She filled the tub and sank in. A hand hose enabled her to shampoo, rinse off, and then just use the pulse spray on tired muscles. A kidnappee should not be feeling safe, she kept telling herself…yet it was just there. The pure sensation of feeling clean, safe, warm.

The things she feared in her real life were far worse than anything she could fear from this stranger. For all the sleep she’d had, there’d been no moments of feeling free from anxiety or pressure.

Yet that crazy moment of safety and peace-of course-couldn’t last. Bit by bit, she noticed sudden, jolting details in her surroundings. The first was as simple as the scent of the shampoo she’d just used-she knew it. It was a specific brand to volumize thin hair. Her specific choice of brand.

The wonderful, rich almond soap she’d used was exactly the same as the kind she used at home. She glanced at the basket on the marble counter, overflowing with the usual bathroom survival products, from deodorant to toothpaste, manicure tools to toothbrush. Each item was still packaged, new. But they were all her own choice of brands, the same products she bought.

An odd shiver chased up her spine. She wasn’t sure whether she should feel cosseted…or controlled.

There were too many products that were the same as the ones she was accustomed to using to be coincidental. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to know personal things about her, her daily life. And yeah, it had to be the man downstairs. Maguire.

But why?

Belatedly she spotted a robe hung on the bathroom door-Oriental silk, red and black, long, with a thin, slippery sash. The robe definitely wasn’t hers, which happened to be pink and old and sexless. Right then, she was happy to put on anything different from the hospital scrubs she’d been wearing.