former Mrs. Simpson had to say about Barney's sexual kinks.
My mind stopped wandering and focused at the faint noises I was hearing. Barney was trying for stealth, but he was a big man and he was wearing the wrong footwear. The snow crunched under his feet and he was breathing heavily. Me and Lyle, we were really quiet.
The next time I got abducted, I was going to have my gloves on, I promised myself. And a hat.
"Get out here, bitch," Barney called.
Mr. Simpson, I'm not satisfied with my treatment by your staff.
"There aren't any houses around here, and no one's going to come help you," he called, and he was closer to where I was crouched.
Could he possibly be lying? Why, yes, I thought he might be. The same way he'd been lying all along.
The glimpses I'd caught while I was running away had included a brief vista across a body of water, and the glimpse of some cabins; distant, but visible. Reachable. I was pretty sure of my location.
I thought I was very close to the southern shore of Pine Landing Lake. I thought if I struck out through the trees, following the lake line northwest, I might find the cabin again. If I could go up and walk on the road I'd be sure, and walking would be easier and faster.
Now he was right outside the thicket. I bit my lip to keep from letting out my shuddering breath. With my right hand, I held the knife at the ready.
Hold it. Hold it. Don't say anything. And then his feet moved away.
The darkness couldn't fall fast enough to suit me.
He was the one who was in a hurry. Not me.
Lyle, you and me, we can wait forever, right?
And then he howled and pounced but he was howling and pouncing on the wrong shadow, and since I'd held still I was okay, I was okay. My arm was truly broken all the way through now, thanks to the beating by the side of the road, and my scalp was really bleeding, and my head was hurting like someone had dragged me out of a car by my hair, but I was okay. In danger of freezing in this position, though. I'd been in one position for too long, and I needed to move, needed to stretch a little, needed to shift my weight. But I was too scared.
He didn't have a gun, apparently. That was good. He could just shoot at bushes until he hit me; no, that would attract too much attention. Even in the rural South, random shooting will attract a certain amount of notice. But he might risk that, to kill me.
"This is ridiculous," he said, so close I almost shrieked. "I mean, after all, you must be nuts to react to a man talking to you that way. Kicking and screaming, fighting and biting. Who could expect anyone in your line of work to be sane, anyway? I was just trying to take you to the hospital when you started having a fit, that's all. Your overreaction caused me to panic. I took the wrong turn. Now here we are out in the middle of nowhere in very cold weather and you won't let me know where you are so I can get you the help you need."
The help I need is for someone to come along and shoot you, I thought. Barney was busy building a story, some kind of story that would enable him to hold on to what he had. He was doomed to fail. But then, he'd lasted this long, and it must be hard for him to believe it was the end.
And to think I'd suspected Doak Garland. Well, I shouldn't relax too soon. There might have been three of them.
And I really was thinking about that, so you know my mind was wandering. It was the cold and fear that were doing me in. I sharpened back up mentally just in time. I'd almost laughed at the picture of the whole town of Doraville being in on the kidnapping and the murdering. Like a Shirley Jackson short story!
And then he caught me.
Fourteen
HIS big hands grabbed my shoulders, and like so many young men had been, I was now in his power. Except I had a knife in my hand. He pulled me up and up, until I was almost off my feet. In the twilight it was hard to make out details but I could see the white of his shirtfront, where his unbuttoned coat flapped open, and I swung my arm as hard as I could. The knife went into his skin easily enough but skidded along a bone, maybe his rib, and he screamed as the blood welled through his shirt.
He dropped me and I ran. He caught up with me after a second, though; he was quicker to recover from the shock than I expected. He tackled me, and I twisted, coming up on my side and swinging the knife back. This time I got him in the shoulder and it went in much farther. He really did scream, and heaved off of me, scrambling to his feet. We were close to the edge of the lake then, and I saw a sign or two—we were in some sort of public fishing area. I backed up closer to the water because he was coming at me and I didn't have a choice.
He'd done all the talking up till now. "Come get me, you bastard," I said. "Come get me, rapist."
"They loved it," he said, amazingly. "They loved it."
"Sure," I said. "Who doesn't like being chained and burned and sliced before sex?"
"No," he said, panting, "not the boys. Tom. Tom and Chuck."
"Okay, you make me sick," I said. "You going to stand there and make me sick some more, asshole?"
