After her one last vicious burst of energy, Casey slumped down on the ground. Sales recovered his light, then removed the roll of tape from his belt. Methodically he wrapped her wrists and ankles before gagging her mouth. This time he taped her hands in front so he could carry her over his shoulders like a backpack, with one arm through her legs and the other through her arms. This kept his hands free, one for the light and another to balance himself as he made his way slowly but certainly back through the woods toward his lair.
Several minutes later Casey came to. At first, she tried to struggle, but by flexing his arms forward Sales was able to squeeze the breath, and the resistance, right out of her. For an hour, he marched in a direct line, stopping only once to rest until they reached his hiding place. After setting Casey down, he crossed to the other side of the cave and slumped against the wall, breathing heavily. The beam of the light careened off the rough rock walls, casting about pitch-black shadows. Sales wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his shirtsleeve and eyed Casey critically. She stared at him in wide-eyed horror. When he spoke, his voice was low and raspy.
"You see this knife?" he said. He passed the long narrow blade through the light's beam. Casey's eyes grew wide and brimmed with tears. Her mouth was dry and swollen beneath her mask of tape. Sales simply stared at her as he twisted the knife in the air. She began to shiver, not knowing whether it was from fear or cold. Her dirty T-shirt had been soaked clean through from the musky sweat pouring down Sales's back, and now it was starting to cool. She looked at him with pleading eyes and shook her head no.
Sales got up and came toward her with the knife. Through the tape she murmured, "No. No, no, no."
Sales rolled her on her side and pulled her bound wrists behind her head. Using the roll of tape, he fastened the bonds on her wrists to the ones at her ankles, then rolled her to her back. Casey squirmed until Sales put his boot firmly in the center of her chest.
"My daughter," he said, spitting the words at her and pointing with his knife, "was cut open from about here to about there…"
Casey was sobbing hysterically now. Sales's face was set in a grim sneer. His pale but bloodshot eyes were deep pools of hatred, and his glare promised no mercy whatsoever.
"You," Sales said in disgust. "The lawyer. You and your fucking laws. What good are your laws? The only laws out here are my laws. I decide who lives and dies.
"The law!" Sales said mockingly, and spit on the cave's floor.
"The Comanches would tie up their hated enemies," Sales continued in a low voice, staring into her eyes. "They would tie them to a stake and cut open their bellies with a knife. This wouldn't kill them. The pain of having your stomach cut open with a knife makes you wish you were dead, but it doesn't kill you. Then they'd yank their guts out and leave them to the buzzards. That way they could watch their insides getting torn apart…"
Casey closed her eyes against his evil glare and sobbed uncontrollably. She had almost gotten to the point where she was too tired and sore to even care. He had her. He was going to kill her. Part of her had already succumbed to that fact. But now, the horror of hearing him speak stabbed at her core.
"Marcia was alive when she was cut open," he said without emotion. Then, in a burst of violent rage, he screamed, "Open your fucking eyes! You goddamn bitch! Open your eyes before I cut them out!"
Casey opened her eyes. Sales bent down over her and put the point of the knife just below her sternum.
"She died like this!" he wailed at her. "She was cut open and her insides were pulled out of her and she was alive! She felt the pain, goddamn you! She felt it!"
Casey's stomach heaved, and she gagged, choking, and waited for him to plunge the knife into her body, waited to die. Sales raised his head and let out a primal howl. It was the cry of a mind that had been broken, a spirit dashed beyond recognition. His body, too, began to shake. He screamed and tore at his hair, pulling it out in long, thin strands.
"She was my daughter!" he wailed. "She was my daughter! And you! You shit on her! You shit on me!"
CHAPTER 22
Sales threw the knife toward the back of the cave and then threw himself down beside her on the stone floor.
Casey watched him shake. After several minutes he began to tire, and soon he rose to his hands and knees, with his face turned away from her. Sales stood and then wiped his face on his sleeve and retrieved the knife from where it had landed. When he returned, he carefully cut through the tape at her ankles, then her hands. Finally, slowly, he unwrapped the band around her mouth, gently pressing down on her scalp to remove the sticky tape from her hair as painlessly as possible.
Casey rubbed her wrists and blinked at him in the dim light of the cave. Sales sat back against the far wall and hugged his knees to his chest.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking down at the floor between them. Then he looked up at her defiantly and said, "But I wanted you to know what she felt like. I wanted you to know what they all felt like, what the next girl will feel like and the girl after that and the one after that… Unless you help me, it won't ever stop."
"What"-Casey cleared her throat and whispered-"what are you talking about?"
Sales looked at her. The passionate fire in his eyes was quenched. They were tired now, dull, almost lifeless.
"I'm talking about Lipton," he said. "I didn't kill Marcia. I didn't kill Frank Castle or the other girl. He killed them all. And he's going to kill you."
Casey wrinkled her face in doubt. She was still trembling. Sales got up and removed a big flannel shirt from his pile of things. He crossed the floor of the cave and put it around her shoulders. The kindness of the act was magnified a hundredfold. The relief she felt was overwhelming. She railed against the inexplicable sudden feeling of gratitude she had toward Sales. After all, he had kidnapped her and terrorized her. Casey remembered reading that victims of torture experienced similar emotions, and she suspected this was the same thing. Whatever was causing it, she couldn't help the way she felt, almost giddy.
"I'm not crazy," he said, sitting back down and leaning back against the wall. With profound sadness he continued, "And if I was a killer, I would have killed you for what you did."
Casey looked at Sales, and the memory of her tearing him apart on the witness stand was painfully fresh. Tony Cronic's warning about accusing an innocent man of having sex with his daughter came to her mind. Despite the complexity of emotions she was feeling, shame jumped to the forefront.
"Why do you say he's going to kill me?" Casey heard herself say, the lawyer's part of her mind automatically probing for information.
Sales shrugged. "Because he's watching you. He has a white van that he drives. I don't know how he gets in your neighborhood past the security gates, but I saw him."
Casey thought of the white van she'd seen and the shadowy figure in the parking garage at work.
"He disappeared after the trial, you know," Sales said. "He probably knew I was going to kill him…"
"You said you weren't a killer," Casey said, unable to keep a hint of panic from seeping back into her voice.
Sales considered her in the gloom of the cave. He looked down as if contemplating his words, then looked up at her again. "Yeah, well that's different… You don't have any kids. You can't really understand…"