terror. Why, Wendy? Why?
She waited for the gun to explode in her face. She could feel his index finger bearing down on the trigger. Could feel it.
Then, incredibly, the pressure on her forehead eased. Slowly he withdrew the pistol, then jerked his head in the direction of the card table.
“Sit down,” he snapped.
Heart thumping, she sat in one of the folding chairs.
“Now I’m going to look at my trophy. The one that fell on the floor because of you and your… your irresponsible behavior. And if I find that it was damaged in any way, why, then I’ll just have to find myself a substitute, won’t I? Guess what that means, Wendy. Just guess.”
She didn’t have to guess.
Holstering the automatic once more, he knelt and examined Jennifer’s head with a connoisseur’s eye. Wendy stared at the head as he turned it over and over in his hands. It looked almost unreal, a wax replica, the smooth skin shiny in the candles’ wavering glow. The long neck, severed at its base, was stiff and straight like the stem of a mushroom.
Finally he rose to his feet, cupping the head in both hands. She waited for his verdict.
“You’re lucky,” he breathed. “She’s still fine. Still beautiful.” A smile flashed, lizard-quick. “Of course, not as beautiful as you.”
Wendy said nothing. She didn’t trust herself to speak.
Gingerly he placed the head on the table. From the second shopping bag he removed another head. Wendy recognized the woman’s face from TV news reports. Elizabeth Osborn, the Gryphon’s third victim.
Then it occurred to her that she had carried those bags into the trailer, had felt their contents swinging lightly against her calves as she mounted the stairs. She shuddered.
The Gryphon opened the hinged doors of the storage cabinet and took out two large glass jars half-filled with a colorless liquid. He unscrewed the lids and dropped the heads in.
“Formaldehyde,” he told her conversationally. The anger was gone from his voice. “Strictly speaking, formalin. Mixture of formaldehyde, water, and methyl alcohol. They use it to preserve biological specimens. You know, frogs and stuff.”
And stuff, she thought numbly. Yes. And stuff.
He replaced the lids and left the jars on the table. Wendy shifted her gaze from one to the other, unable to stop looking at the pale dead things inside. With their floating strands of kelplike hair and mushroom white flesh, the two pickled heads no longer looked human at all; they reminded her instead of some bizarre species of plant life cultivated in the darkness of this trailer like fungus in a basement.
The Gryphon admired his specimens for a long moment, then turned to her. He was outwardly composed, though a little sad.
“You really were going to shoot me, weren’t you?” He seemed astonished, as if he couldn’t bring himself to fully accept the idea. “You were ready to pull the trigger.”
“I… I’m sorry.”
“Oh, don’t say that, Wendy. Remember, love means never having to say you’re sorry.”
She tasted something bad at the back of her mouth. She kept silent.
“I’m not asking for an apology. I simply want to know why you chose to act the way you did. I’ve said I love you. Don’t you believe me?”
“Yes.”
“Then… why?”
“I’m afraid of you,” she answered. She didn’t know what else to say.
Her answer didn’t seem to offend him. If anything, he looked vaguely pleased.
“I understand. They all are. They should be,” he added, lowering his voice to inject a brief, stressed note of menace. “They. But not you. I won’t hurt you, my darling.”
She shivered, hearing those words from his mouth.
“I would never, ever hurt you,” he said. “Unless…” He looked at her with less fondness than before, his glasses glinting in the candlelight. “Unless you make it necessary.”
“I understand.”
“Good. You’re a fighter, Wendy, and I admire that, but even so, there is a limit to what I’ll put up with.”
“I don’t blame you.”
He sighed. “I wish I hadn’t been so rough with you a few minutes ago. But I had to get hold of that gun before one of us got hurt.”
“Of course.”
“And I’m afraid I did lose my temper. I shouldn’t have called you
… that word. Such an ugly word. I didn’t mean it. I was upset, that’s all. But I think you knew that. Didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
He reached out and ruffled her hair. She bit back the urge to scream.
“Friends again?” he asked.
She tried to answer, nearly choked, finally got the word out,
“Friends,” she said. Somehow she managed a smile.
“I’m glad.” Then the sadness returned to his face. “Even so, I’m afraid I just can’t trust you, Wendy. I can never tell when you might pull another one of your silly stunts.” He shrugged heavily. “It looks like you’ve given me no choice but to do something I’d very much hoped to avoid.”
“What’s that?” she whispered.
He ran his hand through her hair again, his fingers crawling over her scalp like beetles.
“I’m going to make sure you give me no further trouble, Wendy. No trouble at all.”
He removed a roll of heavy black electrician’s tape from the drawstring bag.
“Put your hands behind your back, please.”
She obeyed. A strip of tape was wound snugly around her wrists, binding them.
“That’s awfully tight.” She tried to keep her voice level, not to betray her mounting panic. “I think it’s cutting off my circulation.”
“Well, I suppose that’s what you get for being such a bad girl. I don’t take kindly to people using guns on me, Wendy. I don’t take kindly to it at all.” He pressed his mouth to her ear. “Better be glad I’m in love with you. Otherwise you could be in real trouble.”
She made no reply.
“Now how about if I fix you that lunch I promised?” He thrust his fist in front of her face and worked his thumb like a mouth. “Sorright?”
She nodded weakly. “Sorright.” The word came out like a cough.
Whistling, he busied himself with the preparations for their meal. Wendy sat in the chair and tugged uselessly at the tape, knowing there was no hope of working her hands free.
She’d been given one last chance, and she’d blown it.
No way out now. No escape.
29
Delgado drove fast, Lionel Robertson at his side. Hugging their tail was a second motor-pool sedan carrying Donna Wildman and Tom Gardner. Four black-and-whites loaded with eight patrol cops took up the rear.
The trip would be short; Rood’s address was less than half a mile from the station.
“Right in our backyard,” Delgado muttered as he steered the Caprice onto Nebraska Boulevard, heading west. “Right under our damn noses.”
Robertson glanced at him. “You say something, Seb?”
“Never mind. Look, when we get there, I want you to cover the rear exit, if there is one. I’m going in through
