I felt another jolt-and now suddenly they had me. The police. I was captured. Under arrest. In handcuffs. Detective Rose-the man who’d arrested me for Alex’s murder, the man who was relentlessly hunting me still- was leading me to a patrol car that would take me back to prison. I was surrounded by state troopers. They were crowded around me, pressing in on every side. The open door of the patrol car was getting closer and closer. They were going to put me in the car and take me back to prison. But now a voice was whispering in my ear:

You’re a better man than you know. Find Waterman.

Find Waterman…

Suddenly, with another jolt, my eyes came open. I was awake. My heart was pounding-and it pounded faster as I realized I was still in utter blackness.

Am I dead?

That was the first thought that went through my mind. But then there was another jolt. I bounced heavily and felt a throbbing ache in my head. Oh man, it hurt-it hurt like crazy. Well, at least I wasn’t dead anyway. Not with a headache like that!

But then, where was I?

I reached out and felt the space around me. Metal. Plastic. Some kind of padding material. Some kind of heavy insulated wires.

I listened. An engine. Rushing wind. Highway noises…

With a spurt of claustrophobic panic, it came to me: I was locked in the trunk of a moving car.

My first instinct was to start pounding on the trunk lid, to start shouting, “Help! Let me out! Let me out!” Which would’ve been pretty dumb, I know. I mean, whoever put me in the trunk of a car probably hadn’t done it by accident. They probably weren’t walking around, thinking, Hey, what happened to Charlie? Gee, I hope we didn’t leave him in the trunk of the car! Obviously, they’d dumped me in here on purpose, and so if I started shouting, “Help! Help! Let me out!” they probably wouldn’t say, Oh, okay, sorry, we thought you liked it in there. All it would do was alert them that I was awake. So, like I say, screaming for help: dumb idea. And I knew it was a dumb idea. But still, let me tell you, in my fear and claustrophobia, the urge to start screaming anyway was almost overwhelming. I had to work hard to fight it down. I had to force myself to breathe slowly, deeply. I had to force myself to think. I thought: Okay, what’s my situation? How did I get here? What happened to me?