Her breasts fell free. Heavy. Beautiful.
“Jeremy, did you know your mother looked so nice?”
The boy swallowed hard. “No.”
Thorp’s hands were on the table. They had curled into fists.
“Relax, Bob. You’re going to enjoy this. You’re going to love it. You can’t wait far me to have her.”
Thorp’s hands opened. He leaned back in his chair. Touching her breasts, staring into her shimmering green eyes, Salsbury had a delightful idea. Marvelous. Exciting. He said, “Emma, I think this would be more enjoyable if you resisted me a bit. Not seriously, you understand. Not physically. Just keep asking me not to hurt you. And cry.”
She stared at him.
“Could you cry for me, Emma?”
“I’m so scared.”
“Good! Excellent! I didn’t tell you to relax, did I? You should be scared. Damned scared. And obedient. Are you frightened enough to cry, Emma?”
She shivered. “You’re very firm.” She said nothing. “Cry for me.” “Bob..
“He can’t help you.” He squeezed her breasts. “My son . .
“He’s watching. It’s all right if he watches. Didn’t he suck these when he was a baby?”
Tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
“Fine,” he said. “Oh, that’s sweet.”
Mark could only carry the squirrel and the cage for fifteen or twenty steps at a time. Then he had to put it down and shake his arms to get the pain out of them.
“Cup your breasts with your hands.” She did as she was told.
She wept.
“Pull on the nipples.”
“Don’t make me do this.”
“Come on, little animal.”
At first, upset by all the jerking and shaking and swinging of his cage, Buster ran in tight little circles and squealed like an injured rabbit.
“You sound like a rabbit,” Mark told him during one of the rest stops.
Buster squealed, unconcerned with his image.
“You should be ashamed of yourself. You’re not a dumb bunny. You’re a squirrel.”
In front of Edison’s store, as he was closing the car door, Paul Saw something gleam on the back seat. “What’s that?”
Rya was still in the car, undoing her safety belt. “What’s what?”
“On the back seat. It’s the key to Buster’s cage.”
Rya squirmed into the back seat. “I’d better take it to him.”
“He won’t need it,” Paul said. “Just don’t lose it.”
“No,” she said. “I’d better take it to him. He’ll want to let Buster out so he can show off for Emma.”
“Who are you-Cupid?”
She grinned at him.
“Unzip my trousers.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Do it!”
She did.
“Enjoying yourself, Bob?”
“Yes.”
He laughed. “Dumb cop.”
By the time he reached the edge of the Thorp property, Mark had found a better way to grip the cage. The new method didn’t strain his arms so much, and he didn’t have to stop every few yards to rest.
Buster had become so upset by the erratic movement of his pen that he had stopped squealing. He was gripping the bars with all four feet, hanging on the side of the cage, very stiU and quiet, frozen as if he were in the woods and had just seen a predator creeping through the brush.
“They’ll be eating breakfast,” Mark said. “We’ll go around to the back door.”
“Squeeze it.” She did.
“Hot?”
“Yes.”
“Little animal.”
“Don’t hurt me.” “Is it hard?”
“Yes.” Crying.
“Bend over.”
Sobbing, shaking, begging him not to hurt her, she did as she had been told. Her face glistened with tears. She was almost hysterical. So beautiful…
Mark was passing the kitchen window when he heard the woman crying. He stopped and listened closely to the broken words, the pitiful pleas that were punctuated by long sobs. He knew at once that it was Emma.
The window was only two feet away, and it seemed to beckon him. He couldn’t resist. He went to it.
The curtains were drawn shut, but there was a narrow gap between them. He pressed his face to the windowpane.
10
Sixteen Days Earlier:
Wednesday, August 10, 1977
AT TRREE O’CLOCK in the morning, Salsbury joined Dawson in the first-floor study of the Greenwich house.
“Have they begun already?”
“Ten minutes ago,” Dawson said.