She was wary. “What do you want me to wear?”
He could hear in her voice a kind of surprise, mixed with the terror he had been trying to instill in her.
She desperately wanted to be dressed, hated the vulnerability and humiliation of being naked in front of a stranger, and hoped that getting dressed meant the danger of rape was passing. But she also had wildly contradictory theories-that this was the worst sign possible, because it meant he was going to kill her, or that he merely had some fantasy about taking a partially dressed woman, or that he was a sadist who got his victims to hope, and took pleasure in taking away the hope.
“A pair of jeans, a pullover shirt of some kind, a pair of sandals.”
She bent to the floor and picked up the underwear and bra she had just taken off, and put them on. “I’m going to the closet for the jeans.” She stepped to the closet, took a pair of jeans from a hanger, set the hanger on the bed, and stepped into the jeans. “I’m going to the dresser for a top.”
Hobart knew she must be thinking about the places where the guns were kept, trying to judge the angles to tell whether she could pick up a gun, turn, and fire before he could pull a trigger. She had to be thinking about that. He stepped to the side quickly to change his view and test her, and she simply stopped. She stood perfectly still with both hands held out in front of her with the fingers spread so he could see she wasn’t holding anything. She remained there, her eyes staring at the dresser in front of her.
“All right,” he said. “Keep going.”
She reached into the drawer and took out a thin red pullover top with long sleeves. She slipped it on over her head. “I’m going back to the closet for the sandals.” She walked to the closet, stepped into a pair of sandals, and waited.
“Okay,” he said. “Come with me.”
“With you? You’re taking me away?” She looked shocked.
“I could kill you right now, or I can give you time to remember something that will help me find what I want. For the moment, that sounds better than killing you.”
She was terrified. He could tell that until now she had been keeping herself from collapsing by reminding herself that she was in her house. No matter what he did, at some point it would be over, and he would leave. She would still be here, alive in this house. “You’re kidnapping me?”
He glared at her, and she stepped around the bed toward him meekly, her shoulders hunched a little to ward off the blow that she expected to feel when she passed near him. He stepped aside and she walked out of the room to the upstairs hallway.
Hobart was still in the room. He pulled up the blinds to look out the window, and the sight confirmed his feeling that too much time had passed. Light was beginning to illuminate the sky in the east, and every second the outlines of objects outside were becoming almost imperceptibly clearer and sharper. If he waited any longer, he would find himself trying to abduct a woman at the start of the morning rush, stuck in traffic with commuters all around him.
He stepped quickly to the staircase and took her arm. “Hurry.”
The silence was broken by a sound outside the house. It was a car engine, and Hobart could tell it was slowing down for a turn. Then he saw headlights sweep across the front windows near the bottom of the stairs, brighten, and then go out.
Hobart dragged her back up the stairs, then along the hall to the bedroom at the front of the house. It was a guest bedroom, furnished with a bed, dresser, nightstand and lamp, a comfortable chair. Hobart held her wrist as he went to the front window. He peered between the blinds to look down at the front steps, then jerked her arm, grasped the back of her neck, and forced her to look. “Who is that?”
“It’s just one of the guys from the agency.”
“What’s his name?”
“Dewey Burns.”
“What’s he doing here at this hour?”
“I don’t know. I know he gets up early every day, and he knows I do, too.”
Hobart said, “All right.” He took out a big lockblade knife, opened it, and cut the ropes from the blinds. He pushed her down on the bed, dragged her wrists behind her and tied them, then tied the wrists to her ankles. It felt terribly tight, but she didn’t dare speak. He slashed two strips of cloth from a pillowcase, stuffed one in her mouth and tied the other behind her head for a gag to keep it there. He put his face right behind her ear and said, “If he comes after me, I’ll kill him. If he comes in before I’m gone, I’ll kill you both.”
She lay still on the bed, and heard his footsteps receding, then the door to the hallway closing.
14
The man was gone. Emily lay on the bed with the cords from the blinds cutting into her wrists and ankles. She bent her knees to bring her ankles closer to relieve the pressure, but the effort quickly tired her legs.
She heard the doorbell again, so loud in the empty house. She tried wriggling her wrists out of the cord, but the man had tied them too tightly. She fought against the cord, but it seemed to tighten the knots. She knew that the next part was not going to feel good, but she began to rock. She rocked until she was sitting on one haunch with her knees bent and her feet beside her.
In this awkward position, the weight of her body kept her knees bent as far as they could be, and let some of the rope go slack. She could reach the knot around her ankles with her fingertips.
The doorbell chimed a third time, and she tried to shout, but the gag was tight, and the scream she had intended was muted to a small squeal through her nose. She worked harder on the knot.
And then she had it. Her legs straightened, the cord lashing out from around the ankles quickly as she pulled.
Emily swung her legs off the bed, ran to the door, then sidestepped quickly down the stairs to the front door. She kicked it to let Dewey know she was in here. She turned away from the door and tried to turn the knob. She was barely able to reach it with her hands tied behind her. She strained to turn it and, after a couple of tries, succeeded.
Dewey pushed the door inward.
“Emily!” He pulled the gag down so it was like a scarf around her neck, and she leaned to spit the cloth out on the floor. He was behind her, untying her wrists. “What happened? Who did this?”
“A man. I didn’t know him. I woke up and he was there in my bedroom. He had a gun, and a ski mask. He was trying to kidnap me, but you got here.” As she spoke, she felt as though she were conjuring the man, and her words might bring him back. She pushed herself away from Dewey and stepped cautiously to the entrance to the living room, looking for a place where the man might still be hiding.
Dewey had his cell phone out, and he was dialing. “My name is Dewey Burns. I’m going to put Mrs. Emily Kramer on. She’s been assaulted by a man with a gun and ski mask at 9553 Sunnyland Avenue in Van Nuys. The man just left. I’ll let her describe him.” He put the phone in Emily’s hand, pulled a gun out of a holster under his coat, and slipped past her to the big sliding door in the living room. He slid it open and moved outside, the gun held ready in his hand.
Emily said, “Hello?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The woman’s voice was distant, as though she were talking into a speakerphone. “Officers are on their way, but right now you need to give me a description.”
“He was about six feet tall, maybe one eighty or so. He was muscular, but not really big. He wore a ski mask, but I could see he was white, with blue eyes.”
“Hair color?”
“I couldn’t see it.”
“What else was he wearing?”
“A jacket that was blue, like a windbreaker, nylon. It made a sound like a whisper when he moved fast. Black jeans. Not blue, black. And a dark blue shirt.”
“Did he wear glasses?”