“You carry a lot of pain around, don’t you?”
“Don’t we all?”
“Yes. But I don’t think Joe understands that. He thinks he’s got a monopoly on suffering. That everything’s stacked against him from the start.”
“How do you know it wasn’t? You sit up there in your perfect little house, with your money and your kid and your paintings and your swimming pool and your cars. Everything laid out just right since the day you were born. Well, some people don’t have it that way.”
“Is that what you think? You think I started rich? My father worked in a mill for eighteen years, Cheryl. No college degree. Then the mill shut down. He put his life savings into his dream, a music store. Every dollar he had went into Wurlitzer organs, Baldwin pianos, and brass band instruments. Five months after he opened it, the store burned to the ground. His insurance had lapsed two days before.” Will reached out and took a shot from the Bacardi bottle. “He drove off a bridge a week later. I was eleven years old.”
Cheryl shook her head. “You must have inherited something. You’re silver spoon all the way.”
Will laughed bitterly. “My wife’s mother was a waitress. Karen was the first woman in her family to go to college. Then nursing school. Then medical school, but she had to drop out because she got pregnant. And her father died before he could see how well she did. She fought for everything she has. So did I.”
“The American dream,” Cheryl mumbled. “Get out the violins.”
“I’m just pointing out that Joe seems to have a personal problem with me. Some kind of class thing. And he’s way off base.”
She looked up, her eyes alert. “How much money do you make a year?”
“About four hundred thousand dollars.”
“He’s not that far off.”
Will had understated his income, and he doubted Cheryl had any concept of the kind of royalties he would earn from Restorase. “I can give you a lot more money than that, Cheryl. If you’ll help me save Abby, I mean. Enough to get you away clean. Really free. Forever.”
A faint flicker of hope lighted her eyes, then died. “You’re lying, sweetie. You’d rat me out the first chance you got.”
“Why would I? I’d have nothing to gain.”
“Because it’s the nature of things. I’d do the same. If you had my kid, I’d be over there right now giving you the sofa dance of your life. I’d take you to bed and give you around-the-world like you never imagined it before.” A note of professional pride entered her voice. “I can do things for you that your wife never even heard of. That your wildest old girlfriend never heard of. When was the last time you got off four times in one night?”
Will treated this as a rhetorical question.
“I thought so. But you could. I could make you. And if you had my kid, I would. Gladly. But as soon as I had my kid back, I’d rat you out.”
He started to argue, but there was no point. She would not be persuaded.
Cheryl held up her drink in a mock toast. “Don’t feel bad, Doc. Like I said, it’s just the nature of things.”
Will had stopped listening. He was thinking about what Cheryl had said she would do to save her child, if she had one. And about why Hickey had chosen to spend the night with Karen rather than with him. And what Karen would or would not do to save Abby.
SEVEN
Hickey pulled the Expedition into the garage and shut off the engine. In the ticking silence, with the leather seat clammy against her backside, Karen felt dread settle in her limbs like cement.
“Party time, cher,” Hickey said. He opened his door and climbed out, then waited in the glow of the dome light. “You’re not doing anybody any good sitting there. You or me.”
She folded her panties into her jeans and got out. As she walked to the laundry room door, she could feel the tail of her blouse covering her behind, and she was thankful for that. At the door she stopped and waited for Hickey to open it, but he walked up and handed her the key ring.
“You do it,” he said. “Your house.”
She tucked her jeans under her arm, then bent and took hold of the doorknob with her left hand. When her palm touched the brass, a mild shock went through her. Before this house existed, she had drawn it on a piece of paper. Every room. Every window. She had chosen the knob in her hand. Worked with the architect on the blueprints. Badgered the subcontractors. Mortared the patio bricks. Painted the interiors. If any place on earth belonged to her, personified her, this house did. And now it was about to be violated. In point of fact, it already had been when Abby was taken. But the violation to come would be more profound. She could read the thoughts in Hickey’s mind as though no border of flesh and bone concealed them. He wanted her body, yes. But his intent was more complex than that. He wanted more to desecrate her marriage.
“Come on,” he said. “Meter’s running.”
A desperate thought flashed through her mind. She could shove open the door just far enough to slip inside, then lock it behind her. Lock it and call the police. But what would that accomplish? Nothing but pain or death for Abby. Hickey had his pocket cell phone, and he could be talking to his giant of a cousin in seconds. No. There was no choice but to obey.
She turned the key and walked inside, right through the laundry room and pantry to the kitchen. Every instinct told her to pull her jeans back on, but that might prompt Hickey to retaliate. She simply stood there, on the oven side of the island, waiting for a command.
He walked up slowly and smiled. “Up the hall. To your bedroom.”
She turned and walked up the hallway, heavy-footed as a zombie. She was walking in Abby’s tracks, in the last footsteps her child had taken in this house. That knowledge infused her with guilt, but also hardened her will to resist. The scent of Abby’s room was strong here, even with her door closed. The comforting smell of toy animal fur and little girls’ makeup kits.
“Stop,” Hickey said.
Karen stopped. He reached around her left side and opened Abby’s door. Faint moonlight shone through the window, falling upon the countless inhabitants of the room.
“Take a good look, Mom. This is why we’re not going to have any trouble being friends tonight.”
Karen looked. Here was the justification for whatever she would have to do to get through the night. To bring Abby back to this sanctuary.
Hickey’s cupped hand flashed up under her shirttail and slapped her flank, hard. He laughed when she jumped, then poked her between the shoulder blades, pushing her until she reached the master bedroom.
Not wanting to enter it in the dark, she reached out and rotated the dimmer switch on the wall. The sight of the bedroom startled her. Everything was in its proper place, yet nothing seemed familiar. Not the antique sleigh bed. Not the overstuffed chair and ottoman. Not the matched Henredon dressers or the cherrywood cabinet that held the television. Not even the Walter Anderson watercolors on the walls. All struck her as furnishings in some nameless hotel, not objects she had chosen with the greatest care.
“The lap of luxury,” Hickey said. “Looks like a nice place to pass an evening.”
He walked past her, fell back into the oversized chair, and kicked his feet up on the ottoman. His Top-Siders were so new that there were no marks on the soles. Only dirt from the trip to the cabin.
“I could use a drink,” he said. “Bourbon. Kentucky bourbon, if you got it.”
The bourbon was kept on a sideboard in Will’s study. Karen laid her jeans on the foot of the bed and went back up the hall, thankful for a chance to postpone what seemed inevitable. Had five other mothers submitted to this?
In the study, she saw Will’s computer glowing softly. For a moment she considered trying to send a message to his pager via the SkyTel, but she had never used it before. And besides, what could she say? I’m about to be raped? If she did, Will would probably do something heroic and stupid, and get Abby killed. As she poured a shot of Wild Turkey, she realized that bourbon might accomplish what defiance could not. If Hickey drank enough whiskey fast enough, he might not be able to perform. It was probably a long shot, though. Karen thought
