A Fatal Obsession

by James Hayman

  Zoe flew onto a branch of a big maple and sat, looking down at the people watching the pine box as it was lowered into the ground. Some stood silently. Others mumbled prayers. Her father and stepmother, Cathy, were openly weeping. Poor Daddy. He’d always supported everything she wanted to do. Even more so after his first wife, Zoe’s mother, Ellen, died in that terrible accident when the car she was driving slid across a patch of black ice and into the path of an oncoming eighteen-wheeler.

  Zoe knew deep down Daddy believed that as a responsible and now single parent he should encourage her to do something sensible with her life. Like go to law school or business school. Nevertheless, he told her that if the theater was what she really and truly wanted she should just go for it. Follow her dream. Wherever it led, full speed ahead, and even if he didn’t agree, he would support her every step of the way. Zoe knew Daddy loved her so much that dying almost made her feel sadder for him than she did for herself.

  Standing next to Daddy, Alex, her former lover, stood expressionless in a dark suit and a black tie standing next to his new girlfriend, a British bitch named Annabelle—call me Bella—who had once been Zoe’s best friend but was no longer, not now that she’d been caught in her best friend’s bed fucking her best friend’s boyfriend.

  As she watched the box lying motionless in the hole and imagined herself inside, Zoe repeated the familiar lines from Hamlet’s soliloquy.

  To die, to sleep;

  To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;

  For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

  When we have shuffled off this mortal coil . . .

  What dreams may come, indeed. Perhaps that’s all this really was. A dream.

  She looked around to see who else was inhabiting her vision of death. Standing next to Alex and Annabelle, Zoe saw her father’s sister, Aunt Fran, aka Sister Fran or, more accurately, Sister Mary Frances, dressed in full nun’s habit. Next to Fran was Uncle Michael, her father’s brother. A cop like all the male McCabes, except for her father. Uncle Mike lived in Maine now and he had his arm wrapped around the shoulder of his daughter, her cousin Casey. Zoe had spent the whole summer with them six years ago in a tiny rented cottage on a place called Hart’s Island just off Portland. She had been eighteen at the time and Casey was thirteen. She hadn’t seen much of them since then, outside of the occasional Thanksgiving or Christmas celebrations at her parents’ apartment or their house up in Dutchess County. She was too busy working her ass off trying to make her dream of being a successful and respected actress a reality. Uncle Mike was a homicide cop, so maybe he could figure out who’d killed her because she was sure she must have been murdered.

  A circle of friends, classmates from Dalton and Juilliard, were all in attendance. As was the entire cast and crew of Othello, the actors all in costume. Randall Carter, who played the Moor, looked down at her coffin with the same bereft expression he’d worn after smothering her on stage. Was it Randall who’d murdered her? He’d already done it twelve times on stage, not counting rehearsals, so maybe he had. The last person in the circle of mourners was Luke Nichols, whom she’d had drinks with last night after the closing performance. Handsome Luke. Was he the one who’d killed her? No. Luke was one of the gentlest, sweetest men she’d ever known. He wanted to replace Alex as her lover, but she wasn’t ready for that yet, and when she told him so, he just accepted what she said and told her he’d be asking again. No matter how many times he asked, Zoe knew Luke was never going to be the right guy. Not that it mattered anymore.

  After the box was settled in the ground, a priest with light brown skin and a Hispanic accent started talking about how wonderful Zoe was, which was ridiculous because he didn’t know her from Adam. Or from Eve, which she supposed was a more appropriate descriptor. Zoe had gone to services at St. Ray’s a couple of times when she was staying with Granny Rose while her parents went on their grownups-only vacations. But the only priest she remembered from those visits was an elderly Irishman named Father Fred, and this guy looked nothing at all like him. Zoe guessed all the old Irish priests like Father Fred were either dying off or getting their butts tossed out of the church for diddling little boys. On the other hand, she’d also had a strong feeling that Granny Rose had had a crush on him. And that he had felt the same way about her. The idea of her grandmother having her last sexual fling with an old Irish priest made her smile.

