“So we might not even have it yet,” I said.
“Yeah.” He thought some more. “That’s kind of what I’m hoping.”
I shot him a look. “What?”
“But if we do have it, I still have to tempt them with something more.” He wasn’t talking to us. He was talking to himself.
His interior monologue got cut short. His cell phone was ringing. He grabbed it from his jacket, looked at the screen, and said, “It’s them.”
Fifty-five
Jane, still bound and hooded and sitting in the chair, heard Joseph drag something across the floor from somewhere else in the room. She kept very still, listening, trying to figure out what he was doing.
The noise stopped abruptly, directly in front of her.
“Just want to make myself comfortable,” Joseph said. A chair. He’d dragged over a chair, one with wooden legs, she bet. She heard the rustling of fabric, a slight shift in the air as the man sat down.
Suddenly, she felt something touch her knees, and she flinched.
“Hey, don’t worry,” he said. “That’s just me. I pulled my chair up close so we could sit knee to knee.”
She tried to force herself back farther into her chair, but there was no place to go. He opened his legs so he could trap hers between his two knees.
“That’s nicer. I like that. You like that? You don’t say much, do you? You know something? I like that in a girl.”
He patted her knees with his palms, as if he was drumming.
“Badoop, badoop. Hey, I bet you’re wondering whether your dad is going to get you out of this. I know, I got that wrong. Reggie says he’s not your dad, that he’s your stepdad. I had a stepdad for a while. Me and Logan, there was a couple years our mom lived with this asshole named Gert. He was from Bavaria or someplace. My mom liked him, till she got to know him and found out he got his kicks from bending her fingers back till they nearly snapped if she didn’t get his dinner on the table on time. What he liked to do to me was — and I gotta admit, I was kind of a pain in the ass — was put me in the dryer. You know, this big white Kenmore. Well, it probably wasn’t any bigger than a regular dryer, but when you’re a little kid and you can’t even see over the top of it, it’s big. So when I was a pain in the ass, he’d open the door and shove me in, and then he’d prop a chair up against the door so I couldn’t get out. I know what you’re thinking. Did he turn it on? You know, and like spin me around and toast me to death? Naw. I mean, he might have wanted to, but I was too heavy, it would have busted the machine, and the last thing he’d have wanted to do is pay a repairman to fix it. So he’d just leave me in there, all bunched up. One time, he musta forgot he’d put me in there, or just didn’t give a shit, because he went out for the afternoon to go drinking with his buddies. Your mom ever do anything like that to you? Did she have a nice body? Because you do.”
A hand came off her knee and touched the side of her head. Caressing her through the hood.
“So, anyway, we saw your stepdad last night, and I couldn’t believe it. He pissed his pants. I guess we scared him. He must scare easy, because we weren’t being threatening or anything.”
He took his hand from her head and rested it back on her knee. “Anyway, about when I was in the dryer.”
Jane made a mewing noise of frustration.
“Don’t interrupt. I used to go to this place, like, in my head, when Gert would do shit like that to me. Somewhere far away, so I wouldn’t think about what I was going through. It was really helpful. Sometimes I’d imagine I was on a ship out in the ocean, or maybe on a rocket going to Mars — anything like that. I wondered, is that kind of what you’re doing now? Imagining you’re someplace else? Because if you’re not, I think that’s what you might want to start doing.”
From upstairs: “Joseph!”
“Shh,” he said to her. “That’s my brother. He probably wants me to do something. Whatever it is, it can wait. I thought we’d have a little fun first. Even with a bag over your head, you’re nice-looking. Some girls, you’d want to do them with a bag over their head. I have to stand up for a second.”
He released his grip on her knees, stood back. Jane wondered whether he was leaving, but she didn’t sense him moving away. She could hear his breathing. Then she could hear something else. A clinking, like the sound of a belt buckle. Then the unmistakable sound of a zipper.
Descending, in all likelihood.
“Go to your special place,” he said, his voice sounding very close.
“Joseph!”
She could feel his breath on her face, even through the fabric of the hood. His face directly in front of hers.
Jane figured, if she was ever going to try something, it was now. It didn’t take her more than half a second to figure out what it would be, and to execute.
She leaned back, to allow herself a few inches to build up some momentum, then shot her head forward.
Fast.
Whole thing couldn’t have taken more than half a second.
She couldn’t know exactly where he was — where, specifically, his nose was — but she had a pretty good feeling about it. She tipped her chin down, brought her forehead forward, and drove it as hard as she could to whatever part of him was there in front of her.
Contact. It lasted only an instant, but it was enough to feel bone meet flesh and cartilage. To feel Joseph’s nose crushed into his face.
His scream was ear-piercing and immediate.
“Ahhhhh!”
Which was quickly followed by, “Oh my God, oh my God!”
Jane felt warm drops land on the thighs of her pants. Upstairs, the sound of people’s feet pounding on the floor.
“Joseph! Where are you? Where—? Jesus!”
“My nose!” he cried. “She smashed my nose!”
“Holy shit!” The voice of the woman. Reggie.
“Logan, it’s broken!” Joseph said, weeping. “It’s goddamn broken!”
“Okay, hold on, hold on.” Sounding frantic.
“I’m gonna kill her!”
She felt hands, wet and slippery, grab her by the neck just below the hood, smear her skin. He wrapped his palms around her throat, started to squeeze.
“Stop it!” Logan. “Joseph, stop it!”
Someone dragged him away. “Jesus, he’s bleeding like a faucet.” Another man. Had to be the one called Wyatt.
“Get something for his nose,” Logan said.
More screaming.
“I’m going to have to take him to the hospital,” Logan said.
“Are you kidding?” Reggie said. “You can’t go to—”
“Look at him! He’s gonna choke on his own blood!”
“What the hell are you going to tell them at the hospital?” Wyatt said.
Joseph, his voice gargling: “That this bitch did it! This fucking bitch broke—”
“No!” Logan said. “You’ll tell them you tripped and fell flat on your face — that’s what you’re going to tell them.”
“I need a doctor,” he said frantically. “I need a doctor bad.”
“Fine, shit, okay,” Reggie said. “Take him to the hospital. Just have a good story.”
“I don’t know how long we’ll be,” Logan said. “It could take a while. God, I don’t even know if they can set that.”