures.

* * *

Tuesday morning, Bill had breakfast ready for them by the time they’d finished their shower. After eating, they loaded up the last of their belongings and Doogie.

Laura hated saying good-bye and watched Bill disappear in the distance through the rear window.

Rob reached over and patted her on the thigh. “It’s okay. He’ll be back down in a few weeks.”

“I know.” She watched the landscape pass outside the window. “I want to go home. I just wish they’d catch him.”

No need to clarify.

They took their time. Rob had vacation time to spare and felt no rush to return to Florida. Neither did Laura. With maintenance spankings every morning, they took a leisurely route and made a point of stopping at places of interest along the way.

Two days later, Laura’s period started, effectively deciding that concern.

Rob hugged her. “You know, when it happens, it happens.”

The trip wasn’t difficult physically. Mentally was a different matter. The closer they got to Florida the larger the knot in her stomach grew. Traveling made her feel vulnerable even though she knew there was no way MedicineMan could possibly know where they were.

This ought to be the easy part. Still, she found it difficult to relax.

She did, however, enjoy their hours together. They talked and she even read to him from the journals while he drove. More memories returned, mostly from several years prior. Every day drew her closer to Rob, and despite her missing memories she knew deep inside her decision to marry him was the right one.

The decision to give herself to him as his slave even more so.

They stopped one last time, their ninth day, in the Florida Panhandle, near Apalachicola. Laura had amassed a bag full of postcards and refrigerator magnets from stops along the way. Even Doogie sensed how close they were to home. It could have been the smell of the Gulf or just a feel in the air, but the Lab acted tense and on alert most of the evening.

Steve called them later the next day when they were just north of Tampa. “You planning on coming home any time soon?”

“We should be home in a few hours.” The sun sank low in the west. She wasn’t sure what time it really was because she hadn’t reset her watch. Her body tried to stay on Montana time, but her brain was wide awake.

“We’ll have the troops waiting.”

Laura wondered if he was kidding.

There were two unfamiliar trucks parked in Rob’s driveway when they arrived. Laura tensed until Steve emerged from behind the house, waving. She laughed and jumped out, running into his arms and letting him swing her around like she was ten again.

“You look good, girl.” He shook Rob’s hand. “Congratulations, son. Welcome to the family.”

Rob looked at the house and the other two men turning the corner. “Any problems?”

Steve shook his head. “Nope. Just wanted to make sure there wouldn’t be.” He introduced the men, Bob and Pat, and something clicked in Laura’s brain.

“They’re your brothers.”

Steve smiled. “Yep. Just wanted to check the place out for you.”

That’s when Laura spotted the bulge of the revolver in a holster under Steve’s shirt. “You came prepared.”

“You’d better believe it. You’re not the only one with a concealed carry permit now.”

The men helped them unpack before leaving them alone. Laura went to the fridge. When she opened the door she startled. “Sir!”

He came running, scared by her tone of voice.

Someone had stuffed the fridge full of food.

“Did Steve tell you he was going to do this?”

He shook his head. “No. Surprise to me.”

“Remind me to make him a red velvet cake, okay?”

Rob nodded before they realized what she’d said and hugged each other.

One more memory recovered. Another small victory.

* * *

Rob knew that next to the memory loss, the hardest thing for Laura was the actual piecemeal recovery of information. Like a jigsaw puzzle that was impossible to assemble because she didn’t have a picture to guide her. There were interconnected memories with no clues between them to attach them, which gave them no more significance than space junk orbiting the earth. Unless something spectacularly large happened to survive the descent through the atmosphere, it was barely a blip on the radar screen of recognition.

Later that evening before they went to bed, Rob wanted to talk.

“I think we need to have a discussion.”

She didn’t like his tone. “What, Sir?”

He took her hand. “No, not like that. Equals.”

She sat up. “Okay.”

“Don’t you think we ought to wait to have a baby until we get this settled?”

Laura pushed down her rage. One more aspect of her life on hold because of the madman. “Is that what you want?”

Rob knew from her clipped tones she was close to breaking. “Honey, it’s not what I want. I want us to have a family and be happy. It’s hard enough for me to risk your life. It wouldn’t be fair to risk a child. And if you get pregnant now, that’s going to make you that much more vulnerable.”

Finally, she said, “All right, Sir. Whatever.”

“No, not ‘whatever.’ I told you, this is Laura and Rob, not Sir and slave. Laura, look at me.” She finally did. “Honey, what happens if you get pregnant and then this guy sees you pregnant? It could set him off. The next time he tries he could kill you. And that would be more than I could handle, knowing that not only did I lose you and a baby, but that it was my fault.”

“What happens if they don’t catch this guy for months, years? What then? Do we never have children and live in fear hoping this guy will get caught? We put our lives on total hold and never break free? I live the rest of my life with a gun strapped to my hip and watching families take dive classes and wishing we could have kids? Or we go back to Montana and start over there, giving up everything we have just because this maniac’s still on the loose? Dammit, that’s not fair.”

Rob wrapped his arms around her. “It won’t take years. I know it won’t. I have a feeling you’re going to find the missing journals and the answer’s going to be there. If not that, then he’ll slip up and the cops will find him. Either way, they will get him.”

They curled up together. Exhausted, Rob soon fell asleep.

Laura lay awake and an hour later turned on the TV. Her body was worn out but her mind raced. Not for the first time, she wondered if there wasn’t some key clue she had overlooked because she didn’t recognize its importance.

And where were the journals?

For once, she wished Rob had been nosy and knew where and how she wrote her journals.

The enormity of the situation hit her and she broke down and cried, first upset but then angry and finally enraged.

Who the fuck is this guy to think he has a right to interrupt my life? Why does he think he has the right to torment me like this? And why the fuck is he picking on me?

There was no doubt of the crossroads before her. Either she hid until MedicineMan got bored and left her alone, or killed her, or she needed to fight back.

Rage stewed and boiled and finally bubbled over. Storming out into the living room, she opened her laptop and turned it on. Her fingers flew across the keyboard and she quickly re-read her message before punching the send button. Going to bed didn’t feel like a good idea, and there was nothing good on TV. After a few minutes she checked her email.

Nothing.

Of course he probably wouldn’t reply tonight, if at all. It was late and whoever—wherever—he was, it wasn’t likely he’d seen the email yet.

I hope I didn’t just screw up.

Whatever happened, she would go down fighting. It felt clichéd, it scared her to death, but to fully reclaim her life meant facing this madman down and she was tired of running.

When the yawning started she finally felt satisfied enough to try sleep again.

* * *

The dream centered on the condo once again, different than the ones she’d had before. It felt more like watching a TV show than living through a memory or a creation of her own subconscious. There was no way to tell if this was recall or simply terror spilling over into her imagination, but unlike the Montana dream, she recognized it as such and let it play out even though she knew it would scare her.