  The priest intoned a prayer, and when the prayer was finished, all the people lined up and each tossed a little dirt on top of the box. Soon the box would be covered with dirt and Zoe would be gone forever. Her body rotting inside at the bottom of a hole. The idea of it made her angry. This shouldn’t be happening. Not now. Not here.

  Not to her. She tried to call out to her father. Tried telling him that someone had made a terrible mistake. That she wasn’t dead. That she was just asleep and this was all nothing but a dream of death. Daddy, Daddy, please wake me up!

  As the mourners left the gravesite, an elderly black workman with snow-white hair appeared and started tossing shovelfuls of dirt on top of the box that held Zoe’s body. She tried as hard as she could to scream out to him, to tell him to stop, but the only sound that came out was more like a garbled choke than anything like a scream.

  Chapter 10

  Zoe never learned if the black man with the shovel heard her calling out because the gagging sound coming from her throat was just loud enough to jar her out of her dreamlike state and into a fuzzy semblance of consciousness. She was awake, but still too groggy to understand what was going on. She lay perfectly still, waiting for rational thought to return. Slowly it did. The first thing she became aware of was a cloth stuffed into her mouth. A handkerchief or something that felt a lot like a handkerchief, which was making it impossible for her to take in air through her mouth or to make any sound other than the garbled choke from the back of her throat.

  She worked her tongue back behind the handkerchief, hoping she might be able to push it out that way. Drawing her tongue that far back made her gag, but between gags she kept pushing. Despite her best efforts, the cloth remained in place, its expulsion blocked. She next tried pushing her tongue past the cloth and out the front of her mouth. She pushed it all the way to her lips but it wouldn’t go through. She wriggled her lips and felt something sticky pulling at them. Duct tape? Probably. Last year, she’d been cast in a bit part as a hostage in an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, and in her one scene the bad guys had wrapped duct tape around her mouth and head to keep her quiet. This felt exactly the same.

  Except during the shoot they hadn’t stuffed anything in her mouth. She took a deep breath through her nose. Okay. She could breathe. At least she was still alive. Her death, her burial, the mourners, the priest. All of that had been nothing more than a dream. No, not exactly a dream. More like a nightmare. The question was, where was she now?

  Zoe told herself to open her eyes and look around. Only to realize her eyes were already open and the only thing she could see was black. A darkness so totally devoid of light that she wondered if maybe the funeral hadn’t been a dream after all, and she’d just been buried alive. Panic coursed through her brain and body. She jerked up, her head traveling no more than two inches, before slamming hard into something above. The top of the coffin?

  Maybe. Probably. Absolutely. She was sure it was. She’d been buried alive.

  Terror unlike any she’d ever known swamped any ability for rational thought. She began thrashing blindly. Wildly. Side to side. Up and down. She cried out in wordless, choking bellows from the depths of her throat, as loudly as the thing in her mouth would allow. But even though her bellows sounded loud to her, she was sure no one could possibly hear. Not from the inside of a pine box buried six feet under the earth.

  But then someone did.

  “Hey! Shut up and stop that banging around!”

  Lost in her panic, she kept thrashing. Kept emitting her choking cries.

  “I said shut
the fuck up and lie still!”

  She froze. Who could possibly be shouting? Some guy buried in the next coffin? Some nasty neighbor who wanted to lie in peace and quiet? No. No. That was ridiculous.

  “That’s better! And keep it still!”

  She followed instructions and kept still. Even though her heart was thumping so hard and so fast she thought the guy might hear the thumps and yell at her again. She ordered herself to calm down. Ordered herself to think clearly. Breathe. Exhale. Breathe. Exhale. Breathe. Exhale. Okay. She’d heard a voice. A male voice. And it wasn’t some guy buried next to her in the cemetery who she was disturbing from his eternal rest. No. No. No. No. No.

  That was crazy. Totally crazy. Whoever was yelling at her wasn’t a dead guy. He was real. Real and close enough that she knew she couldn’t possibly be in a box six feet under the earth.

