I am your guardian.
Although the clerk had never fired the revolver, she should have checked it. She should have known. Somehow. Some way. Though she could not possibly have known what Vess had done with the bullets, she should have known.
Laura had always told her that she was too hard on herself, that she would never heal if she kept inflicting new bruises on the old in endless self-flagellation.
But Laura was dead.
I am your guardian.
Chyna’s humiliation festered into shame.
And if humiliation was a good tool for repressing terror, shame was even better. Steeping in shame, she knew no fear at all, even though she was in shackles in the house of a sadistic murderer, with no one in the world looking for her. Justice seemed served by her being there.
Then she heard footsteps approaching.
She raised her head and opened her eyes.
The killer entered from the laundry room, evidently returning from the girl in the cellar.
Without speaking to Chyna, without glancing at her, as if she didn’t exist, he went to the refrigerator, removed a carton of eggs, and put it on the counter beside the sink. He deftly broke eight eggs into a bowl and threw the shells in the trash. He set the bowl in the refrigerator and proceeded to peel and chop a Bermuda onion.
Chyna hadn’t eaten in more than twelve hours; nonetheless, she was dismayed to discover that she was suddenly ravenous. The onion was the sweetest scent that she had ever known, and her mouth began to water. After so much blood, after losing the only close friend she’d ever had, it seemed heartless to have an appetite so soon.
The killer put the chopped onion into a Tupperware container, snapped the lid tight, and placed it in the refrigerator beside the bowl of eggs. Next he grated half a wedge of cheddar cheese into another Tupperware container.
He was brisk and efficient in the kitchen, and he seemed to be enjoying himself. He kept his work area neat. He also washed his hands thoroughly between each task and dried them on a hand towel, not on the dish towel.
Finally the killer came to the dinette table. He sat across from Chyna, relaxed and self-confident and college-boy casual in his Dockers, braided belt, and soft chambray shirt.
Shame, which had seemed on the verge of consuming her, instead had burned itself out for the time being. A strange combination of smoldering anger and bitter despondency had replaced it.
“Now,” he said, “I’m sure you’re hungry, and as soon as we have a little chat, I’ll make cheese omelets with stacks of toast. But to earn your breakfast, you have to tell me who you are, where you were hiding at that service station, and why you’re here.”
She glared at him.
With a smile, he said, “Don’t think you can hold out on me.”
She would be damned rather than tell him anything.
“Here’s how it is,” he said. “I’ll kill you anyway. I’m not sure how yet. Probably in front of Ariel. She’s seen bodies before, but she’s never been there at the moment itself, to hear that last scream, in the sudden wetness of it all.”
Chyna tried to keep her eyes on him, show no weakness.
He said, “However I choose to do you, I’ll make it a lot harder for you if you don’t talk to me willingly. There are things I enjoy that can be done before or after you’re dead. Cooperate, and I’ll do them after.”
Chyna tried unsuccessfully to see some sign of madness in his eyes. Such a merry shade of blue.
“Well?”
“You’re a sick sonofabitch.”
Smiling again, he said, “The last thing I expected you to be was tedious.”
“I know why you sewed shut his eyes and mouth,” she said.
“Ah, so you found him in the closet.”
“You raped him before you killed him or while you killed him. You sewed his eyes shut because he’d seen, sewed his mouth shut because you’re ashamed of what you did and you’re afraid that, even dead, he might tell someone.”
Unfazed, he said, “Actually, I didn’t have sex with him.”