"No need to have these guys beating the bushes around here," he said. "Sorry, Mary. That means he's gone."
Chapter 27
He'd blindfolded her-something Gillian knew killers did to depersonalize, disorient, and control their victims.
Fear heightened her senses as the trunk lid groaned open.
She smelled his nervous sweat, heard his rapid breathing; she smelled the rubber of the spare tire beside her, and the heavy dark stench of burnt engine oil. She felt his fingers wrap around her arm.
He pulled her from the trunk. Her legs, unprotected in cotton pajama pants, dragged across the metal latch, scraping her shinbone.
He shoved her forward, a hand to her back, one on her arm. She turned her head, listening to the echoes of his steps, feeling cold cement under her bare feet.
They were inside a building.
A garage?
Without warning, she was lifted into the air. She felt the thud of her weight against his chest, heard him strain as he carried her up a short series of steps. The way she was being held compressed her lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Had they parked in a garage attached to a house?
If so, that would explain how he got his victims inside without being noticed.
He shoved her down on something hard-a wooden chair. Deftly, he taped her legs to the chair legs, the sound of ripping tape as big in her head as a tree being hit by lightning.
Even though she couldn't see anything, she had the oddest feeling that she was viewing the scene from a distance, from a safe location far away. And suddenly it struck her as funny, hysterical. She almost expected her abductor to start saying things like, "I been lookin' fer a gal like you. Pa's gonna be mighty happy."
Instead he said, "I'm going to remove the tape from your mouth, but if you scream, if you make any kind of noise at all, I'll hit you-then I'll put the tape back on your mouth. Do you hear me?"
Had she heard a hint of a drawl, or was it just her imagination?
The hysteria was building. She couldn't get the hillbilly movie out of her head. If he removed the tape, she was afraid she might laugh.
"Do you understand?"
Frantically, Gillian shook her head. Don't take off the tape. I might laugh. I don't think you'll like it if I laugh.
He repeated his earlier warning, then removed the tape in one swift jerk. The stinging pain halted the initial threat of laughter, but then bubbles started to rebuild.
She'd once heard about an innocent woman who'd been convicted of a crime because she couldn't stop laughing on the witness stand. The jurors had mistaken her hysteria for delight over what she'd done.
Gillian held it as long as she could, but finally the laughter exploded. She felt as if she were watching herself from far away, watching as she threw back her head, sucking in lungfuls of air as she laughed, unable to stop herself. She was like one of those ridiculous laughing boxes.
"What are you doing?"
She'd hoped to be more mature and professional about this. She'd hoped, when the time was right, to say intelligent, understanding, sympathetic things that would weaken his defenses so he would see her as a person, maybe see her as someone he could talk to, eventually confide in. In one scenario, she'd imagined talking him into turning himself in. Instead, she was laughing her ass off.
The blow came out of the darkness, striking her in the side of the face, knocking her and the chair to the floor. She tasted blood.
She heard the tear of tape, smelled the glue as he slapped a fresh piece over her mouth. Leaving her lying on the floor, he kicked the chair once, twice. Behind the blindfold, she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing herself for another blow. It didn't come. Instead, she heard his heavy footsteps as he walked away.
She'd laughed at him. Laughed at him.
The stairs were narrow, and his shoulders barely fit as he took the winding flight to the second story. Years ago, the small wooden steps had been painted mint green. They were still in good shape. The wallpaper, with its huge red flowers, had yellowed, though. Near the ceiling were drip marks where winter ice dams had caused water damage.
He loved the house. He felt safe in the house.
But at the moment it gave him no comfort. He felt sick to his stomach, sick and confused.
He'd thought she was the one until she laughed at him.
Upstairs, the hallway floor was made of thin strips of varnished oak that had also yellowed over the years. In the center of the floor was a tacked-down runner of wool carpet. The walls were covered with the same wallpaper as the narrow stairway. Flowers everywhere.
Four empty bedrooms lined the hall. There were another two downstairs. His sister told him that the house had been a stagecoach stop, and she'd even pointed to a couple of holes in the wall where she said somebody had been shot and killed. She knew the entire story, even the names of the people involved, and she used to tell it to him whenever he asked.
Historians referred to it as the Poplar Grove Massacre. He never knew how it could be a massacre when only two people got killed, but that's what they called it.
He went to the last bedroom, the floorboards creaking under his boots. The door always stuck. As he pushed, it made a shimmying sound, then creaked open.
The room looked the way it had the day his sister left. The bed was covered with a white chenille spread. Next to it was a matching walnut dresser and mirror. There was floral wallpaper here too, and bowls of dried rosebuds. At the vanity was her brush, comb, and mirror set lying neatly at an angle. What would she think when she came home and saw everything unchanged? Would she laugh and say he was foolishly sentimental?
If she laughed, it would be a tender, loving laugh, not the laugh of the girl downstairs, not a cruel laugh.
In the closet, he slid hangers along the large wooden dowel, going through the dresses she'd left behind. "All terribly outdated, I'm afraid," she'd told him once. "I don't know why I keep them."
But she kept everything. That's how she was. He'd once read an article about a woman who never threw anything out. Her house was so full of junk that you couldn't get through it without crawling. He'd shown the article to his sister, telling her that's what was going to happen to her if she didn't watch out. But he really hadn't minded. He loved her idiosyncrasies.
Some of the dresses were really costumes, left over from the days when she'd been part of a vaudevillian-type act that spent summers traveling from one small town to another.
He was searching for something sedate, because after all, clothes made the woman. He found a pink dress. The top looked almost like a man's shirt, but the bottom half was full and long. He pulled it out, then found an apron to go over it.
He wasn't anxious to see the girl again-she'd been mean to him. But he didn't have time to waste hiding upstairs. He had to make things happen. Before leaving the room, he debated about undergarments, finally deciding on a slip and pair of hose. Downstairs, he found the girl where he'd left her-lying on her side, unable to move.
He lifted her upright, settling the chair legs firmly on the floor.
She was going to be the one, he told himself. She had to be the one, even if he had to shove her into the mold. But still he hesitated when it came time to take off her blindfold so he could dress her. At the last minute, he pulled his ski mask over his head.
He didn't want her to see his face yet. That way their relationship would remain impersonal.
He removed her blindfold.
For a moment, she kept her eyes squeezed tightly shut, as if expecting him to hit her again.
"I'll hit you only when you do something wrong," he explained. "If you disobey, you get punished."
She opened her eyes.
It was the first time he'd gotten a really close look at her.
She was perfect.
Small-boned and delicate, with eyes as blue as delphiniums. Of course, right now those eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, but that was understandable. He was sure she would look much better when she was cleaned up and rested.