I eased my way across the room to the door, where I leaned closer and pressed my ear to the lock, trying not to disturb the chair. I could hear the key pick slide in again. I could hear the tiny torque wrench join its mate as the two rods of metal crept across the tumblers. Behind me, I could hear a ticking from the bathroom as the iron picked up heat. I’d rammed the setting up to LINEN, a fabric known to wrinkle more easily than human flesh. I longed to feel the weight of the iron in my hand, but I didn’t dare yank the plug from the socket just yet. I could feel pain in my chest where the rubbery muscle of my heart slapped the wooden pales of my rib cage. I’d picked many a lock myself and I was well acquainted with the patience required for the task. I’d never known anyone who could use a lockpick wearing gloves, so the chances were he was using his bare hands. From the depths of the lock, I fancied I could hear the pick ease across the tumblers and lift them one by one.
I placed my right hand lightly on the knob. I could feel it turn under my fingers. With the chair still in place, I did a quick tiptoe dance across the room to the bath. I could feel heat radiating from the iron as I pulled the plug from the socket. I wrapped my fingers around the handle and returned to the door, taking up my vigil. My night visitor was now in the process of easing the door open, probably fearful of creaks that might alert me to his presence. I stared at the doorframe, willing him to appear. He pushed. The chair began to inch forward. As stealthily as a spider, his fingers crept around the frame. I lunged, iron extended. I thought my timing was good, but he was quicker than I expected. I made contact, but not before he’d kicked the door in. The chair catapulted past me. I could smell the harsh chemical scent of scorched wool. I pressed the iron into him again and sensed burning flesh this time. He uttered a harsh expletive-not a word but a yelp.
At the same time, he swung and his fist caught me in the face. I staggered backward, off balance. The iron flew out of my hand and clattered heavily across the floor. He was fast. Before I knew what was happening, he’d kicked my feet out from under me. I went down. He had my arm racked up behind me, his knee planted squarely in the middle of my back. His weight made breathing problematic and I knew within minutes I’d black out if he didn’t ease up. I couldn’t fill my lungs with sufficient air to make a sound. Any movement was excruciating. I could smell stress sweat, but I wasn’t sure if it was his or mine.
Now you see? This is precisely the kind of moment I was talking about. There I was, face down on Cecilia Boden’s bad braided rug, immobilized by a fellow threatening serious bodily harm. Had I foreseen this sorry development the day I left Carson City, I’d have done something else . . . dumped the rental car and flown home, bypassing the notion of employment in Nota Lake. But how was I to know?
Meanwhile, the thug and I were at a temporary impasse while he decided what kind of punishment to inflict. This guy was going to hurt me, there was no doubt of that. He hadn’t expected resistance and he was pissed off that I’d put up even so puny a fight as I had. He was supercharged, juiced up on rage, his breathing labored and hoarse. I tried to relax and, at the same time, steal myself for the inevitable. I waited for a bash on the back of the head. I prayed that a pocketknife or semiautomatic didn’t appear on his list of preferred weapons. If he yanked my head back, he could slit my throat with one quick swipe of a blade. Time hung suspended in a manner that was almost liberating.
I’m not a big fan of torture. I’ve always understood that in situations of extreme duress-offered the choice between, say, a hot poker in the eyeball or betraying a friend-I’d rat out my pal. This is one more reason to keep others at a distance, since I clearly can’t be trusted to keep a confidence. Under the current circumstances, I surely would have begged for mercy if I’d been capable of speech.
Hostility energizes. Once unleashed, anger is addicting and the high, while bitter, is irresistible. He half-lifted himself away from me and slammed his knee into my rib cage, knocking the breath out of me. He grabbed the index finger of my right hand and in one swift motion snapped it sideways, dislocating the finger at what I later learned was the proximal interphalangeal joint. The sound was like the hollow pop of a raw carrot being snapped in two. I heard myself emit a note of anguish, high pitched and ragged as he reached for the next finger and popped the knuckle sideways in its socket. I could sense that both fingers protruded now in an unnatural relationship to the rest of my hand. He delivered a kick and then I heard his heavy breathing as he stood staring down at me. I closed my eyes, fearful of provoking further attack.
I kept my face down against the rug, sucking in the odor of damp cotton fiber saturated with soot, feeling absurdly grateful when he didn’t kick me again. He crossed the cabin in haste. I heard the door bang shut behind him and then the sound of his muffled footsteps as they faded away. In due course, at a distance, I heard a car engine start. I was alive. I was hurt. Time to move, I thought.
I rolled over on my back, cradling my right arm. I could feel my hands tremble and I was making noises in my throat. I’d broken out in a sweat, so much heat coursing through my body that I thought I’d throw up. At the same time, I began to shake. A stress-induced personality had separated herself from the rest of me and hovered in the air so that she could comment on the situation without having to participate in my pain and humiliation.
You really should get help, she suggested. The injuries won’t kill you, but the shock well could. Remember the symptoms? Pulse and breathing become faster. Blood pressure drops. Weakness, lethargy, a little clamminess? Does that ring a bell here?
I was laboring to breathe, struggling to keep my wits about me while my vision brightened and narrowed. It had been a long time since I’d been hurt and I’d nearly forgotten how it felt to be consumed by suffering. I knew he could have killed me, so I should have been happy this was the worst he’d conjured up. What exhilaration he must have felt. I had been brought low and my attempts at self-defense seemed pathetic in retrospect.
I held my hand against my chest protectively while I eased onto my side and from there to my knees. I pushed upward with left elbow, supporting myself clumsily as I struggled to my feet. I was mewing like a kitten. Tears stung my eyes. I felt abased by the ease with which I’d been felled. I was nothing, a worm he could have crushed underfoot. My cockiness had left me and now belonged to him. I pictured him grinning, even laughing aloud as he sped down the highway. He would shake his fist in the air with joy, reliving my subjugation in much the same way I would in the days to come.
I turned on the overhead light and looked down at my hand. Both my index finger and my insult finger jutted out at thirty-degree angles. I really couldn’t feel much, but the sight of it was sickening. I found my bag near the bed. I picked up my jacket and laid it across my shoulders like a shawl. Oddly, the cabin wasn’t that disordered. The iron had been flung into the far corner of the room. The wooden chair had been knocked over and the braided rug was askew. Tidy little bun that I am, I righted the chair and flopped the rug back into place, picked the iron up and returned it to the top closet shelf, cord dangling. Now I had only myself to accommodate.
I locked the cabin with effort, using the unaccustomed left hand. I headed toward the motel office. The night was cold and a soft whirl of snow whispered against my face. I drank deeply of the cold, refreshed by the dampness in the air. Out near the road, I could see the glow of the motel vacancy sign, a red neon beacon issuing its invitation to passing motorists. There was no traffic on the highway. None of the other cabins showed any signs of life. Through the office window, I could see a table lamp aglow. I went in. I leaned against the doorframe while I knocked on Cecilia’s door. Long minutes passed. Finally, the door opened a crack and Cecilia peered out.