Matt intended to rape her, soon after they broke in, and when Ed tried to stop him Matt turned on him, beating him with a cold violence that was terrifying. The other one, Paul Brock, had tried to stop Matt, but he couldn't be stopped, until poor Ed was beaten into a dead thing on the floor. Then Matt had done what he wanted with Pam, and kept her and the children tied and gagged in their bedrooms while they waited for Uhl or the suitcase or whatever it was they wanted.
That part had seemed to go on forever, and only ended when another man broke in, even faster and harder than Matt. He'd shot both Matt and Paul, knocking Paul down the basement stairs. Then he had come in to where Pam was imprisoned, and untied her, without softness or sympathy, just methodical, uncaring, and saying only the one thing to her, once her hands and mouth were free: 'You know what to do.' Then he was gone.
She knew what he'd expected her to do, and what at first she'd expected of herself as well. Revenge herself on Matt Rosenstein to begin with, somehow, some painful way. Then call the police to come take this filth out of here, out of her house, so she could get back to the person she'd been before they'd invaded her world.
But there was no getting back. Ed was dead, and nothing would change that. She had seen evil, and been subjected to its whims, and nothing would ever let her forget that.
When, wearing nothing but the robe she'd just pulled on after the man had freed her, Pam had moved through this alien war zone that had once been her house, the first thing she'd found was Matt unconscious on the living room floor, near the kitchen doorway, a bloody gash on his forehead. And next was Paul, conscious but hurt, on his back on the basement floor, at the foot of the stairs.
She'd gone down those stairs, and Paul had called, his voice as faint as though it were coming from deep in a tunnel, 'Help me!'
But he stared up at her, meeting her eye, gasping, 'I tried to stop him! You know I did, I tried to stop him, but I never could! Is he ... alive?'
'I don't know,' she said, reluctant, but having to answer, drawn by the intensity of his stare.
'Parker said his back was broken. Is he in pain?'
'He isn't conscious. He has a cut on his head.'
'Oh, don't let him die!' Brock pleaded, and started to cry. 'I know we don't deserve it, I know it's terrible, it's all gone so wrong, but please don't let him die!'
Baffled, caught by him despite herself, she'd said, 'But... you're hurt, too. What about you?'
'I love him!'
She'd recoiled from that wail, and she recoiled now in memory, then started up the stairs, carrying the mail and the grocery bag, remembering that strange conversation in the basement of the house outside Philadelphia.
All Brock had cared about was his love for Matt Rosenstein. The intensity of it, the nakedness of it, even the selflessness of it, had cut through her anger, her need for revenge, her natural revulsion at the kind of love Brock was revealing to her.
But what to do? What could be done?
'I'll pay,' Brock promised. 'Keep Matt alive, I swear to you, I'll pay you whatever you need, I'll pay for your children, I'll pay for everything, only keep Matt alive!'
Her husband was dead. There was almost no insurance, she was a housewife with three children and no work history, no marketable skills. Rosenstein had been horrible, brutal beyond belief, but Brock had never been cruel, had tried to stop Rosenstein, had shown her decency in the middle of the horror. Now the reality of her situation pressed in on her while she listened to him, but what could she do? Rosenstein was unconscious up there, maybe dead already.
'There's a doctor I know,' Brock told her. 'Get me a phone, I'll call him, he'll take care of things.'
The pity she felt was as much for herself as for him. Unwillingly, she said, 'I could call an ambulance.'
'No! That means police, jail, I'll never see Matt again in my life! This doctor,
At the head of the stairs, she turned into the dining room, dropped the mail on the table there, turned toward the kitchen at the front of the house. From the bedroom at the back she could hear the television, Matt watching his soap operas. After she put the ice cream and milk away, she went back there, pushed open the door, saw Matt asleep in his wheelchair in front of the set.
Matt slept a lot these days, increasingly so over the years, never adapting himself to the reality of his paralysis, never trying to fight back, to become somebody new. Now he was a poor bloated creature, like something deep in a cave, so bitter and so sorry for himself there was no room for anyone else to feel sorry for him.
Pam's hatred for Matt, her desire for revenge, had faded a long time ago, but she would never be able to feel anything but repugnance for him as he was now. She knew that only the paralysis kept him from being the same cruel arrogant bastard he'd been years ago, when he'd first broken into her house. The only good thing about Matt Rosenstein, now or in the past or ever, was Paul Brock, and they all knew it.
She left Matt there asleep in front of his soap opera, and went on upstairs. The top floor was Paul's, his living room and bedroom and workshop, but the floor between was hers. Since the kids had gone off to college, one of their former bedrooms had become a sitting room for her, with her own TV, which she rarely watched. She listened to music there now, and read an English novel, and waited for dinnertime.
The man's name was Parker.
Dinner was usually the only part of the day when all three were together. Pam cooked and Paul came home from his shop to wheel Matt out to his place at the table. Matt could move his arms, though nothing below them, so he could feed himself. Usually he glowered at his plate and ate sloppily and had little to say, while Paul and Pam kept up the conversation. Paul was a slight man, under medium height, very thin, with a kind of friendly Ichabod Crane face. He wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses that made his eyes look huge.
Tonight, Pam had to tell them both about that strange meeting on the street. Once all three were at the table, she said, not looking at either of them in particular, 'The man who came into my house that time, the man who shot
