I know. I remember.
She nodded and proceeded to take the paper plate up by the rim and lick the remaining sauce like a cat lapping up the last bits of food in its bowl. That whole business with Jennifer felt like an episode from the distant past, even though it had occurred only a day before our tussle on the porch steps. Ellie had stayed up all night by her mother’s side, and by the next morning she was stumbling from room to room in a state of hostile anxiety, snapping at everyone and anything and making the whole household nervous along with her. Looking back on it, she was bound to let loose on somebody that week, so I was glad it happened to the person on the farm who deserved it most. It was Beth who brought her betrayal to our attention, who found the phone and smuggled it from one house to the other so we could inspect it firsthand.
There’s only one number saved on it, she’d said, and the area code is from somewhere on the coast.
There are times when the people in your family surprise you, when their response to a situation defies everything you’ve come to expect from them, though not necessarily in a bad way. For me, that moment came when Ellie stood and rose up out of the ashes of her mother’s depression and went marching across the yard to bring war down upon the heads of Jennifer and her two trembling brats. It’s almost comical, seeing a hundred-pound girl pulling a grown woman out the door by her hair. Almost. Until you hear the shrieks of the older woman, and the wailing of her kids and parents beside her, and you have to run up and restrain your sister from doing something she might regret. The rest of the family, meanwhile, had already gathered outside, ready to judge the situation for themselves according to who was really in the right.
Who are you going to believe? Jennifer asked, circling round with her arms outstretched. This girl’s crazy! She’s an unstable lunatic just like her mother!
She tried to sew discord among us, right up to the end. But the weight of evidence against her was damning. Will and Logan moved her personal belongings out from the house while me and Ellie stood guard over the seething, indignant Judas. They took care not to damage the kids’ stuff, but as for Jennifer’s expensive wardrobe, they showed no concern, dumping one pile of clothes after another into the trunk of her car, unfolded and unstowed. With as long as it took to send them on their way, our combined rage had all but fizzled out by the end, leaving only guilt and uncertainty to take its place. The look on her kids’ faces was the hardest thing to bear. All of history contained within those two pouting mugs. Someday they would think back on what had happened that day like exiled aristocrats dreaming of the old country, remembering us only as the vicious rebels who had driven them from their homes, while our little brothers and sisters, in turn, would be brought up with stories about how their self-proclaimed betters had once tried to swindle them. An entire branch of the family tree, hacked off in one clean stroke. And their crime was still less severe than what the prisoner was guilty of.
I guess I’ll have to keep handling him on my own, I said. Though I’d feel a lot better if we could reach an understanding about what needs to be done. One way or another, we’ve got to end this soon, before it gets any more out of hand.
Ellie leaned an elbow on the table and propped her head up with her hand. Agreed, she said. But if reason won’t work, and faith won’t either, then we’re not left with a whole lot of options. I don’t like to say it, but it might be better if we don’t give ourselves too much time to think on it, or we might become so paralyzed with doubt that we never reach a decision.
I could take care of it. Even now, I believe I could make myself do it, for the good of family. But I need to know if you can handle it. Knowing I did something like that for you.
She looked across the table at her mother, who was working so contentedly at her stitching you’d have sworn she had earplugs in. She didn’t, though, and probably wouldn’t have used them no matter what grim subjects we discussed. All those years married to Dad, she must’ve learned to drown out what she didn’t want to hear. Same as the rest of them.
I wouldn’t starve myself out of guilt, if that’s what you mean, Ellie said. All the same, though, I’d like to avoid it if there’s a way. You said it yourself, bad things happen to people who go down that path. Karma has a way of balancing the scales.
Karma is a pagan lie. It’s not something we need to worry about.
As Ellie stood up from the table, I thought at first that she was going to carry her soiled plate to the trash bin. It wasn’t until she’d been standing a few seconds that I noticed the look on her face and turned to see what she was seeing, though I was in no way prepared for what was there when I saw it. Dawn stood trembling under the aura of the florescent kitchen light, soft tears falling down her face. The prisoner stood directly behind her, one arm across her waist, the other pressing the sharp point of the corkscrew into her jugular. The chain trailed behind him back into the hallway. He must’ve used the corkscrew to pry one of the bars on the bed rail loose. Sandra dropped her sewing to the floor. I stood and stepped forward and spread my arms out to signal her and Ellie to keep back.
Not another step, he said. Where is it? Where are you keeping it?
Keeping what?
The car. The one I drove here. Where are you hiding it?
Who says we’re hiding it?
Right. Like you’d really keep a Lexus out front for all the pickers to see.
I closed my eyes and opened them again. I breathed out slowly. The butcher knife was resting on the counter not five feet behind them, its blade held in a scabbard of sauce and hard white grease. I felt like the sheriff from one of the shows we liked to watch, talking calmly to the armed madman when all I wanted was to get a clear shot. It’s in a supermarket parking lot, I said. Few miles up the road. It’s safe there. We just checked on it this morning.
Lot of good it does me there, he said.
His dark eyes were always shifty, but now they were zipping around like two trapped squirrels searching for a path to freedom, and growing more desperate as they failed to find one. Dawn, on the other hand, appeared the model hostage. In spite of her tears, the rest of her face was marked by the most serene, albeit vacant, stillness. Clearly she was somewhere far away, deep inside that hidden place girls and women go to when they can’t control what happens to their bodies and things get too awful to handle.
All right, he said. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to bring me the satellite phone I had on me when I first arrived. You have exactly one minute to find it before I start drawing blood. One minute. You hear me?
I got it, I said, and I moved to pass through the rest of the kitchen and into the hallway. But then he took several steps back, pulling Dawn’s limp body along with him.
No. Not you. You. He gestured to Ellie with the tip of his chin. You get it, he said. Sixty seconds, starting now.
Ellie stood still, watching him, before the ticking of the clock began to weigh on her and she rushed off down the hall with her bare toes scraping the carpet. The prisoner moved himself and Dawn to the side of the kitchen, putting more space between them and the counter. If I could find a way to get a hold of the knife, I was sure that overpowering him would be easy. He may have been older than me, and crazy to boot, but he was still a soft-ass from the city, and two weeks tied to a bed hadn’t made him any harder. The problem, of course, was Dawn, and how close I could hope to get before he made good on his threat. As it was, the point of the corkscrew was pressed in tight against her windpipe, in such a way that it wouldn’t have taken more than a knee-jerk flinch on his part to break the skin. Slowly I raised my hands above my head.
You’re not going to do this, I said. You’re not going to hurt her.