Intensity

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.'

'Liar.'

'But if I had, I wouldn't have been embarrassed. You think I'm that unsophisticated? We're all bisexual, don't you think? I have the urge for a man, sometimes, and with some of them I've indulged it. It's all sensation. Just sensation.'

'Maggot.'

'I know what you're trying to do,' he said amiably, clearly amused by her, 'but it just won't work. You're hoping one insult or another will set me off. As if I'm some hair-trigger psychopath who'll just explode if you call me the right name, push the right button, maybe insult my mother or say nasty things about the Lord. Then you hope I'll kill you fast, in a wild rage, and get it over with.'

Chyna realized that he was right, although she had not been consciously aware of her own intentions. Failure, shame, and the helplessness of being shackled had reduced her to a despair that she had preferred not to consider. Now she was sickened less by him than by herself, wondering if she was a quitter and a loser, after all, just like her mother.

'But I'm not a psychopath,' he said.

'Then what are you?'

'Oh? call me a homicidal adventurer. Or perhaps the only clear thinking person you've ever met.'

''Maggot' works better for me.'

He leaned forward in his chair. 'Here's the thing-either you tell me all about yourself, everything I want to know, or I'll work on your face with a knife while you sit there. For every question you refuse to answer, I'll take off a piece-the lobe of an ear, the tip of your pretty nose. Carve you like scrimshaw.'

He said this not threateningly but matter-of-factly, and she knew that he had the stomach for it.

'I'll take all day,' he said, 'and you'll be insane long before you're dead.'

'All right.'

'All right what-conversation or scrimshaw?'

'Conversation.'

'Good girl.'

She was prepared to die if it came to that, but she saw no point in suffering needlessly.

'What's your name?' he asked.

'Shepherd. Chyna Shepherd. C-h-y-n-a.'

'Ah, not a cryptic chant, after all.'

'What?'

'Odd name.'

'Is it?'

'Don't spar with me, Chyna. Go on.'

'All right. But first, may I have something to drink? I'm dehydrated.'

At the sink, he drew a glass of water. He put three ice cubes in it. He started to bring it to her, then halted and said, 'I could add a slice of lemon.'

She knew he wasn't joking. Home from the hunt, he was working now to recast himself from the role of savage stalker into that of accountant or clerk or real estate agent or car mechanic or whatever it was that he did when he was passing for normal. Some sociopaths could put on a false persona that was more convincing than the best performances of the finest actors who had ever lived, and this man was probably one of those, although after immersion in wanton slaughter, he needed this period of adjustment to remind himself of the manners and courtesies of civilized society.

'No, thanks,' she said to the offer of lemon.

'It's no trouble,' he graciously assured her.

'Just the water.'

When he put the glass down, he slipped a cork-lined ceramic coaster under it. Then he sat across the table from her again.

Chyna was repelled by the prospect of drinking from a glass that he had handled, but she really was dehydrated. Her mouth was dry, and her throat was vaguely sore.

Because of the cuffs, she picked up the glass in both hands.

She knew that he was watching her for signs of fear.

The water didn't slop around in the tumbler. The rim of the glass didn't chatter against her teeth.

She truly wasn't afraid of him any more, at least not for the moment, although maybe later. Certainly later. Now her interior landscape was a desert under sullen skies: numbing desolation, with the angry flicker of lightning toward a far horizon.