And that's when she felt the hand on her arm.

She looked up and there he was. The light from the crack in the door showed the short blond hair, the khaki suit, and the blue shirt. But it wasn't possible. She'd seen him, knew he was all the way on the other side of the garage. She hadn't heard him running. He couldn't have beaten her to the door. It was not humanly possible…

She felt a pain in her wrist now, realized he was twisting it, pulling her away from the door. She heard it shut with a click and a quiet whoosh. She started to scream-maybe someone on the other side would hear her-but his hand was over her mouth and she couldn't scream. She couldn't move and she couldn't make a sound and she couldn't even see him anymore. She couldn't see anything. She was back in the dark.

There was a strange and overwhelming pressure on her throat now and she was having trouble breathing. She felt her head twisting and it hurt, it really hurt, and then she heard a little snap and started to fall to the concrete floor. She was vaguely aware that the man was holding her up, that he was dragging her to the back of a car. She felt herself being lifted up, realized that the trunk of the car was open, and she started to squirm.

And then she felt another tug at her neck and heard another crack and then she didn't feel anything.

Maura did not hear the trunk of the blond man's car close on top of her. She did not know that the Donna Karan blouse she was wearing now had a long tear under her right armpit or that the Jimmy Choo spike-heeled shoes were streaked with grease and carelessly tossed inches away from her bare feet. She did not see or feel the body of Hector, the garage attendant, which was already stuffed in the trunk next to her.

As the blond man's car slowly pulled out of the parking space and moved toward the exit ramp, Maura felt like she was floating, like she was drifting off into space, weightless.