Mark had once gotten a murder confession from a man who’d calmly and precisely explained how he’d gone about killing a husband and wife in their own living room following five days of careful hunting and planning. He said he’d done it because he’d understood that the gods-plural; he was clear on that too-wanted him to carry lessons of respect into the world. For many years, Mark had thought he was the most chilling specimen of what could appear on this earth disguised as a member of humanity.
That was before he’d met this woman.
The flashlight trembled just the faintest bit in his hand, but because of the play of light in the dark room, the shaking was obvious, and her smile widened, a leering, rictus grin.
“What do you know about my wife?” Mark said.
“More than you, which is to say that I understand she’s inconsequential. When you accept that, you’ll be better off, but it won’t really matter.” She shrugged. “Your mind isn’t strong enough to matter to us.”
“Who is us? You and Myron? You and Garland Webb?”
“I have many brothers,” she said.
“Is Garland Webb a brother to you?”
“I don’t know that name.”
“He shared your house.”
“He never shared my house.” She rose from the floor and reached for one of the knives, grabbed the one with the bone handle. By the time she lifted it, Mark had cleared the.38 from its holster and had the muzzle pointed at her.
“Wrong weapon,” he said.
She didn’t answer, just backed out of the bedroom with the knife held at shoulder level. Then she headed for the stairs, and Mark was left with only a few options, none of them good: try to stop her and invite the opening of his arteries in the process, shoot her in her own home, or let her go.
He let her go.
When the front door banged shut behind her and he was alone in the house, Mark moved to the wall, sagged against it, and looked at the table of knives. He wondered how close he’d come, how many minutes-or seconds-he’d had left when he’d drawn the light.
And whether he’d been the first Novak to cross this threshold.
As silence descended around him and sweat dripped from his forehead, he pushed off the wall and gathered himself. He didn’t know how long she’d be gone or how many people she’d bring with her when she returned, but right now he was alone in a house that might have evidence relating to Lauren’s death, and he wasn’t about to waste that chance.
12
At first Sabrina thought the voices were a trick of her mind, because they were usually faint, whispered echoes, and in the brief period she’d had light, she’d become convinced that she had seen the entirety of the cabin.
Eventually, she realized that there was a second level above her, and that was where he was. The sound had confused her because there were no interior stairs, no evidence of a second story. Access had to come from outside.
Her first reaction to this realization was added fear, because now she knew that even when she thought she was alone, she wasn’t.
In time, though, she decided that it was a good thing. The more she understood about her situation, the better her chances of escape. All the things she could not see were potential threats. Having a greater sense of the layout was a help. When she ran, she would need to know as much as possible.
So far her escape plan had only its first step: obtain the woman’s assistance. Sabrina thought that she could get that. In the time the woman had remained in the cabin, preparing food for Sabrina in the small kitchen, she had been both tender and obviously uncomfortable. She’d kept her eyes away from the handcuff and the chain, and Sabrina was certain that they bothered her. When she’d brought food to Sabrina-oatmeal with brown sugar-she’d actually tried to feed her with the spoon, like a loving mother, before Sabrina simply used her free hand to do it herself. The woman had made a soft cooing sound and stroked Sabrina’s hair sympathetically. At first Sabrina had recoiled from the touch, feeling only madness in it, but then she realized the concern was real. However powerful the madness was, it had not evaporated the human concern, the empathy. It was there, and real, and it could be used. How easily it could be used, Sabrina wasn’t sure.
In this, as well, Sabrina found comfort. This woman wasn’t chained and shackled, but she was still dominated. Controlled. And somewhere in her, Sabrina believed-had to believe-there would be resistance to this. Resentment.
Please God, let that be true.
She understood that trying to make one of her captors into an ally was hardly a first-class plan, but she was chained to the wall with only three feet of movement; it was the best she had.
She needed her captor’s concern, and the bathroom. She was considering the latter, and not just because of the rising pressure in her bladder. The cabin was too neat and they went to too much effort to provide a bizarre illusion of comfort for her to believe that they intended her to sit in her own mess. At some point, the handcuff was coming off that bolt in the wall. She was almost sure of it.
She had to be sure of it. Because if it wasn’t true…
She cried again then, softly but desperately, her body aching. Leaned against the log wall and sobbed herself dry, and when it was done, she told herself that it was the last time.
Until the woman returned, at least. The woman who was weaker than the man, and certainly weaker than Sabrina. Anyone who could be controlled by this man without chains and handcuffs was far weaker than Sabrina. She would use emotion as a weapon, because she believed the woman would respond to it. The tools she had now were limited, and so it was critical to identify them and sharpen them.
Her mind was clearer now, whatever narcotic she’d been drugged with cleansed from her veins, and she had begun to make mental lists-the things that she knew about her situation, a short list, and the things that her captors did not know.
It was in this second list that she was starting to find more strength. Things they did not know about Sabrina Baldwin:
She had been orphaned at twelve, her parents killed by a jackknifing semi on an iced-over Michigan interstate; she and Tim, closer than most siblings because of the tragedy, had gone through three different foster homes. Before she turned eighteen she’d earned a partial athletic scholarship to the University of Montana for track, where she won conference titles. Before she’d turned twenty-five, she had started her own business, and had paid off every loan within two years. When she buried her brother, the only family she had left, she’d moved to a new town and faced new challenges and none of that had broken her yet. What her captors saw-a helpless woman in a nightgown, frightened and cowering-was not what they actually had.
Sabrina Baldwin was a lot of things, and frightened was sure as shit one of them right now, but helpless and cowering never had been and never would be.
These were the things she had to remember.
She continued to build onto the list as the minutes-hours? It was impossible to know-passed by, and though she did not move from the wall and could not, she began to feel less anchored to it. Some kidnapping victims escaped. She had seen the stories; everyone had. It was possible. She just had to remember that it was possible.
When the woman returned, she was alone, entering through the front door that seemed to provide the only access to the lower portion of the cabin. Sabrina had slept in fits and starts until the pressure in her bladder built to such a constant ache that she could sleep no longer. She’d been about to give up and succumb to her body’s demands when the locks turned.