She nodded her head, which made him laugh, because she was nodding as if answering yes when, of course, she meant no. But he understands how haywire people think and act when they are terrified, a word that has always struck him as so completely inadequate. He supposes that when Samuel Johnson was toiling at the many editions of his dictionary, he had no idea what a human being feels when he or she anticipates horror and death. The anticipation creates a frenzy of panic in every neuron, in every cell of the body, that goes far, far beyond mere terror, but even Jay, who is fluent in many languages, has no better word to describe what his victims suffer.

A frisson of horror.

No.

He studies the woman. She is a lamb. In life, there are only two types of people: wolves and lambs.

Jay's determination to perfectly describe the way his lambs feel has become a relentless, obsessive quest. The hormone epinephrine-adrenaline-is the alchemy that turns a normal person into a lower form of life with no more control or logic than a gigged frog. Added to the physiological response that precipitates what criminologists, psychologists and other so-called experts refer to as fight-or-flight are the additional elements of the lamb's past experiences and imagination. The more violence a lamb has experienced through books, television, movies or the news, for example, the more the lamb can imagine the nightmare of what might happen.

But the word. The perfect word. It eludes him tonight.

He gets down on the boat floor and listens to his lamb's rapid, shallow breaths. She trembles as the earthquake of horror (for lack of the perfect word) shifts her every molecule, creating unbearable havoc. He reaches down into the fish box and touches her hand. It is as cold as death. He presses two fingers against the side of her neck, finding her carotid artery and using the luminescent dial of his watch to take her pulse.