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.
"Let's try the tape again. What do you think?"
She nodded.
He jerked off the tape.
She flinched and gasped, then pressed her lips together.
It seemed she could be trained.
He was sorry to see that the tape left red marks on her skin. He was sorrier to see that her mouth was swollen, her cheek discolored from his blow, chin bruised. He brushed away the guilt, turned and filled a glass with water. With his back to her, he opened a brown prescription bottle and added a few drops of liquid to the Water. It was a cocktail of his own invention, pentobarbital mixed with morphine. To that he added three green drops of mint flavoring. He returned to the girl and lifted the water to her lips.
Gillian took two small swallows before noticing the bitterness. She pulled back, remembered the drugs that had been found in the blood of two of the victims. "I have to go to the bathroom," she told him. Maybe she could make herself throw up.
He led her down a hall into a small, windowless room. "I really shouldn't undo your hands," he said, "because you haven't earned my trust. But let's say this will be another test."
He pulled a pocketknife from his brown canvas pants, flicked open a blade, and sliced the tape, freeing her hands. Then he shoved her into the bathroom and locked the door from the outside.
She used the toilet, then looked at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. Her face was bruised, her lip swollen. She kept staring. She was trying to recall something important she'd planned to do when the room began to move and the floor began to slant. She grabbed the edge of the white porcelain sink. It dissolved under her hands, and she collapsed.
The key turned in the lock. The door opened. She felt his hands under her armpits. With her feet and legs trailing behind like dead weight, he dragged her across the floor.
Six hours after receiving Mary's call, Anthony arrived at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Luckily a couple of rookie NCAVC agents had been eager to do the fieldwork on his newly assigned Utah infant abduction case. They would stay in contact, faxing him information as they received it.
Immediately upon landing, he called Mary to let her know he was in town. "Where are you now?" he asked, heading down the escalator to pick up his checked luggage.
"At Gillian's house." She gave him the address and directions.
"I'll be there as soon as I can." He folded his phone and slipped it into the pocket of his black trench coat, retrieved his luggage from the carousel, and cut over to the car rental counter.