He drew the knife away, and although her peripheral vision couldnt quite pick it up, she felt a tiny seed pearl of blood blooming there. She didnt care. She was just glad to still have peripheral vision.
Okay, Pickering said. Okay, okay, good, okay. He walked back to the sink and tossed the little knife into it. She started to be relieved. Then he opened one of the drawers beside the sink and brought out a bigger one: a long, pointed butcher knife.
Okay. He came back to her. There was no blood on him that she could see, not even a spot. How was that possible? How long had she been out?
Okay, okay. He ran the hand not holding the knife through the short, stupidly expensive tailoring of his hair. It sprang right back into place. Whos Deke Hollis?
The drawbridge keeper, she said. Her voice was unsteady, wavering. We talked about you. Thats why I stopped to look in. She had a burst of inspiration. He saw the girl! Your niece, he called her!
Yeah, yeah, the girls always go back by boat, thats all he knows. Thats all he knows in the world. Are people ever nosy! Wheres your car? Answer me now or you get the new special, a breast amputation. Quick but not painless.
The Grass Shack! It was all she could think of to say.
Whats that?
The little conch house at the end of the key. Its my dads. She had another burst of inspiration. He knows Im here!
Yeah, yeah. This didnt seem to interest Pickering. Yeah, okay. Right, big-time. Are you saying you live here?
Yes
He looked down at her shorts, now a darker blue. Runner, are you? She didnt answer this, but Pickering didnt seem to care. Yeah, youre a runner, damn right you are. Look at those legs. Incredibly, he bowed at the waistas if meeting royaltyand with a loud smack kissed her left thigh just below the hem of her shorts. When he straightened up, she observed with a sinking heart that the front of his pants were sticking out. Not good.
You run up, you run back. He flicked the blade of the butcher knife in an arc, like a conductor with a baton. It was hypnotic. Outside, the rain continued to pour down. It would go on that way for forty minutes, maybe an hour, and then the sun would come back out. Em wondered if she would be alive to see it. She didnt think so. Yet this was still hard to believe. Impossible, really.
You run up, you run back. Up and back. Sometimes you pass the time of day with that old man in the straw hat, but you dont pass it with anyone else. She was scared, but not too scared to realize he wasnt talking to her. Right. Not with anyone else. Because theres nobody else here. If any of the tree-planting, grass-cutting beaners who work down here saw you on your afternoon run, will they remember? Will they?
The knife blade ticked back and forth. He eyed the tip, seeming to depend on this for an answer.
No, he said. No, and Ill tell you why. Because youre just another rich gringa running her buns off. Theyre everywhere. See em every day. Health nuts. Have to kick em out of your way. If not running, on bikes. Wearing those dumb little potty helmets. Okay? Okay. Say your prayers, Lady Jane, but make it quick. Im in a hurry. Big, big hurry.
He raised the knife to his shoulder. She saw his lips tighten down in anticipation of the killing stroke. For Em, the whole world suddenly came clear; everything stood out with exclamatory brilliance. She thought: Im coming, Amy. And then, absurdly, something she might have heard on ESPN: Be there, baby.
But then he paused. He looked around, exactly as if someone had spoken. Yeah, he said. Then: Yeah? And then: Yeah. There was a Formica-topped island in the middle of the room, for food preparation. He dropped the knife on it with a clatter instead of sticking it into Emily.
He said, Sit there. Im not going to kill you. I changed my mind. Man can change his mind. I got nothing from Nicole but a poke in the arm.
There was a depleted roll of duct tape on the island. He picked it up. A moment later he was kneeling in front of her, the back of his head and the naked nape of his neck exposed and vulnerable. In a better worlda fairer worldshe could have laced her hands together and brought them down on that exposed nape, but her hands were bound at the wrists to the chairs heavy maple arms. Her torso was bound to the back by more duct tape, thick corsets of the stuff at the waist and just below her breasts. Her legs were bound to the chairs legs at the knees, the upper calves, the lower calves, and the ankles. He had been very thorough.
The legs of the chair were taped to the floor, and now he put on fresh layers, first in front of her, then behind. When he was finished, all the tape was gone. He stood up and put the empty cardboard core on the Formica island. There, he said. Not bad. Okay. All set. You wait here. He must have found something funny in this, because he cocked his head upward and loosed another of those brief, yapping laughs. Dont get bored and run off, okay? I need to go take care of your nosy old friend, and I want to do it while its still raining.
This time he flashed to a door that proved to be a closet. He yanked out a yellow slicker. Knew this was in here somewhere. Everybody trusts a guy in a raincoat. I dont know why. Its just one of those mystery facts. Okay, girlfriend, sit tight. He uttered another of those laughs that sounded like the bark of an angry poodle, and then he was gone.
6
Still 9:15.
When the front door slammed and Em knew he had really left, that abnormal brightness in the world started to turn gray, and she realized she was on the verge of fainting. She could not afford to faint. If there was an afterlife and she eventually saw her father there, how could she explain to Rusty Jackson that she had wasted her last minutes on earth in unconsciousness? He would be disappointed in her. Even if they met in heaven, standing ankle-deep in clouds while angels all around them played the music of the spheres (arranged for harp), he would be disappointed in her for wasting her only chance in a Victorian swoon.
Em deliberately ground the lacerated lining of her lower lip against her teeth then bit down, bringing fresh blood. The world jumped back to brightness. The sound of the wind and down-rushing rain swelled like strange music.
How long did she have? It was a quarter of a mile from the Pillbox to the drawbridge. Because of the slicker, and because she hadnt heard the Mercedes start up, she had to think he was running. She knew she might not have heard the engine over the rain and thunder, but she just didnt believe he would take his car. Deke Hollis knew the red Mercedes and didnt like the man who drove it. The red Mercedes might put Deke on his guard. Emily believed Pickering would know that. Pickering was crazypart of the time hed been talking to himself, but at least some of the time hed been talking to someone he could see but she couldnt, an invisible partner in crimebut he wasnt stupid. Neither was Deke, of course, but he would be alone in his little gatehouse. No cars passing, no boats waiting to go through, either. Not in this downpour.
Plus, he was old.
I have maybe fifteen minutes, she said to the empty roomor perhaps it was the bloodstain on the floor she was talking to. He hadnt gagged her, at least; why bother? There would be no one to hear her scream, not in this ugly, boxy, concrete fortress. She thought she could have stood in the middle of the road, screaming at the top of her lungs, and still no one would have heard her. Right now even the Mexican groundskeepers would be under cover, sitting in the cabs of their trucks drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.
Fifteen minutes at most.
Yes. Probably. Then Pickering would come back and rape her, as he had been planning to rape Nicole. After that he would kill her, as he had already killed Nicole. Her and how many other nieces? Em didnt know, but she felt certain this was notas Rusty Jackson might have saidhis first rodeo.
Fifteen minutes. Maybe just ten.
She looked down at her feet. They werent duct-taped to the floor, but the feet of the chair were. Still