Part of her response, she knew, was terror about what was going to happen next.
Part of it wasn't.
He removed the duct tape but not the gag and neither the wrist nor the ankle restraints, and he helped her to her feet.
"I'm going to carry you outside to the truck. You want to use the bathroom first?"
She nodded definitively.
She guessed he was only five ten or five eleven, maybe one hundred sixty pounds, but he lifted her effortlessly and carried her out the door the way a new husband lifts his bride over the threshold. She would have hooked an arm around his neck if she could, but she couldn't.
He stood her up outside the chemical toilet and opened the door. She held out her wrists for him to cut her plastic cuffs. Instead, he grabbed her around the waist and lifted her inside the plastic door. "I don't have time to free your restraints. You want help or can you do this yourself?"
She spoke into her gag and nodded her head. He reached up and stretched the sock away from her lips. She spit cotton before she said, "Undo my pants and pull them over my hips."
He hesitated.
"I can do the rest. Do that much." She held up her bound wrists. "I'm not going to slap you, don't worry."
He fumbled with the belt on her pants and had even more trouble with the button. The zipper he mastered quickly.
She wriggled her hips to help him get the tight pants over her butt and hips and stood still while he yanked the waistband all the way down to her upper thighs. Even through the gag, she figured he could tell that at that point she said, "Okay. That's enough."
She thought she saw his gaze focus momentarily on the lime-green triangle of her exposed underwear before he stepped back and gently closed the door of the chemical toilet.
A minute or so later she knocked the door back open with her shoulder. The top of her pants was at mid-thigh, as high as she could get them on her own. "Help me," she said.
She watched as he moved his eyes quickly from her upper legs and crotch to her face, and then back down.
He didn't hesitate this time. As he tugged her pants into place, his fingers grazed the soft skin that was exposed below the hem of her underwear. She felt his knuckles press against her belly as he buttoned her jeans, and she found herself holding her breath as he pulled up the zipper and closed the belt.
With an arm around her waist, he lifted her from the toilet and carried her to a different truck than the one she'd ridden in a few hours before.
This one was a small flatbed with welding supplies strapped into place in the back. The sign on the driver's door read "JT Welding Supplies."
"You're going to have to curl up on the floor. Can you do that? The alternative is that box in the back of the truck. But that will get hot tomorrow, I promise."
Lucy tilted her head at the cab. More despair. Tomorrow seemed like a long way away.
"Good choice," he said.
Once she was curled up on the floor of the cab, Ramp said, "While I was gone, I talked to your doctor friend. I think we're cool. And, for what it's worth, I think he's worried about you."
CHAPTER 43
Cruising taxicabs are rare at any hour in Boulder. Past midnight there was no hope I would find a cab prowling the streets of Boulder, so I used my cell phone to request that a taxi be sent to the emergency entrance of the hospital. The dispatcher yawned twice before he responded by asking for my phone number and telling me to watch for a car within five minutes, maybe less.
The cell phone rang a few seconds after I ended the call with Yellow Cab. I guessed it was the dispatcher phoning back to ascertain that I was someone who really wanted a ride.
I said, "Hello."
A male voice said, "Is this Alan Gregory?"
I thought the voice was young, and immediately recognized that it wasn't the bored dispatcher with whom I'd just spoken. "Yes, it is. Who's this?"
"Never mind. Tell me what you know about Paul Bigg. I want to hear everything."
My ass suddenly stopped hurting. My ass actually stopped existing. I repeated, "Who is this?"
"Use your imagination and you'll know who this is. Now tell me what you know about Paul Bigg. This is a test, by the way. It's pass/fail. You get one chance. There are no retests."
My mouth felt as though I'd just tried to swallow a dirt clod and failed. I almost coughed out the answer to his question. "He died in a Little League accident about six years ago. A heart rhythm problem, I think."
"Go on."
I assumed I was talking to the infamous Ramp. I couldn't begin to guess what he wanted or how he'd managed to reach me on this number. "His mother, her name is Naomi, acts-acted-as though he were alive sometimes. She talked about him as though he'd never died."
"You passed," Ramp said.
"Good," I said. I suspected my trials weren't complete.
"You have a tall blond friend?"
God. He had Lucy. That's how he got my number. He was holding Lucy. "Yes," I said, "I do. Is she okay?"
Sam, I knew, was going to want to know every word, so I began to chart the conversation in my head to help me remember the details.
"As far as I know, she is."
"Do you have her? Is she with you?"
"I'd prefer to be the one asking the questions, if you don't mind."
"How can I help you?" I said. It was a variation on the line I used to start therapy sessions with new patients. It was similar to the line I'd used with Naomi Bigg only a couple of weeks before. I don't know why I used it right then.
"What have you told the police?"
"I've been talking to them ever since the bomb went off outside my office. I've told them a lot."
"Are they with you right now?"
"No. I'm standing by myself waiting for a taxi to take me home."
"Where?"
"I'm at the hospital in Boulder. Community Hospital."
"Were you hurt today? By the bomb?"
"Yes. I got a piece of shrapnel in my butt and had a minor concussion. I banged my head on the door."
"I'm sorry you were hurt. What do the police know?"
I hesitated. "I'd like to answer your question. But I've told them a lot of things. Do you want me to try to-"
He sighed. "Just tell me about the wouldn't-it-be-cool games. What do they know about those? Before you begin your answer, a reminder: Please don't forget about your tall blond friend."
I hadn't forgotten. "I told them everything Naomi told me about the games. They've put together a list of the people who they think might be on Marin's list and they've already searched all of those people's homes and offices for explosives." I remembered what Sam had said about Fox News letting the cat out of the bag about the bomb at Nora's house. "The police have already found one device. It was in a prosecutor's garage. They've disarmed it."
"They don't actually disarm them. They disrupt them. They blow them apart with water cannons."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I knew that. I'll try to be more specific."
"Did you say 'one device'?"
Did he sound relieved? I wasn't sure. "One," I repeated.
"What about any other wouldn't-it-be-cool lists? Besides Marin's?"
"To the best of my knowledge, they're still working on compiling the… other list."
I actually thought I could hear him smile over the phone.
"See you," he said, and the line went dead.
CHAPTER 44
Sam wasn't officially directing the search for Marin Bigg. He wasn't actually officially investigating anything that had to do with any of the Biggs, or anything to do with Ramp, or with the explosion outside my office.