Anger replacing fright, she hit the wall switch beside her, freezing Debbie Holton and her boyfriend, Nelson, with Gail's large TV set between them.
Gail didn't say a word.
Debbie's eyes were as big as quarters. "Hi, Gail. This doesn't look too good, does it?"
Gail had to think about that for a moment, caught up as she was in a swirl of emotions. She tried to keep her voice level. "No. Were you hoping to sell that?"
As she spoke, she glanced around and found a number of things already missing.
"I'm sorry," Debbie said, straightening and putting on an anguished face. "I just had to get some more stuff. I'm hurtin'."
Gail stared at her. "You look pretty good to me. If you were really hurting, you wouldn't be moving furniture around. I'm guessing Mr. Idiot here has already given you a fix. How much of my stuff have you already moved out?"
Nelson straightened and stuck his thin chest out. "Hey, lady. The name is Kicker."
"The name," Gail retorted, dragging out the last word, "is Nelson, asshole, and you keep quiet."
Nelson's mouth dropped open. Gail addressed Debbie, suddenly feeling lighter in some way, as if a migraine had been lifted after days of turmoil. "This was the plan from the start, right? Let the crazy rich woman work out her guilt over Laurie and then rip her off?"
Debbie's expression turned sour. "You came on to me, remember? You never even bothered finding out what I wanted. You just assumed I was some stupid junkie who needed all the help she could get. You used me for your guilt trip. Why shouldn't I use you, too?" She waved her hand around in a sweeping gesture. "You live all alone in a huge house with all this junk. What do you need it for? To show it off to your friends? Sit around drinking French wine and talk about how you're going to help the poor. You people are so full of shit. You have no clue."
Nelson had taken the opportunity during this speech to collect himself, and now took a few steps in Gail's direction. "Yeah," he said. "You rich bitches are all the same-fancied up and looking good. Fuckin' useless." He paused, getting closer, and added with a cartoonish leer, "Or maybe just good enough for that, if nothing else. You got nuthin' on under that T-shirt, do you?"
Gail straightened as if stung, the sudden change of subject giving her stomach a lurch. She began to feel dizzy, as if being pulled into a hothouse of repressed memories. Watching this boy approach, pulling a knife out of his pocket, she didn't hear Debbie ask, "What're you doin', Nelson? Cut the shit." Instead, she saw his face change shape and appearance and become the man who'd assaulted her with another knife so many years ago.
Nelson was close enough now that he could reach out with his knife and barely touch her left breast with the tip of it. "What d'you think? Want to give it a try? Debbie can keep us company."
Her heartbeat pounding in her temples, Gail removed the gun from her back pocket, shoved the barrel into Nelson's nostril, and pulled back the hammer.
Speaking in a whisper through her almost closed throat, she told him, "I don't think so. Drop the knife or die."
He dropped the knife.
"Ohmygod," Debbie said, shifting from foot to foot, waving her hands. "Please, Gail, don't do it. We'll put everything back. I'm real sorry. We just wanted the money. I didn't know he'd do this. He's just stupid is all. He didn't mean it."
Gail ignored her, her eyes fixed on his. "Get on your knees."
"Oh, no," he half sobbed, beginning to comply. "Don't kill me. I was just kidding."
That line cleared her head a little. She gave him a shove with the gun, jerking his head back and throwing him off balance. He staggered and fell over onto the floor. As he went down, she followed him, so she was kneeling by his head when he landed. He was bleeding from the nose, so she poked the gun under his chin, forcing him to extend his neck.
"That's not a smart thing to say to a woman, Nelson. We don't consider rape a joke."
"Rape?" he squealed. "I was just making an offer."
Gail reached for the cordless phone on a small table by the sofa. "Yeah, well, you can try that on the police. Guess who they'll believe."
"Oh, shit," Debbie exclaimed. "You're not calling the cops? Come on, Gail. We'll make it up to you."
Gail looked at her, her face hard and intense. "That you will. But not him. He's mine. Now, get the hell out of here."
Debbie hesitated, caught off guard.
"Now," Gail shouted at her.
Debbie turned on her heel and fled out the open door. Gail watched the dark rectangle through which the girl had just vanished, took a deep breath, and glanced down at Nelson, whose Adam's apple was working furiously in its exposed position.
"How're you doing?" she asked him.
"Good, good. Fine."
"Excellent," she said quietly, and dialed 911.
* * *
The Rutland fairgrounds are huge. They cover twenty acres of prime real estate in the middle of the city, just off the west side of heavily commercial Route 7, and except for a few days out of every year, they stay empty and unused, locked up behind thousands of feet of chain-link fence. A throwback to a rural heritage, they were created in the mid-1800s to attract farmers from miles around, offering them a place to show off their produce and livestock, have a little fun, and help make Rutland the agricultural center it became before the marble quarries and the railroads stole the show.
Not that any of that was of much relevance lately. The Rutland County Fair has become a pale shadow of its prior self, but is held nevertheless because of a wonderful bit of quirkiness. The Rutland County Agricultural Society's 1846 charter dictates that a county fair is to be held for at least one day every year, or the land will revert to the heirs of the property's original owners. Suggestions have been made to move the whole operation out into the sticks, but so far, by merely holding their annual fair, the society's members have literally been able to hold their ground.
And so it sits, a Realtor's black hole-among the most valuable patches of turf in Vermont-beside the garish, crowded, traffic-clogged, but highly profitable snarl of Route 7, resistant so far to all attempts to change its status.
This striking disparity between urban glut and total emptiness is most noticeable at night, of course, which is why Joe arranged to meet Sam in the fairgrounds' center field, having had one of the gates discreetly unlocked for the purpose. For the field was not just vast and unpopulated-it was also an ideal spot to see anyone approaching from a distance without being seen in the surrounding gloom.
Sammie Martens took her standard precautions against being tailed or observed by chance, parking far away, walking in a pattern that didn't betray her destination and allowed her to double back several times to check for tails.
After a half hour of this, she finally reached the gate and slipped inside. The contrast was immediately striking. Although she'd entered from a dark and quiet street, the pitch black enormity facing her felt almost like the sea at night, with the distant city's traffic appearing as fishing boats hugging the shore. She stepped free of the buildings lining the fence and walked forward tentatively, almost expecting to get wet. What she felt underfoot was just grass, however, and the farther out she got, the more liberated she began to feel, as if she'd left behind her complications in exchange for temporary solace.
She met Joe standing in the middle of the huge field, solid and still.
"Hi, Sam. Any trouble getting here?"
"No, boss. Good to see you." They didn't touch, although for a brief moment, she fought the urge to give him a hug.
"Nice night, huh?" he commented, tilting his head back.
She did the same, and took in the half sphere of stars overhead, usually muted by Rutland's own nightly glow. "That why you chose this as a meeting place?" she asked.