The man undid the seat belt, put something over her shoulders that felt like a big sweater, then half-lifted her out of the seat. He set her on her feet and she could still feel his hand on her shoulder. It felt the way a man walked with a woman he liked, maybe even loved. She knew he was doing it to hide the handcuffs that held her arms behind her, so she shrugged abruptly, turning, trying to pull away. He was prepared for each move, and simply tightened his arm around her shoulders and pulled her ahead. She did not stop resisting, but no amount of exertion seemed to have an effect on him.
He kept her moving up a slight incline, then stopped her. She heard him fiddling with keys, then heard a door. He said, “Step up.”
Emily pulled back, away from the place where she had heard the door, but his arms came around her, swept her up off the ground and swung her. She was in the air for a second, trying to brace for a fall, but with her hands behind her back it was impossible. She hit the floor hard, shoulder and hip first, and then her head. She lay there dazed and in pain for a few seconds, trying to determine whether any of the bones that hurt were broken. She was having trouble breathing because the wind had been knocked out of her, but it didn’t feel as though her ribs were broken.
She heard the jingling, the metallic clicks and snaps that she knew was the door being locked and deadbolted. His hand tightened around her arm again and jerked her to a sitting position. His face was close to hers. “You stupid woman. You can’t beat me by dragging your feet. You have to kill me. Are you up to that?” She didn’t reply. “Up!” he said. “Stand up.”
Emily made an attempt, but succeeded only because he was lifting her. She said, “You kidnapped me for nothing.”
He pulled her ahead by the arm. She heard another door opening. There was a peculiar smell. It seemed damp, musty, as though it had not been open in a long time. He led her across the room. She tripped, and realized that a curled-up edge of old linoleum had caught her shoe. He guided her through another doorway to what sounded like the center of an empty room. “Sit.”
He pushed her onto a seat with arms, then unlocked the handcuff on her left wrist, dragged it around, and closed it on the wooden arm of the chair. He wrapped something around her right wrist to hold it to the other arm of the chair.
Her mind kept suggesting different kinds of pain: electric shock, heated iron, cutting. She sat very still, listening, knowing that whatever it was, he would administer the first dose without warning. She tried to decide whether talking to him would delay the start of it and give her more time, or if it would make him angry and make him hurt her worse.
“You’re wrong.”
“What?” she said.
“We’re just going to talk for a minute.”
She wanted to say something, but she knew he was probably tricking her. The last time, she had learned to speak only if he asked for a response.
He said, “You’ve been busy. I’ve seen it. You have the evidence I asked you for, don’t you?”
“I probably would if you hadn’t burned my house and my office.”
“If I hadn’t?”
“Yes. You. If you had given me time to find it, I probably would have. ” Talking helped Emily. It seemed to warm her, to make her blood circulate again. “Burning my house wasn’t necessary. I was scared enough already. I was spending every minute searching for it.”
He said, “Don’t bullshit me. You burned your house and your husband’s office yourself.”
“What are you talking about? Is this some kind of joke? Why would I burn my own house?”
“Maybe to destroy the places where the proof could have been hidden, thinking if the evidence was gone, you would have seen the last of me.”
“I didn’t do that, and I didn’t think of doing it.”
“Then you did it because you had already found the evidence.”
“I didn’t do it. I’ll tell you exactly what I did. I looked all over for what you described that night you broke into my house-papers, a case file, maybe tapes or photographs-that would embarrass a powerful man. You never said who the man was, and that didn’t help. But I looked hard.”
“And you’re claiming you didn’t find it?”
“I found hundreds of case files, hundreds of tapes, hundreds of disks that were labeled one thing and could have been another. But nothing seemed to prove anything mysterious about a powerful man. There were the usual divorce and child-custody things, the usual cases of workmen’s-comp fraud, employees stealing from their bosses, missing persons who owed somebody money.” She paused. “The last time you showed up, you demonstrated to both of us that I’m not the kind of person who would be able to use what Phil had to blackmail anybody. You must also know that I’m not a person who would risk going to jail for arson. We both know that. The only one around who might be up to that is you.”
She could hear him walking around her, his footsteps heavy on the linoleum floor, making the wood beneath vibrate her chair. She braced herself, listening for a sudden movement that meant a blow was coming.
His voice came from right above her: “If you didn’t want it, why were you looking for it?”
“A lot of reasons.”
“What are they?”
“I still want to know who killed my husband, and what secret he was trying to protect.”
“I thought your husband was screwing other women.”
“He was. I still want to know.”
“I got a long look at you without your clothes the other night. Your husband must have been really stupid.” He paused. “Unless you cut him off. Is that what happened?”
Emily was beginning to sweat. She couldn’t let him know how horrifying this topic was, or he would pursue it. “I loved him, and I thought I had a good marriage. After Phil died, I was surprised to learn it wasn’t.”
“What were the other reasons you wanted to find the proof?”
“You. I didn’t want you to have it.” She knew she was taking a risk to say that, but it was true, and she had to use what was true. “I hate you.”
“I don’t blame you. You should hate me for doing that to you. You should hate me because you’re sitting here thinking I might do a lot worse.”
She knew that if she didn’t answer, he would feel he had to prove it. “Right.”
“Hmmmm.”
Emily waited. She would scream and hope that someone heard, even though he must have prepared for that. She would fight as hard as she was able, even though she knew it was futile and he would overpower her in a few seconds. And then she would die.
His voice came from farther away, not nearer. “What did the arson investigator say about your fires?”
“Just that the one in my house was intentional. He said there were lots of accelerants. That’s why it went up all at once like that.”
“And what did he ask you?”
“Why there was furniture piled up in the living room. It had looked to the firemen as though that was part of setting the fire. I told him about everything-my husband being murdered, you breaking into my house, and then about my friends and me trying to find out what you had come for.”
“That doesn’t say why furniture was piled up.”
“I was planning on moving it into storage.”
«whY• ?”
“I was searching each piece-every table, chair, or bed-so I could get it out of there, and go through the house itself. I wanted to look for hiding places that Phil knew about but I didn’t. Maybe there were places in the walls or under the floors or something.”
“You really wanted it bad, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You couldn’t live there without furniture.”
“No.”
“So you had a plan. What was it?”
“I was going to wait until this was over, and then sell the house and leave.”