And he charged. He can't have been stupid, because he had a good job and he did it well enough to keep it, but he was stupid that night because of the strain and the pain and the freezing temperature, and he did lunge right at me. I leaped to one side and as he shot by I shoved him as hard as I could using both hands, even with the broken arm screaming at me. He landed right at the lake's edge, so I hadn't been close enough, damn it. I'd wanted him to go into the chilly water. But he wasn't getting up, and I took off. All those years of running finally gave me a reward for good behavior.
I was in the trees and working my way around the lake toward the inhabited cabin, the one with lights, which—I was almost certain—was the Hamiltons'.
I thought I heard him a million times. I hid for ten minutes, not moving, at least once; and maybe more than that. I was in too much pain to make sense, too cold to reason. I still had the knife, and though I thought of dropping it, I was scared to be without it in case he caught up with me. When I remembered how it had felt when the knife went into him, I had to stop and throw up. This was a queasy case. I didn't remember ever getting the heaves over any case before. Probably, I thought, I could excuse myself for it over the knifing. But I'd gotten sick outside the barn, too. Maybe it was the torturing, not the knifing?
I knew I wasn't thinking clearly, but knowing that didn't seem to help. I actually shook my head, maybe in the hope that my brains would resettle in a more sensible configuration, but I was really sorry I did that after I got sick yet again. Something was wrong with me, something bad. I needed to go to the hospital! I giggled.
It sure must have been Tom that hit me with that shovel, I thought. If it had been Barney, he would've killed me.
I'd forgotten to move for a couple of minutes. I'd just been standing in the dark woods with my mind far, far away. I listened hard, but I couldn't hear anything. That didn't mean it wasn't happening. I didn't trust my senses anymore. But I made myself move, because I couldn't stay out in the cold. I had to reach shelter.
That was the hardest struggle of my life. But I could see the lights and they were getting closer. I was farther from the road, far enough that I could only see lights passing occasionally. And who could tell whose lights they were, anyway?
I finally approached the first cabin. The woods ended, not abruptly, but with a gradual shift from heavy brush and trees, to trees with no brush, to scattered trees, to lawn and cabin. I didn't know anything: where Barney was, if I was for sure at Pine Landing Lake, if Tolliver was even looking for me. How could he not be? But what if he thought I'd gone off voluntarily? We'd been a little irritated with each other. No, that would never happen. He'd never believe I'd leave him.
I was stalling because I was scared to step out into the open. I listened with all my ears and looked with all my eyes. My heart was thudding and my head began pounding in time with it. I was having to fight a terrible desire to lie down on the cold ground and rest there, just for a minute. I took a few deep breaths and braced myself. I stepped out into the darkening evening. The moon would be out and there would be a lot of visibility, but now it was still twilight, the deepest, darkest part.
One step out into the open. Another.
Nothing happened.
I began to move faster, crossing this lawn and going into the next. Saying "lawn" may give an impression of unbroken sweeps of trimmed grass, but that wasn't exactly accurate. These were summer cabins, or glorified fishing camps, and lawn care was not a big item in the time budget of people who spent weekends at the lake. The lots were not that large, and sometimes there was no division at all between one property and another. Sometimes there was a line of ragged bushes, probably something that flowered in the spring. The ground was often weedy, uneven, and always, it was wet. There were things strewn around: buckets, childrens' toys, boats covered in tarps, even a swing set. One careless cabin owner had left out his deck chairs. I know because I fell over one.
I'd never felt so alone in my life.
I got this feeling that this episode would never end. Forever, for always, I'd be stumbling in the dark through rough territory, with death waiting for me somewhere along the line.
I was actually surprised to find that I had reached the Cotton cabin, where we'd stayed. For the first time I was sure I was at Pine Landing Lake, and the next cabin, the one with lights, was the Hamiltons' place.
But I'd have to step into the bright light to knock on the Hamiltons' door. I might endanger them. Though it seemed to me that Barney Simpson must be heading toward Mexico or Canada in his SUV by now, I couldn't be certain.
I planned it in advance, real carefully. I would run from the shadows of the Cotton cabin, up the slight slope to the Hamiltons' driveway, up the steps to their little deck, across it to the door, bam bam bam. Ted would open the door, because it was night. He would let me in. He might not really want to, because I was such a mess and I was bringing trouble with me, but I thought he would.
I gathered myself. Just as I was about to take the step out of the shadows, a large dark shape passed between me and the cottage. It seemed more bear than human, but after a second I was sure I was seeing
