Probably it had been the windows, which were too tall and oddly cut for drapes. They had never gotten around to replacing the clear glass with reflective sheets, although Gerald had continued to talk about doing that right up to… well…
Right up until today, Goody finished, and Jessie blessed her tact. And you’re right-it probably was the windows, at least mostly. Hewouldn’t have liked Fred Laglan or Jamie Brooks driving in to ask onthe spur of the moment if he wanted to play nine holes of golf and seeinghim boffing Mrs Burlingame, who just happened to he attached to thebedposts with a pair of Kreig handcuffs. Word on something like thatwould probably get around, Fred and Jamie are good enough fellows, Iguess-
A couple of middle-aged pukes, if you ask me, Ruth broke in sourly.-but they’re only human, and a story like that would have been toogood not to talk about. And there’s something else, Jessie…
Jessie didn’t let her finish. This wasn’t a thought she wanted to hear articulated in the Goodwife’s pleasant but hopelessly prissy voice.
It was possible that Gerald had never asked her to play the game down here because he had been afraid of some crazy joker oopping out of the deck. What joker? Well, she thought, let’s justsay that there might have been a part of Gerald that really did believe awoman was just a life-support system for a cunt…and that some otherpart of him, one I could call “Gerald’s better nature.” for want of a clearerterm, knew it. That part could have been afraid that things might getout of control. After all, isn’t that just what’s happened?
It was a hard idea to argue with. If this didn’t fit the definition of out of control, Jessie didn’t know what did.
She felt a moment of wistful sadness and had to restrain an urge to look back toward the place where Gerald lay. She didn’t know if she had grief in her for her late husband or not, but she did know that if it was there, this wasn’t the time to deal with it. Still, it was nice to remember something good about the man with whom she had spent so many years, and the memory of the way he had sometimes fallen asleep beside her after sex was a good one. She hadn’t liked the scarves and had come to loathe the handcuffs, but she had liked looking at him as he drifted off; had liked the way the lines smoothed out of his large pink face.
And, in a way, he was sleeping beside her again right now… wasn’t he?
That idea chilled even the flesh of her upper thighs, where the narrowing patch of sun lay. She turned the thought aside-or at least tried to-and went back to studying the head of the bed.
The posts were set in slightly from the sides, leaving her arms spread but not uncomfortably so, particularly with the six inches or so of free play afforded by the handcuff chains. There were four horizontal boards running between the posts. These were also mahogany, and engraved with simple but pleasing wave-shapes. Gerald had once suggested that they have their initials carved in the center board-he knew of a man in Tashmore Glen who would be happy to drive over and do it, he said-but she had poured cold water on the idea. It seemed both ostentatious and strangely childish to her, like teenybop sweethearts carving hearts on their study-hall desks.
The bed-shelf was set above the topmost board, just high enough to ensure that no one sitting up suddenly would bump his or her head. It held Gerald’s glass of water, a couple of paperbacks left over from the summer, and, on her end, a little strew of cosmetics. These were also left over from the summer gone by, and she supposed they were dried out by now. A real shame, too-nothing cheered up a handcuffed woman more reliably than a little Country Morning Rose Blusher. All the women’s magazines said so.
Jessie lifted her hands slowly, holding her arms out at a slight angle so her fists wouldn’t fetch up on the underside of the shelf. She kept her head back, wanting to see what happened on the far end of the chains. The other cuffs were clamped to the bedposts between the second and third crossboards. As she lifted her fisted hands, looking like a woman bench-pressing an invisible barbell, the cuffs slid along the posts until they reached the next board up. If she could pull that board off, and the one above it, she would be able to simply slip the handcuffs off the ends of the bedposts. Voila.
Probably too good to be true, bon-too easy to be true-but you mightas well give it a shot. It’s a way to pass the time, anyway.
She wrapped her hands around the engraved horizontal board currently barring any further upward progress for the cuffs clamped to the bedposts. She took a deep breath, held it, and yanked. One hard tug was enough to tell her that way was also blocked; it was like trying to pull a steel retaining rod out of a concrete wall. She could nor feel even a millimeter’s worth of give.
I could yank on that bastard for ten years and not even move it, letalone pull it off the bedposts, she thought, and let her hands fall back to their former slack, chain-supported position above the bed. A despairing little cry escaped her. To her it sounded like the caw of a thirsty crow.
“What am I going to do?” she asked the shimmers on the ceiling, and at last gave way to desperate, frightened tears. “Just what in the hell am I going to do?”
As if in answer, the dog began to bark again, and this time it was so close it scared her into a scream. It sounded, in fact, as if it was right outside the east window, in the driveway.
CHAPTER FIVE
The dog wasn’t in the driveway; it was even closer than that. The shadow stretching up the asphalt almost to the front bumper of the Mercedes meant it was on the back porch. That long, trailing shadow looked as if it belonged to some twisted and monstrous freakshow dog, and she hated it on sight.
Don’t he so damned silly, she scolded herself. The shadow only looksthat way because the sun’s going down. Now open your mouth and makesome noise, girl-it doesn’t have to be a stray, after all.
True enough; there might be a master in the picture somewhere, but she didn’t hold out much hope for the idea. She guessed that the dog had been drawn to the back deck by the wire-covered garbage bin just outside the door. Gerald had sometimes called this tidy little construction, with its cedar shingles on top and its double latches on the lid, their raccoon-magnet. This time it had drawn a dog instead of a coon, that was all-a stray, almost certainly. An ill-fed, down-on-its-luck mutt.
Still, she had to try.
“Hey!” she screamed. “Hey! Is anyone there? I need some help if you are! Is anyone there?”
The dog stopped barking instantly. Its spidery, distorted shadow jerked, turned, started to move… and then stopped again. She and Gerald had eaten sub sandwiches on the ride up from Portland, big oily salami-and-cheese combos, and the first thing she’d done when they arrived was to gather up the scraps and wrappings and dump them into the garbage bin. The rich smell of oil and meat was probably what had drawn the dog in the first place, and it was undoubtedly the smell which kept it from bolting back into the woods at the sound of her voice. That smell was stronger than the impulses of its feral heart.
“Help!” Jessie screamed,-and part of her mind tried to warn her that screaming was probably a mistake, that she would only scrape her throat raw and make herself thirstier, but that rational, cautioning voice never had a chance. She had caught the stink of her own fear, it was as strong and compelling to her as the smell of the sandwich leftovers was to the dog, and it quickly carried her into a state that was not just panic but a kind of temporary insanity.