Dr. Tarver was on the snake in a moment. He distracted it with the flashing head of the putter, then grabbed it behind the head and held it high.
Lisa had collapsed onto the sofa and was now staring at two puncture wounds in her forearm. Her breathing grew more and more frantic until foam emerged from her nostrils. When she started jerking like an epileptic, Rusk feared she might have a heart attack.
Dr. Tarver walked back to the desk, his eyes devoid of emotion. 'You see the consequences of noncooperation. I'm going to give you one more chance, Andrew. Before I do, I'm going to explain something. I have no intention of killing you. If I kill you here, that creates a host of problems for me. Your EX NIHILO mechanism, for example. Not to mention a murder investigation. But if I leave you alive, there'll be no murder investigation, and you'll take care of the EX NIHILO business for me. You can't release that confession, because your hands are tied by your own guilt. The way it's always been. You see? You can survive this night. Your diamonds are the price of life. I know you've had your heart set on spending that money, but what's money weighed against thirty or forty more years of life? You have plenty of time to earn more. But I don't. I must take what life offers.'
Tarver came around the desk and sat only inches away from him. The moccasin was struggling to escape. 'Put your trust in logic, Andrew. I'm much safer with you alive than with you dead.'
Rusk looked across the room. Lisa lay shivering on the sofa, still staring at the holes in her arm. Two tracks of blood and yellow fluid had dribbled down to her hand, and there was already pronounced swelling at the site of the bite. As Rusk stared, her facial expression changed from the stunned shock of an accident victim to fearful curiosity. She lifted her taped hands and pulled down the front of her tank top, exposing her left breast. Where the inner curve of the breast met her sternum were two more puncture marks, an inch apart and joined by a dark purple swelling. Lisa's eyes bulged like those of a woman suffering hyperthyroidism. She tried to get to her feet again, but this time she tumbled onto the floor.
'Are you ready to tell me where they are?' Tarver asked softly.
Rusk nodded. 'I'll tell you. But what about Lisa?'
'After I leave, drive her to the emergency room. Tell them you were watering your lawn. She went outside to switch off the faucet, and she felt something hit her. Once she got inside, you saw the puncture marks. Use your imagination, Andrew. Just make sure she tells the same story you do.'
Dr. Tarver reached out with his free hand and pulled Rusk's chin until they were looking eye to eye. 'It's time.'
Rusk felt physical pain as he spoke the words, or perhaps the emotional shock was so severe that it caused pain. 'Under my bed,' he whispered. 'In a flight case, like yours.'
Tarver laughed. 'You keep them under your bed?'
'I buried them like you said. I dug them up this afternoon.'
'Good decision, Andrew.'
Tarver walked around the desk and stuffed the second cottonmouth into the croker sack with its mate. Then he resealed the tape over Rusk's mouth and walked out of the study.
A soft mewling rose from the other side of the desk. Knowing Lisa as he did, Rusk could not begin to fathom what must be going on in her mind, if indeed any rational mind remained. He was surprised how desperately he wanted to help her, but the duct tape made it impossible.
A creaking floorboard announced Dr. Tarver's return. Grinning though his beard, the doctor set the heavy flight case down on Rusk's desk with a bang. It was bright white, and twice as thick as a normal briefcase.
Tarver pulled a corner of the tape from Rusk's mouth. 'What are they worth, Andrew? I know you have at least half your money tied up in business deals. I opened it in the bedroom. These looked like about ten million to me.'
'Nine point six.'
Tarver resealed the tape, then picked up the croker sack from the floor and stuffed it into his backpack. Pulling a small knife from his pocket, he knelt over the spot where Rusk assumed Lisa lay. Had he lied? Was he about to sever Lisa's carotids?
'I'm cutting the tape on her wrists about three-quarters through,' the doctor said calmly. 'She should be able to rip it the rest of the way in a few minutes, if you can keep her conscious. She looks a little shocky to me.'
Rusk heard a faint slap. Then Tarver said, 'Stay awake, sugar tits.'
As Rusk struggled against the tape binding his arms, the doctor got to his feet, shouldered his backpack, picked up the flight case, and strode out of the study.
Rusk felt as though he had been raped. He flexed his jaw muscles hard, and the tape came loose.
'Lisa!' he cried. 'Can you hear me?'
She didn't respond.
'I know you can hear me. Rip the tape off your hands. You've got to do it before you pass out. You've got to save us, baby.'
Still no response.
Rusk heard shifting body weight. Relief coursed through him. 'Rip the tape off your mouth! Use your teeth! Come on, honey, do it!'
More movement on the floor. Then he heard the blessed sound of adhesive coming loose. A low, inhuman moan filled the study.
'Lisa? Are you loose? Do your feet! Honey, can you hear me?'
Now the sound of tape coming loose was continuous. Rusk flashed back to the high school autumns when he'd had to unwind what seemed miles of tape from his ankles after football games. Lisa was doing almost the same thing now. Soon she would be free. He was surprised at how little he felt the loss of the diamonds compared with the joy of surviving and the prospect of getting Lisa medical attention.
'That's it, honey. He didn't think you had it in you, but I knew you could do it.'
The ripping stopped, replaced by the sound of heavy wheezing.
'Get up, sweetheart. Get up and get me loose.'
The woman who stood up on the other side of the desk was almost unrecognizable. An hour before, Lisa Rusk had been a woman of rare beauty who had glided through life without trauma of any kind. Her eyes had shone with the complacent bliss that could only exist in the young. But the woman standing across from him now looked like a refugee from a war zone, someone who had been dragged through the pit of hell and violated in ways unknown and unknowable. Her pupils were pinned against globes of white shot with blood. Her mouth hung open as from a mindless stupor, and her left breast swung free, smeared with blood and yellowish fluid.
'Lisa, can you hear me?'
Her mouth closed and opened three times, but no sound emerged.
A flicker of recognition in her eyes?
She turned toward the sofa. Then, with the slow tread of a zombie, she walked toward the end table. She bent down. But when she came up, she was not holding the pocketknife. She was holding the golf club.
'Lisa? Get the
She looked down at the putter as though unable to identify it. Then she said softly, 'I know.'
As she walked toward the desk, Lisa lifted the putter high above her head. Then she swung it in a long, roundhouse arc. Strapped immobile to the chair, Rusk could only tense as the flashing silver club smashed into his cranium.
CHAPTER 49
Alex let go of her mother's limp hand and quietly left the hospital room. She had sat there for the best part of
