Husband

'All the blood…'

'That's what I'm telling you. We put a tourniquet on her arm until a vein popped up, stuck a needle in it, and drew four vials just like your doctor does when you get a physical.'

Mitch leaned his forehead against the oven door. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

'We smeared blood on her hands and made those prints. Spattered some on the counters, cabinets. Dripped it on the floor. It's stage setting, Rafferty. So it looks like she was murdered there.'

Mitch was the turtle, just leaving the start line, and this

guy on the phone was the rabbit, already halfway through the marathon. Mitch couldn't get up to speed. 'Staged? Why?'

'If you lose your nerve and go to the cops, they'll never buy the kidnapping story. They'll see that kitchen and think you croaked her.'

'I didn't tell them anything.'

'I know.'

'What you did to the dogwalker — I knew you had nothing to lose. I knew I couldn't mess with you.'

'This is just a little extra insurance,' the kidnapper said. 'We like insurance. There's a butcher knife missing from the rack there in your kitchen.'

Mitch didn't bother to confirm the claim.

'We wrapped it with one of your T-shirts and a pair of your blue jeans. The clothes are stained with Holly's blood.'

They were professional, all right, just like she had said.

'That package is hidden on your property,' the kidnapper continued. 'You couldn't easily find it, but police dogs will.'

'I get the picture.'

'I knew you would. You aren't stupid. That's why we've bought ourselves so much insurance.'

'What now? Make sense of this whole thing for me.'

'Not yet. Right now you're very emotional, Mitch. That's not good. When you're not in control of your emotions, you're likely to make a mistake.'

'I'm solid,' Mitch assured him, although his heart still stormed and his blood thundered in his ears.

'You don't have any room for a mistake, Mitch. Not one. So I want you to chill, like I said. When you've got your head straight, then we'll discuss the situation. I'll call you at six o'clock.'

Though remaining on his knees, Mitch opened his eyes, checked his watch. 'That's over two and a half hours.'

'You're still in your work clothes. You're dirty. Take a nice hot shower. You'll feel better.'

'You've gotta be kidding me.'

'Anyway, you'll need to be more presentable. Shower, change, and then leave the house, go somewhere, anywhere. Just be sure your cell phone is fully charged.'

'I'd rather wait here.'

'That's no good, Mitch. The house is filled with memories of Holly, everywhere you look. Your nerves will be rubbed raw. I need you to be less emotional.'

'Yeah. All right.'

'One more thing. I want you to listen to this….'

Mitch thought they were going to twist a scream of pain from Holly again, to emphasize how powerless he was to protect her. He said, 'Don't.'

Instead of Holly, he heard two taped voices, clear against a faint background hiss. The first voice was his own:

'I've never seen a man murdered before.'

'You don't get used to it.'

'I guess not.'

'It's worse when it's a woman…a woman or a child.'

The second voice belonged to Detective Taggart.

The kidnapper said, 'If you had spilled your guts to him, Mitch, Holly would be dead now.'

In the dark smoky glass of the oven door, he saw the reflection of a face that seemed to be looking out at him from a window in Hell.

'Taggart's one of you.'

'Maybe he is. Maybe not. You should just assume that everybody is one of us, Mitch. That'll be safer for you, and a lot safer for Holly. Everybody is one of us.'

They had built a box around him. Now they were putting on the lid.

'Mitch, I don't want to leave you on such a dark note. I want to put you at ease about something. I want you to know that we won't touch her.'

'You hit her.'

'I'll hit her again if she doesn't do what she's told. But we won't touch her. We aren't rapists, Mitch.'

'Why would I believe you?'

'Obviously, I'm handling you, Mitch. Manipulating, finessing. And obviously there is a lot of stuff I won't tell you—'

'You're killers, but not rapists?'

'The point is that everything I have told you has been true. You think back over our relationship, and you'll see I've been truthful and I've kept my word.'

Mitch wanted to kill him. Never before had he felt an urge to do serious violence to another human being, but he wanted to destroy this man.

He was clutching the phone so fiercely that his hand ached. He was not able to relax his grip.

'I've had a lot of experience working through surrogates, Mitch. You're an instrument to me, a valuable tool, a sensitive machine.'

'Machine.'

'Hang with me a minute, okay? It makes no sense to abuse a valuable and sensitive machine. I wouldn't buy a Ferrari and then never change the oil, never lubricate it.'

'At least I'm a Ferrari.'

'When I'm your handler, Mitch, you won't be pressed beyond your limits. I would expect very high performance from a Ferrari, but I wouldn't expect to be able to drive it through a brick wall.'

'I feel like I've already been through a brick wall.'

'You're tougher than you think. But in the interest of getting the best performance out of you, I want you to know we'll treat Holly with respect. If you do everything we want, then she'll come back to you alive…and untouched.'

Holly was not weak. She would not easily be mentally broken by physical abuse. But rape was more than a violation of the body. Rape rended the mind, the heart, the spirit.

Her captor might have raised the issue with the sincere intent of putting some of Mitch's fears to rest. But the sonofabitch had also raised it as a warning.

Mitch said, 'I still don't think you've answered the question. Why should I believe you?'

'Because you have to.'

That was an inescapable truth.

'You have to, Mitch. Otherwise, you might as well consider her dead right now.'

The kidnapper terminated the call.

For a while, Mitch's sense of powerlessness kept him on his knees.

Eventually a recording, a woman with the vaguely patronizing tone of a nursery-school teacher not fully comfortable with children, requested that he hang up the phone. He put the handset on the floor instead, and a continuous beeping urged him to comply with the operator's suggestion.

Remaining on his knees, he rested his forehead against the oven door once more, and closed his eyes.

His mind was in tumult. Images of Holly, tornadoes of memories, tormented him, fragmented and spinning, good memories, sweet, but they tormented because they might be all that he would ever have of her. Fear and anger. Regret and sorrow. He had never known loss. His life had not prepared him for loss.