to a table, and she wasn't getting away.
'I tried to find a solution,' Charlie said. 'I really did. What did you come up with?'
'Here's what I came up with. If you kill me, my parents will hunt you down to the ends of the earth. You will never know another moment of peace. You will--'
Charlie put his hand over her mouth. 'I didn't ask you to come up with a speech. Is that really all you've got for me? A threat? All this time down here and your answer is to tell me that your parents will seek revenge?' Charlie was incredulous, but it also made him feel a little better about himself. If she'd spent about twenty hours in a basement with absolutely nothing to do but think about how they could work things out, and even she was unsuccessful, then there truly had to be no answer. It wasn't just him.
He pulled his hand away. 'They'll torture you,' Patti said.
'They'd do that even if I let you go.'
'They'll fuck you up.'
Charlie picked up the knife. 'You didn't do what you were supposed to. This isn't my fault.'
'You'll burn in hell.'
'You think I don't know that?'
'They'll—'
'Enough! Do you want the blade in your throat or in your heart? You pick.'
Patti bit her lip and said nothing.
'Throat or heart? Come on. It's not that difficult of a decision.'
Her voice became frantic. 'I have a place where you can stay. My parents own a cabin. Nobody will find you there. I'll take you there right now if you let me go. I'll never tell. I swear.'
Charlie shook his head. 'That won't work. It's better than the threat, but it won't work. Heart or throat? You can also think of it as slice or stab. Which do you want?'
'I--I don't...' Tears began to stream down the sides of her face. 'Which one hurts less?'
'I don't know. I think heart.'
'Please don't kill me.'
'We'll do heart.'
Charlie raised the knife over Patti's chest. Kutter began to whimper.
'What's wrong?' Charlie asked. The dog continued to whine, clearly distressed.
What was wrong seemed pretty obvious: Kutter didn't want him to stab her.
Great.
'It's okay, boy,' Charlie assured him. 'You don't have to be scared.'
He set the knife down on the table. Wow. He never would've expected to interrupt killing his prey to avoid traumatizing a dog.
'Kutter, upstairs. Come on.' He whistled and started up the stairs himself. Kutter didn't follow. Halfway up, Charlie clapped his hands and whistled again. 'Come on, boy!'
He spent another full minute trying to coax the dog onto the stairs, then gave up and just picked Kutter up. 'It'll be fine,' he said in a soothing voice. 'Nothing bad's going to happen to you.' Kutter continued to whine as he carried him upstairs into the kitchen. He closed the door behind them and set Kutter on the floor. Kutter immediately started to scratch on the basement door.
'Stop it,' Charlie said. 'You know better than that.'
Charlie decided that he might as well clean up Kutter's mess before tending to the problem downstairs. Stupid pukey dog. 'It's not too late to take you to the animal shelter,' Charlie said, even though he was considering no such thing.
By the time Charlie finished cleaning up the couch, Kutter had fallen asleep on the floor and was snoring softly. It felt weird to be sneaking around in his own house, but Charlie crept into the kitchen and slowly opened the basement door. He shut it behind him as he went down the stairs.
He walked over to the table and sighed with frustration.
And then he slid the blade across Patti's throat, receiving no pleasure from the sight of her gushing blood.
- 10 -
The next evening, a policeman showed up at his door. Charlie told him that a girl had indeed tried to sell him a magazine subscription, and that he felt bad turning her down, but that he couldn't bring himself to do anything that might encourage further door-to-door solicitation. The officer seemed satisfied with his response, gave Charlie his card, and asked him to call if he thought of anything else that might be helpful. Charlie promised him that he would.
* * *
'So are you coming?' Alicia asked, as Charlie shut down his computer.
He'd decided that he wasn't. She'd only asked him to join them as a way to be nice about turning down his request for a date--not even a date, coffee as friends--and he didn't particularly like the other people he worked with. He knew their names and whether or not they had kids (mostly because they talked about it so loudly in the aisles) but not much else, and wasn't interested in knowing more.
'Nah.'
'You really should.'
'Okay, I'll go,' he heard himself say.
'Great!'
Oh well. No big deal. He'd survive this. Worst-case scenario, he'd have a miserable hour or so, and then he'd go home and spend some quality time with Kutter. Wednesdays were now Frisbee night--he'd stop at the toy store on the way home and get the nicest plastic Frisbee they had.
* * *
Five of them sat around the table in the restaurant. Mike, Gary, and Jessica had all expressed surprise that Charlie was coming with them, and it looked like Jessica had purposely picked a seat where she wouldn't be next to him, yet they were all reasonably pleasant. Everybody ordered alcoholic beverages except Charlie--Gary had pushed for him to get a beer, but Charlie needed to remain in full control of his mental state. He'd never been drunk, and could see no positive outcome to having too much to drink and accidentally blurting out something like 'Say, were you aware that during my non-working hours I slaughter innocent women?'
They started by talking about tedious job-related stuff that Charlie had no interest in. He didn't care about the whispered rumors about possible mergers or layoffs in other departments or suspected affairs between bosses and their administrative assistants. Charlie did his own job as well as he possibly could, and expected others around him to do their jobs correctly, but outside of his area, he didn't much care what was happening. None of this conversation affected him personally or professionally. What a waste of time that he could be using to choose the perfect color of Frisbee. His thought was blue, if they had it, though dark green might also work.
'So, Charlie,' said Alicia. 'Tell everybody about your new dog.'
Charlie's stomach clenched up. He hated being the center of attention, even in a small group. 'Kutter,' he said.
'What kind of dog is it?' Mike asked.
'Boston terrier.'
'Oh, I love those!' said Jessica. 'Those cute little faces. You didn't get him from a puppy mill, did you?'
'No.'
'Charlie found him under a park bench, badly hurt,' said Alicia.
'Not badly hurt.'
'I thought you said he was hurt.'