  The knowledge of that somehow seemed enormously comforting. Absurdly so, given that she had no idea whose voice it was or where she was or what kind of danger she might be in. Still, she wanted to hear the voice again. It seemed to be her only proof she wasn’t dead. She started thrashing and bellowing again.

  “What the hell are you doing back there? Just lie still and be quiet.”

  Again, she found the presence of a voice, even an angry, pissed-off voice, comforting. She followed orders. Lay still and concentrated on trying to remember. What had happened? How had she gotten here, wherever here was? Could this be somebody’s idea of a joke? No. Nobody she knew would be that stupid.

  Okay, if not a joke, then what? Could it be a kidnapping? She could think of only two reasons anybody would kidnap her. Money or sex. Or maybe both. Money seemed unlikely. Her father was well-off; he’d done well in the law. A lot of people would call him rich. But not crazy rich. Most of her classmates’ parents at Dalton could buy and sell Robert McCabe ten times over. Still, if Daddy had to, in order to save her life, he’d find some way to beg, borrow or steal whatever amount of money a kidnapper might demand.

  Her mind turned to the alternative motive: sex. Even unconscious, she was sure she would have sensed being raped. What if he hadn’t done it yet? What if he was waiting till he let her out of this black prison? If he raped her once, there was nothing to stop him from raping her again. And then again after that. She felt the panic rising once more within her. She ordered herself to calm down. Told herself panicking was the worst thing she could do. No, she had to stay calm. Try to figure out where she was. How she’d gotten there. Most important of all, how to get away.

  Slowly memory began to return. She remembered being on stage for the last performance of Othello. Dying for the twelfth time, with the Moor’s hands holding the pillow that was smothering her. She remembered the loud applause, her final bows for the final performance. A bouquet thrown up on stage. The bouquet was for her. Then there’d been three curtain calls before she ran back to the dressing room and changed out of her costume and cleaned up. When she came out, Randall was waiting to tell her what a pleasure it had been to work with her, how talented she was, what a great future she had ahead of her.

  They left the theater together. He’d flirted a little with her. Suggested he’d like to get together. Just the two of them. She’d been flattered. More than flattered. Randall Carter wasn’t just good-looking (though he was very good-looking), he was a legitimate star. Well-known and well-connected both in New York and in L.A. Randall hung out with the kind people Zoe needed to know if she was ever going to get a shot at the kinds of roles she hungered for. People like David Fincher, Ridley Scott, Martin Scorsese. She told Randall she’d love to see him again. He took her cell number and told her he’d call her. She took his, just in case he didn’t. Then, before getting into the car that had come to take him home, he’d kissed her. Not a super sexy kiss. Rather the kind of kiss that communicated desire and promises of more to come.

  What next? What else? The memories began coming faster now. Zoe remembered watching Randall Carter drive away. Then walking six blocks to the Laughing Toad, her mind excited the whole way by the idea of dating someone like him. How that could really be her big break. When she got to the Toad, she found Luke waiting for her, having somehow snagged one of the best tables in the place. He’d already ordered a cold bottle of Sancerre, her favorite wine. He stood. They exchanged chaste kisses on the cheeks. He poured some wine for her. They clinked glasses.

  “Here’s to you and to many more successes like Othello. You really are going to be a star.”

  She’d bowed her head, silently nodding her thanks. The waitress came.

  Luke ordered a hamburger. Zoe a small salad. Sensing someone looking at her, she remembered turning around and seeing a big guy staring at her from near the bar. Looking kind of weird, like he was having a migraine or something. But it couldn’t have been a migraine because she remembered him kind of waking up and smiling at her and nodding like he was an old friend. Thinking there was something odd about him, she’d told Luke. Luke glanced at the guy and told her not to worry. Said guys always stare at beautiful women and that it wasn’t a problem. The guy wouldn’t bother her because she was with someone else.

