Lauren heard the strike of a match and smelled the sulfur as it wafted past her nose.
“Down!” he said, sticking his foot in front of her ankles and throwing her to the ground. She went down hard, unable to break her fall because of her bound arms. Her face slammed against the floor.
“Please, don’t—”
Her captor shoved his knee into the small of her back, then grabbed the leg of her flannel pajamas. She heard a metallic ping behind her.
“Since you can’t see, let me narrate for you. I’ve got a knife in my hand. A big, sharp knife.” He pulled up on her pant leg and in a swift, almost practiced fashion, cut away the lower portion of the material, about midcalf. First the left, then the right.
He pressed the knife up against the back of her neck. With a quick slice, he cut away the nylon collar, then removed his knee from her back and stood, grabbing her by the arm and lifting up her entire body in one motion, like a rag doll.
He threw her down onto a hard, wooden chair. He grabbed an end of the duct tape encircling her legs and gave a quick, hard yank, unwinding the bindings with one hand while keeping a firm grip on her ankle with the other. “Move, and I’ll hurt you. Very badly.”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “Please tell me—”
Her captor grabbed her wrists, ripped off the tape, then stretched her hands back behind the seat. As he held her forearms behind her, he wound coarse, thick rope around her wrists. He circled each set of limbs several times, buttressing and knotting the bindings in an unusual manner. Her throat tightened again and she whimpered.
The man now turned his attention to her ankles. She heard the sound of the switchblade being unfurled again. He pressed the cold metal knife blade against her skin. “A reminder. If you don’t move, I won’t cut you.”
Lauren kept her body still — not that she could move anything other than her legs. A swift kick, she thought, and she might be able to disable him long enough to escape. But with the blindfold on, she could miss him entirely, in which case he could become enraged. With a knife in his hands, she didn’t want to take the risk. But what was the alternative? This might be her only chance. Before she finished thinking it out, her abductor began winding the coarse rope around her ankles, fastening each one to a leg of the chair. He pulled and tightened the binding in the same manner in which he had tied her wrists together. Just then, he paused — and she felt a quick, sharp slice across her right ankle. She screamed, and her captor laughed.
“I didn’t move, I didn’t move!” she cried.
“No. No, you didn’t.”
“You said you wouldn’t cut me if I didn’t move.”
Another laugh. “Guess you can’t trust me after all.” After a pause, he added, “Remember that.”
Lauren felt the warm blood trickle down the chilled skin of her foot. She bit her lip and tried to remain in control. But her mind was racing. Was he some deranged rapist? A serial killer? Was he the one who had been stalking her?
He tightened the ropes around her ankles and strapped a similar binding around her chest and arms, both above and below her breasts. Lastly, he fastened a ligature around her neck, but this binding he left loose. That he had put it there disturbed her; everything he did seemed to have a purpose.
“What’s this?” he asked, grabbing her gold necklace.
“It’s something my father gave me when I was a child.” Her voice was tight and uneven.
He yanked hard and the chain popped off her neck.
“Please, don’t take it. Please…”
He did not answer her. Again, she attempted to block thoughts of panic, instead trying to find something to focus on. His breathing grabbed her attention: a steady, though rapid and shallow wheezing — it reminded her of a patient she had once treated.
“There,” he finally said. “A masterpiece. I take a great deal of pride in my work, you know.” His voice had a deep resonant quality to it, with a slight hoarseness. The more he talked to her, the better. She realized that the only weapon she had was her mind… her expertise in dealing with all sorts of psychopathologies. She was a therapist, and in front of her was a person in need of help. A patient. She told herself that this was the only way out, the only way she could simultaneously keep herself from losing control — and perhaps defeat her captor. Her only means of escape.
He stood behind her now, his breathing still rapid and shallow. He pulled down on something behind her head — the blindfold — and removed it.
The room was dimly lit. A broad, stout candle perhaps six inches in height sat on a small metal stand in the far corner of the room, flickering wildly from the draft that wormed its way through the slats of what appeared to be a large shed or cabin of some sort. It was no more than twenty-five feet long and fifteen feet wide, and cobwebs clung everywhere.
Lauren tried to focus her eyes, but because she’d been blindfolded for so long, her vision was blurred. Where was he? Still behind her? What was he doing? Get him to talk.
“Thank you for taking that off. Lovely place you have here.” She decided to try humor, to gauge the man’s response.
“Isn’t it? A friend of mine… found it. He said the owner didn’t want to stick around for the winter.” He laughed, a haunting, malignant outburst.
A shiver jolted her body.
“The ropes hurt. Would you mind loosening them, please?” Again, an attempt to communicate. The more he spoke to her, the greater the likelihood of developing some type of psychological profile of him; it wasn’t a gun or a knife, but it might give her a weapon of a different sort.
The man stepped around the chair and stood in front of her. With the dim lighting and the candle behind him, she was unable to see his face. From what she could tell, he had a fairly long beard and a knit cap on. “You don’t get it, do you?” he asked.
Lauren looked at the man, her heart beginning to pound against her chest.
Her vision began to sharpen; his vacant eyes were now barely visible to her. From what she could see, they were large, as if on fire. He moved slowly to his right, to the left of the chair. Lauren’s gaze followed him as the flickering candlelight began to ease across his face.
“You were at the Neighborhood Watch meeting, you were staring at me in the back. You — you were the one in my house, weren’t you?”
“The light begins to shine, I see. But not brightly enough. Here, let me give you a little more help. Let’s see if the sun will rise. If not, I’ll be terribly, terribly disappointed.”
He reached up and grabbed the long hair of his beard and pulled it away from his skin. He removed the knit cap and slipped on a pair of large, rectangular-rimmed, rose-tinted glasses.
“Just how much does the rope hurt, Gina?” he whispered.
Lauren’s voice was a mere squeak as tears poured from her eyes. “Oh, my God.”
“I see you recognize me, Dr. Chambers. Very good. Very good. I have to say that your hypnosis skills are exceptional.” He tilted his head slightly, as if he were studying her. “I recorded the whole session. And, just for the record, my torture fantasies are real, Doctor.” He paused. “Of course, my name isn’t Steven. But you know that by now, don’t you?”
He smiled, then jumped forward and shoved his grimy face into hers. “You,” he whispered in her ear. “You are my fantasy tonight, Dr. Chambers.”
20
The wall of ventilation fans roared loudly as Jonathan Waller pressed a button to the left of shooting booth number 13 at the FBI Academy’s indoor range. Harper Payne — now operating under the cover of Special Agent Richard Thompson until the start of the Scarponi trial — pressed the magazine release button on his Glock, then watched as the cardboard bottle target rolled toward them.