She took another tentative step toward him, reaching out.
“Don’t touch anything,” I said. “Just leave everything the way it is.” I looked away again, took a couple of deep breaths. “I’ll go call the police.”
“Look,” Trixie said, pulling herself together. “There’s a note.”
A piece of paper was rolled up and tucked into one of the closed handcuffs hanging from the wall display. She slid it out.
“Trixie, you shouldn’t be touching that. The police will want it, they’ll want to check it for fingerprints, they’ll-”
Trixie unrolled the sheet, looked at what was written on it, and went very white. She whispered, “They’ve found me.”
“Who?” I said. “Who’s found you?”
“Someone must have seen the photo and told them. They’ve got friends everywhere.” There was panic in her voice.
“What does it say?” I asked her. “Show me the note.”
But she had already folded it and put it in the front pocket of her jeans. She stood a moment, breathing out slowly, pulling herself together.
“You’re going to have to help me,” she said.
“Help you what?”
“We have to get rid of the body.”
Perhaps, if I weren’t still in some sort of shock at discovering a dead guy in Trixie’s basement, a guy that Trixie would probably have been happy to see dead a few days earlier, I might have been able to laugh at her suggestion. But I was too numb for that. Instead, very slowly, I said, “Trixie, we have to call the police. And we have to call them right now.”
She took a step toward me. “You don’t understand. There are things I have to do. Things I have to sort out. I don’t have time to waste talking to the police. I can’t get involved with them. I’ve got some plastic in the garage, we could wrap him up, find someplace to dump him-”
“Trixie!”
I guess she was unaccustomed to hearing me raise my voice, to actually shout. Her eyes danced for a second, and she focused on me as though seeing me for the first time.
“Trixie, we are not hiding the body. You’re not hiding it, and I’m not helping you. You have to tell me what the hell is going on. Who’s done this? Who did this to Benson?” I paused a moment. “You didn’t do it, did you?”
“You think I’m capable of this? Of this?” Her arm flung out in the direction of Benson. “You don’t know me better than to think I would do something like that?”
“There seems to be a lot I don’t know about you, Trixie. Like what’s written on that note. Why you were so scared for your picture to show up in the paper. Why those guys selling stun guns put you on edge. Does this have something to do with Canborough, Trixie? Something that happened five years ago?”
She blinked.
“Is this all related to three bikers getting killed? Did you see something that night, Trixie? Are you on the run? Are you some kind of a witness?”
“What have you been doing? Have you been checking up on me? What gives you the right to start poking into my personal affairs and-”
“Trixie, forget about that. We have to call the police. They can protect you. They can get whoever did this to Benson, they can make it so you don’t have to be on the run.”
Trixie appeared to be weighing her options. “Maybe you’re right,” she said. “I can’t keep living this way.”
I smiled. “Okay. Let’s go upstairs. I’ll make the call if you want.”
“Maybe you should,” she said, and reached out for my hand.
It happened so fast, I never had a chance to react.
As she slapped a cuff around my right wrist, she pulled my body toward her, yanking my right arm forward toward the base of the stair handrail, onto which she snapped the matching cuff.
Thrown off balance, I shouted, “Jesus Christ! Trixie, what the hell are you doing?”
She jumped back, afraid that I might try to grab her with my free arm. I yanked my right arm and the handcuffs jangled, cut into my wrist. The handrail held firm. I shook it several times, unable to believe my predicament. When I looked back at Trixie, she was holding a second pair of cuffs.
“I’m going to toss these to you,” she said, “and I want you to put them on your other wrist, then put the other cuff on the railing.”
“What?”
“I need to be able to get by you on the stairs, Zack. I can’t trust that you won’t try to hang on to me.” She tossed the cuffs and they landed by my foot.
“I’m not putting them on,” I said.
Without saying a word, Trixie disappeared around the corner where I guess the fridge that held the coffee was, and returned a moment later with a gun in her hand.
“Trixie, you wouldn’t.”
“You’re probably right, Zack, but I’m in a rather desperate situation at the moment, and I don’t think you should test me.” She raised the gun and pointed it at me.
I stared at her a good ten seconds, then bent down, picked up the cuff with my left hand, moved it close to my right hand, which I used to apply half the cuff. Then I slipped the other cuff around the railing and closed it.
“I need to hear it close,” Trixie said. I squeezed it, and she heard the telltale click. “That’s good.” She produced two keys from her jeans. “I’m going to leave these right on the table here, so that when someone comes to rescue you, you’ll be able to get those off right away. And promise me you won’t start yelling your head off as soon as I leave here. I need some time to get away. If you’re going to yell, I’m going to have to leave you gagged.” She nodded at some red balls attached to straps that were hanging on the wall with the other S &M equipment.
“That won’t be necessary,” I said quietly.
Still holding the gun, she came up close to me. “Where are your car keys?”
“What?”
“Zack, just tell me where they are.”
“Front pants pocket,” I said, and Trixie came alongside me and slid her slender fingers down into the pocket of my jeans as I once again tested the cuffs on the railing.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’m only going after your keys.” She found them, gave them a shake. “I’ll just take the car keys, not your house keys. I figure they know what kind of car I’ve got, so it’s better if I get a running start in yours. You can have my car. I’ll leave you my set on the kitchen counter.”
“Trixie, you’re making a big mistake. Let me help you through this.”
“I need help, that’s for sure,” she said. “But not the kind I think you’re up to.” She leaned in close to me, her face so close to mine I could feel her breath. “I know I keep telling you this, Zack, but I’m really sorry about everything. Maybe someday I can make it up to you.”
And she leaned in and kissed me, placed her mouth squarely on mine, slipped a hand behind my head so I couldn’t try to pull away. She moved her lips over mine for a second or more, pulled away, leaned in to me again for a small, follow-up peck, and smiled sadly at the shocked expression I guess was on my face.
“Sarah’s a very lucky gal,” she said, and climbed to the top of the stairs. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure someone comes and finds you.”
“Trixie,” I said, one last time. “Just tell me. Why are you doing this?”
She paused, looked at me very seriously for a moment, and said, “I’m not going to let them get my little girl.”
And then she was gone.
She was late.
A couple of days, Miranda didn’t worry. Took note of it, but didn’t panic or anything. But then it was a week. Ten days. Now it was time to panic. She went to the drugstore and came home with a pregnancy test. Went into the bathroom, closed the door.
