The eyes, black ice, never left her face. Slowly, trying to avoid alarming him, Shea padded the area around the wooden stake with folded towels, hoping that moving him wouldn’t kill him. She covered him with a blanket to protect him from the sun. He simply watched her, seemingly uninterested, yet she knew by the way he held himself, that he was coiled and ready to strike if there was need. When she would have secured him in the coffin to minimize jarring and bleeding, he caught her wrist in the viselike grip she was becoming so familiar with.
The photographs Don Wallace and Jeff Smith had shown her two years earlier had pictured some of their victims with blindfolds and gags. She couldn’t deny that this creature looked exactly like the man in her dreams, like the man in their photograph, yet surely he couldn’t have survived seven years buried in this cellar? There were rags in the coffin. A gag? A blindfold? Her stomach somersaulted. Even to protect his eyes she could not blindfold him. She could not duplicate anything those murderers had done to him. His filthy hair was very long, tangled, and falling around his face. She had a strong need to brush it away from his cheeks, to touch it with gentle fingers, to stroke away the last seven years with a caress.
“Okay, I’ll leave your arm free,” she soothed. It was difficult to remain still, waiting for his decision, her eyes held captive by his burning gaze. It seemed an eternity. Shea could feel his rage seething just below the surface. Every second that ticked by made it more difficult to keep her courage. She was not altogether certain he was sane.
Reluctantly, finger by finger, he released her. Shea didn’t make the mistake of touching his arm again. Very carefully she hooked the cable to the handle at the head of the coffin. “I have to put this over your eyes. The sun is sinking, but there’s enough light to blind you. I’ll just lay it across; you can take it off at any time.”
The moment she laid the cloth across his eyes, he ripped it off, fingers shackling her wrist in warning. His strength was enormous, nearly crushing her bones, yet she had the feeling it wasn’t his intention to hurt her. He had drawn a clear line for her, what was acceptable to him and what was not.
“Okay, okay, let me think. No cloth.” Her tongue found her lower lip; her teeth followed. His black gaze simply watched her, followed the movement of her tongue, came back to her vivid green eyes. Watching. Learning. “I know. You can use my glasses until I get you into the camper.” She placed the dark glasses very gently on his nose. Her fingers stroked his hair in a little caress. “I’m sorry, this is going to hurt.”
Shea took a cautious step backward. It was worse not seeing his eyes. Another step. His mouth twisted in a silent snarl; white teeth gleamed. She ran a split second before his arm snaked out with blinding speed. His nails ripped a deep furrow in her arm. She cried out, clutched her arm, but kept running until she reached the rotten stairs.
The light hit her eyes, blinding her, sending pain splintering through her head. Shea squeezed her eyes closed, stumbled to the truck, started the winch. She didn’t want to see him brought up anyway. That she was the one tormenting him sickened her. Tears were streaming down her face. Shea pretended it was a reaction to the setting sun. Intellectually she knew he had struck at her out of fear that she was deserting him.
The whine of the cable stopped abruptly. Shea felt her way around the truck, opened the tailgate, slid down the ramp, and threaded the cable back through the cab into the shell. The winch loaded the coffin smoothly into the pickup bed. Shea desperately needed her sunglasses for driving, but she couldn’t bring herself to get close to him again until it was absolutely necessary. By now he would be in so much pain that he might kill her before she could convince him she was not trying to torture him. She couldn’t find it in herself to blame him.