He strove to clear his mind because he sensed that there was something he could do for Holly right here, now, if only he could quiet his fear and be calm, and think. He didn't have to wait for orders from her kidnappers. He could do something important for her now. He could take action on her behalf. He could do something for Holly.
Humbled against the hard terra-cotta tiles, his knees began to ache. This physical discomfort gradually cleared his mind. Thoughts no longer blew through him like shatters of debris, but drifted as fallen leaves drift on a placid river.
He could do something meaningful for Holly, and the awareness of the thing that he could do was right below the surface, floating just beneath his questing reflection. The hard floor was unforgiving, and he began to feel as if he were kneeling
on broken glass. He could do something for Holly. The answer eluded him. Something. His knees ached. He tried to ignore the pain, but then he got to his feet. The pending insight receded. He returned the telephone handset to its cradle. He would have to wait for the next call. He had never before felt so useless.
Chapter 8
Although still hours away, the approaching night pulled, every shadow toward the east, away from the westbound sun. Queen-palm shadows yearned across the deep yard.
To Mitch, standing on the back porch, this place, which had previously been an island of peace, now seemed as fraught with tension as the webwork of cables supporting a suspension bridge.
At the end of the yard, beyond a board fence, lay an alleyway. On the farther side of the alley were other yards and other houses. Perhaps a sentinel at one of those second-floor windows observed him now with high- powered binoculars.
On the phone, he had told Holly that he was in the kitchen, and she had said I know. She could have known only because her captors had known.
The black Cadillac SUV had not proved to be in any dark power's employ, imbued with menace only by his imagination. No other vehicle had followed him.
They had expected him to go home, so instead of tailing him, they had staked out his house. They were watching now.
One of the houses on the farther side of the alley might offer a good vantage point if the observer was equipped with high-tech optical gear that provided an intimate view from a distance.
His suspicion settled instead on the detached garage at the rear of this property. That structure could be accessed either from the alley or from the front street via the driveway that ran alongside the house.
The garage, which provided parking for Mitch's truck and Holly's Honda, featured windows on the ground floor and in the storage loft. Some were dark, and some were gilded with reflected sunlight.
No window revealed a ghostly face or a telltale movement. If someone was watching from the garage, he would not be careless. He would be glimpsed only if he wished to be seen for the purpose of intimidation.
From the roses, from the ranunculus, from the corabells, from the impatiens, slanting sunlight struck luminous color like flaring shards in stained-glass windows.
The butcher knife, wrapped in bloody clothes, had probably been buried in a flower bed.
By finding that bundle, retrieving it, and cleaning up the blood in the kitchen, he would regain some control. He'd be able to react with greater flexibility to whatever challenges were thrust upon him in the hours ahead.
If he was being watched, however, the kidnappers would not view his actions with equanimity. They had staged his wife's murder to box him in, and they wouldn't want the box to be deconstructed.
To punish him, they would hurt Holly.
The man on the phone had promised that she would not be touched, meaning raped. But he had no compunctions about hitting her:
Given reason, he would hit her again. Punch her. Torture her. Regarding those issues, he had made no promises.
To dress the set of the staged homicide, they had drawn her blood painlessly, with a hypodermic syringe. They had not, however, sworn to spare her forever from a knife.
As instruction in the reality of his helplessness, they might cut her. Any laceration she endured would sever the very tendons of his will to resist.
They dared not kill her. To continue controlling Mitch, they had to let him speak to her from time to time.
But they could cut to disfigure, then instruct her to describe the disfigurement to him on the phone.
Mitch was surprised by his ability to anticipate such hideous developments. Until a few hours ago, he'd had no personal experience of unalloyed evil.
The vividness of his imagination in this area suggested that on a subconscious level, or on a level deeper than the subconscious, he had known that real evil walked the world, abominations that could not be faded to gray by psychological or social analysis. Holly's abduction had raised this willfully repressed awareness out of a hallowed darkness, into view.
The shadows of the queen palms, stretched toward the backyard fence, seemed taut to the snapping point, and the
sun-brightened flowers looked as brittle as glass. %t the tension in the scene increased.
Neither the elongated shadows nor the flowers would snap. Whatever strained toward the breaking point, it would break within Mitch. And though anxiety soured his stomach and clenched his teeth, he sensed that this coming change would not be a bad thing.
At the garage, the dark windows and the sun-fired windows mocked him. The porch furniture and the patio furniture, arranged with the expectation of the enjoyment of lazy summer evenings, mocked him.
The lush and sculpted landscaping, on which he had spent so many hours, mocked him as well. All the beauty born from his work seemed now to be superficial, and its superficiality made it ugly.
He returned to the house and closed the back door. He did not bother locking it.
The worst that could have invaded his home had already been here and had gone. What violations followed would be only embellishments on the original horror.
He crossed the kitchen and entered a short hall that served two rooms, the first of which was a den. It contained a sofa, two chairs, and a large-screen television.
These days, they rarely watched any programs. So-called reality TV dominated the airwaves, and legal dramas and police dramas, but all of it bored because none of it resembled reality as he had known it; and now he knew it even better.
At the end of the hallway was the master bedroom. He withdrew clean underwear and socks from a bureau drawer.
For now, as impossible as every mundane task seemed in these circumstances, he could do nothing other than what he had been told to do.
The day had been warm; but a night in the middle of May was likely to be cool. At the closet, he slipped a fresh pair of jeans and a flannel shirt from hangers. He put them on the bed.
He found himself standing at Holly's small vanity, where she daily sat on a tufted stool to brush her hair, apply her makeup, put on her lipstick.
Unconsciously, he had picked up her hand mirror. He looked into it, as if hoping, by some grace that would foretell the future, to see her fine and smiling face. His own countenance did not bear contemplation.
He shaved, showered, and dressed for the ordeal ahead.
He had no idea what they expected of him, how he could possibly raise two million dollars to ransom his wife, but he made no attempt to imagine any possible scenarios. A man on a high ledge is well advised not to spend much time studying the long drop.
As he sat on the edge of the bed, just as he finished tying his shoes, the doorbell rang.
The kidnapper had said he would call at six, not come calling. Besides, the bedside clock read 4:15.
Leaving the door unanswered was not an option. He needed to be responsive regardless of how Holly's