  Could the guy staring at her in the bar be the same guy who’d kidnapped her? Was it his voice telling her to quiet down? To lie still? The last thing she could remember was leaving the Toad with Luke. Thanking him for his friendship and support. Saying good night. Him moving in to kiss her lips, which he managed once. Then Zoe turning her head so the next kiss landed on her cheek. She remembered him offering to walk her home. Telling her she shouldn’t be walking alone this time of night. She suspected he was right, but she also suspected he might want to come upstairs when they got to her place, and she was certain she wasn’t ready to start another relationship. Not with Luke. Or frankly not with anyone else, possibly excepting Randall Carter. She told Luke not to worry. Told him it wasn’t necessary. It was only a few blocks to her place, and his apartment was in the opposite direction. He looked a bit crestfallen. Asked if she was sure. She said she was. Then added that she valued his friendship and that she’d call him soon. He just shrugged and smiled and said okay, and that you couldn’t blame a guy for trying. She smiled back at him, and then they’d turned and walked in opposite directions.

  Then what? She had no idea except the certainty that Luke never would have attacked her and wrapped her up inside whatever the hell this thing was. So what happened? No matter how hard she tried, Zoe couldn’t break through the fog.

  She decided to try another tack. She thought about the words the guy had used. What the hell are you doing back there? Back there? She was someplace the guy was calling back there. Not down there. Not in there. But back there. The question was back where? She concentrated and began sensing motion. She listened hard and thought what she heard might be the sound of an engine and the hum of tires on a road.

  She lifted her head once again, more slowly this time. She rubbed the tip of her nose against the thing above her. It wasn’t hard like wood. More like some kind of rough fabric that smelled like mold and cat piss. It would help if she could feel the fabric with her fingers but when she tried, she realized she was lying on her hands and she couldn’t pull them out from under. Her movement had been stopped by two links encircling her wrists. Handcuffs?

  She supposed so. Though she’d once been handcuffed on camera playing a teenage delinquent, these cuffs felt different from those, more flexible than the ones the guy playing the cop had slapped on her then. She pulled hard against the restraints, trying to break them apart. When that proved impossible, she tried moving her feet. Same result. Her ankles were being held in place. Not by handcuffs or ankle cuffs if there even was such a thing, but by something else. Duct tape? Probably. It was wrapped around her ankles holding them together. Okay. She was stuck. She couldn’t use her arms or legs or scream for help. Was there anything she actually could do? Under her fingers and above her toes she felt the same rough fabric surface she’d felt on her forehead. She was totally enveloped i
n the thing. She rubbed it again and realized it felt exactly like the rough fabric of the rug in her apartment. The Navajo she bought in Arizona when she was taking a few days off after shooting a Range Rover commercial in Death Valley last winter. It felt the same. Smelled the same. Had somebody been waiting for her in her apartment? Waiting to knock her out and wrap her up in her own rug and throw her in the back of a car?

  She grew increasingly certain that that’s what happened. Increasingly certain that when he got around to unwrapping her, the next thing he would do was rape her. Maybe once. Maybe more than once. And then what? What was going to happen when he got tired of raping her? Well, that was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? He’d murder her and bury her somewhere no one would ever find her. Or maybe just toss her on the same beach in Connecticut where they’d found the body of that dancer. What was her name? Sarah Jacobs.

  Then he’d go out hunting for someone new. The words hunting for someone new seemed to flip a switch in her mind. Suddenly more memories came tumbling back. And soon she remembered it all. The guy from the bar, the one who’d been staring at her, the guy who looked like he was having a migraine. It was him. She was sure of it. He was the one who caught up to her on the street, handing her some bullshit about meeting her at the opening night party. Tyler Bradshaw. Said he was with Kitty Mayhew. She’d relaxed when he said that, and because the street was crowded enough that it didn’t seem dangerous, she’d stupidly let him walk her home. Oh Jesus, why hadn’t she realized it then? He didn’t look like what she imagined a rapist and killer was supposed to look like, plus he sounded educated. Had kind of a preppy accent. Which she should have realized didn’t mean shit. What it did mean was that unless she could figure some way out of this mess—which at the moment seemed totally impossible—she was going to be sexually brutalized and then she was going to die.