'Thanks, Lieutenant. I appreciate it.'
Mitch went back to his desk.
Doris slept.
Just as she was drifting off, she realized how odd this was. She'd never been able to nap, not even as a small child.
But todaypossibly because of her anxiety over meeting Jill tomorrowshe fell into a fast and deep slumber.
So she was not aware when her door crept open
Not aware when her mother entered the room bearing a needle and syringe
Not aware when Evelyn sat down next to her on the bed and pulled up the hem of her dress so she could find a good and true place to administer the shot
Not aware
But then she was aware.
Mother. Needle in her hand. Injecting the fluid into Doris' thigh. Pain.
'Don't worry, dear. This is just the sedative Dr Steiner has me give myself. I'm letting you have a triple dose, is all.'
Shrieking, grabbing her mother. 'Why are you doing this?'
'I want you to be sensible about Jill, dear, that's all. I want you to see that you shouldn't be talking to anybody who betrayed our trust and our family the way she did.'
Triple dose. Feeling the effects already. A darkness pulling her downward…
'You shouldn't talk to her, dear. Not ever.'
Her mother's face blurring. Her voice faint.
'She betrayed our family, dear. Every one of us. I'm just trying to protect you from doing something you'll regret.'
The darkness pulling Doris down…
Down…
Marcy had to give Rick Corday one thing: he was real good at tying people up. He was also good at taking their clothes off.
Marcy lay naked and trussed on a dusty single bed in the east corner of the very cold basement. Rick Corday's basement. She was already sneezing. And her throat was already raw.
Actually, she tried not to think about her throat.
Before he'd left this morningright before, at the last moment, almost as an afterthought, he'd tied a gag across her mouthhe took his axe and he gave Marcy a little demonstration.
It had been truly weird. Rick brought out this simple wooden X made of two-by-fours. He'd set the log in the crook of the X and then chop away.
He could cut a log in violent half with a single swing.
Impressive.
She tried real hard not to think of what would happen to her head if he ever rested her neck on the log- holder.
But that wasn't the weird part.
All the time he split logsand he must have split around thirty of themhe told her about axes.
It was as if he were doing a TV infommercial and she was the audience at home.
'Don't buy a long handle just because it looks more powerful. Always get a handle you feel comfortable with.'
And then he'd rend another log in two.
'Always treat your axe like your best friend. If it's been stored away for some time and the socket at the head of the handle isn't snug around the axe, soak the handle in water and then later on treat it with linseed oil.'
Another log would shatter.
'Be sure to be careful in winter weather, especially when you're outside. Axes can break sometimes. It's a good practice to warm the axe first over a stove or fire.'
'Enough already!' she was shouting inside her mind. Too bad she couldn't shout it out loud. Maybe then he'd take the hint.
She tried for a time to will herself out of this basement. She'd read somewhere that during great periods of stress in World War Two some soldiers had been able to will themselves out of their bodies.
But it proved impossible to do this feat with a four-inch-thick piece of wood clattering to the concrete floor every few minutes. Sawdust and chips and chunks of bark littered the floor around the X.
'So what's the best axe-head for you?'
She forced herself not to listen anymore.
There was only one thing she knew about Rick Corday. He was clinical. Real clinical. One of her Crim courses had included some profiles of criminally insane people, and Rick here certainly fit the profile.
Especially since his voice kept changing every five minutes or so. He was, from what she could see, at least two different peopleand both of them were insane.
He finished with the axe and then walked over to her.
'I'm going to go get my friend and bring him back here and then the three of us are going to have a good time.'
She just stared up at him. She felt very self-conscious about being nakedand very scared of what he might be suggesting herebut she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of letting him see this.
'Did I mention that you've got a nice little body? You've got a very nice little body. And I'm going to capture it for posterity on my videocam.' He smiled his fruitcake smile. 'That'll be fun, won't it?'
'Oh yeah,' she wanted to say. 'Yeah, that'll be a whole lot of fun.'
Rick left then, clomp clomp clomp up the basement stairs, clomp clomp clomp across the kitchen and out the back door.
Then she was alone, utterly alone, and terrified.
O'Hare was always a pain in the ass and never more so than when flights were delayed because of bad weather. Even though the plows had been out and the runways were clear, flights had piled up from yesterday and many people were still waiting to get flown out of here.
The place looked like a refugee camp as Adam made his way to the public phones. Some people had slept in their seats all night and looked like it, rumpled, glassy-eyed, vaguely dirty. Little kids ran around screaming while sleepy parents snapped at them. College students tried hard to concentrate on Sartre just as housewives tried hard to concentrate on Danielle Steel. The massesin the abstract they weren't a bad idea. It was just when you got up close to them.
When Adam reached the phone, he took his wallet from his topcoat and ran a finger down a list of names and phone numbers. He called the office of Arthur K. Halliwell and when the receptionist asked who was calling, Adam gave a false name that Halliwell alone would recognize.
Halliwell came on. 'Do you know how many days I've been trying to reach you?'
'I went to New York on business. I wish to hell you'd relax.'
'He's going to get us in trouble. He's a loose cannon. I take it you know by now that he killed Eric Brooks?'
'Yes, he told me.'
Halliwell sighed. 'I need to approach Evelyn today. I need the money.'
