“Who am I?” she blurted out. “Who the fuck are you?”

His scowl seemed to tighten at her language, but Mari couldn’t find it in her to care about decorum at the moment. From the corner of her eye she caught sight of a foot-long heavy brass candlestick lying on its side on the table. She inched her fingers down from the back of the chair and slid them around the cold, hard brass, her gaze locked on the stranger.

“What have you done with Lucy?”

He tucked his chin back. “Nothing.”

“I think you ought to know that I’m not here alone,” Mari said with all the bravado she could muster. “My husband… Bruno… is out looking around the buildings.”

“You came alone,” he drawled, squinting at her. “Saw you from the ridge.”

He’d seen her. He’d been watching. A man with a gun had been watching her. Mari’s fingers tightened on the candlestick. His first words came back to her through the tangle in her brain. She’s dead. Terror gripped her throat like an unseen hand. Lucy. He’d killed Lucy.

With a strangled cry she hurled the candlestick at him and bolted for the door, tripping over an uprooted ficus. She heard him grunt and swear as the missile hit. The candlestick sounded as loud as a cathedral bell as it met the pine floor. The scramble of boots sounded like a herd of horses stampeding after her. She kept her focus on the front door, willing it closer, but as in a nightmare, her arms and legs weighed her down like lead. The air around her seemed to take on a heaviness that defied speed. She scrambled, stretched, stumbled, sobs catching in her throat as she gasped for breath.

He caught her from behind, one hand grabbing hold of her vest and T-shirt. He hauled her backward, banding his other arm around her waist and pulling her into the rock wall that was his body.

“Hold still!”

Mari clawed the beefy forearm that was pushing the air from her lungs. Wild, animal sounds of distress mewed in her throat, and she kicked his shins with vicious intent, connecting the heels of her sneakers with bone two swings out of three.