Chapter 96

“Y…y…eessss,” Cam gasped. Her mind worked slowly. She was having trouble thinking of anything besides breathing. She struggled to remain conscious. Everything looked vague and covered with mist. She couldn’t gauge how long he held her like this.

Finally she thought she heard his voice. “You can pull in here, Jack. I think this is far enough. There’s no one around.”

Jack pulled the car off the road onto what might at one time have been a small dirt road. Now, fifty yards or so from the paved road, it was overgrown with bushes and shrubbery. There were marshes and woodlands on both sides of the road. Jack turned the engine off.

“This is a dead end, Ms. Andrews, in more ways than one.”

Palent held the choker so tightly that Cam didn’t even notice that her seat belt had been undone. Palent gave a final tug on the cord, then let it go loose and lifted it over Cam’s head. She gasped for breath. Her head was spinning as she gulped for air.