Oh God, she’s going to suffocate!
But the panic only lasts a moment before her training kicks in.
Calm down, Val. Focus.
She draws her attention to her nose. There’s a thin aperture between the tape and the opening of her nostrils, and as long as she’s careful, it won’t close entirely. She can smell the caustic adhesive as she inhales, making her a bit woozy, but she can still breathe.
Return to the breath. Always return to the breath.
She breathes in, slowly but fully, urging her reckless nerves to subside. She is going to get off this goddamn chair.
She thinks through the mechanics of it. If she can get the tape over her head and then push her body up, she’ll be able get her hands over the back of the chair. Then she’ll be free.
She turns her head far to one side, shaking and nodding against the duct tape until her nose and cheek and finally her ear have cleared it. Then she turns her head straight. The loop of duct tape drops behind her head, settling against the back of her neck. The sensation is like a hallelujah blasting through her.
She plants her feet against the floor and slides her arms and body up the back of the chair. She steps one foot onto to the seat of the chair, then the other, so she’s positioned in a deep squat, her arms still trapped behind her. Then, quadriceps burning, she pushes herself to standing, releasing her arms from the back of the chair. She shudders almost orgasmically at the sense of relief. She’s done it. Her wrists are still bound together, but she’s free.
The desk. There may something sharp in one of the drawers. She starts toward it.
No. The man could return any moment. She can’t afford to mess around in here. Screw the remaining tie. She’ll make it down to the master bedroom and press the panic button, then she’ll worry about getting her hands unbound.
She doesn’t bother to pull the gag from her mouth either; after three and a half decades of yoga training, she’s just fine breathing through her nose.
The man keeps his rifle in hand as they trade places—the man sitting in the chair, John standing in front of him, freed from his restraints and ready to work.
John dons a pair of latex gloves, then pulls a syringe and a vial of Novocain from his bag.
“No!” says the man. “No needles.”
“You’re going to want an anesthetic.”
The man shakes his head. “No needles. Just stitch.”
John sighs. “Well,” he says, “stitches involve needles.”
“I don’t want you putting something strong in that syringe and sticking me in the neck with it.”
“I don’t even have anything that could—”
“No needles.”
“Look… this is going to be very unpleasant for you if we don’t use an anesthetic.”
“Then it’s gonna be unpleasant.”
John sighs and sets the syringe aside.
“Toss it in the closet,” the man says.
John tosses the syringe in the closet, playing it cool as he puts the Novocain (and the vial of Thorazine he’d palmed with it) back into the medical bag. A syringe full of that stuff would have been enough to put a woolly mammoth out for the night, but the guy foiled his plan. This guy might not be as dumb as he looks.
The man winces as John pats down the wound with an alcohol swab. “It’s only gonna get worse from here.”
“I can handle it.”
John discards the swab and gathers the stitching supplies: surgical thread, needle, and a small pair of scissors. He holds the materials up before the man. “These are different than I’m used to. Older. Coarser. It might be rough.”
“Just do your best.”
John sighs and approaches the man. He reaches out and, holding the needle in his right hand, steadies the man’s forehead with his left. He brings the needle forward and inserts it into the fatty flesh of the man’s brow. The man shifts in his seat, swallowing a groan.
“Try to hold still,” John tells him. He glances at the barrel of the rifle. The tip of it hovers a few inches from his solar plexus. He hopes this guy’s got a steady trigger finger.
When he’s tied off the first stitch, he cuts the thread and prepares the needle to go again. The man’s body lurches as John sticks the needle in a quarter-inch from the first stitch, and John has to withdraw the point, bringing with it a pearl of blood.
“I’m gonna have to clean that up and try again.”
“I’m sorry,” the man says. “This really hurts.”
“That’s why we use an anesthetic. It’s not too late if you want to—”
“No. I’ll sit still. I’ll be good.” There’s a boyish quality about the man, the way he speaks. He sounds as if he’s trying to be helpful, or doesn’t want John to think badly of him.
John wipes the blood away from the man’s brow and takes another pass at the second stitch. To his credit, the man does as he said he would, remaining perfectly still as John continues to work. He threads the second stitch, the third, the fourth, his window for action shrinking as he ties off each suture.
There’s got to be another play here. Back in his lacrosse days, John could manage impossible maneuvers, finding routes to the goal under enormous pressure, double- and triple-teamed by the opposing defense. He’s got this guy in a compromised position. Surely there’s something he can do. Then again, the guy’s got a rifle, and although he sounds civil enough, it would be foolish to suppose he wouldn’t use it if it came to that. Short of firing the gun, those hefty arms could do quite a bit of damage just by swinging the thing.
Distracted, John cuts the thread on the fifth stitch a little longer than the others. As he’s trimming the thread down, an idea comes to him. If he leaves enough length on one of the stitches, he might be able to snake the thread over the man’s shoulder and tie it to the back of the chair. It’ll take some sleight of hand, but it’s possible. Then, if he makes a break for it, the man will either have to take the chair with him—slowing him down enough for John to get a solid lead—or tear himself away from it, ripping open the skin. He’ll be momentarily stunned by the pain and blinded by blood, perhaps giving John enough lead time to make it to the panic button in the master bedroom.
Perhaps? No, definitely. Despite the age difference, John’s sure he’s faster than this big lummox.
He works out the details as he loops the lead for the next stitch through the man’s skin. He’ll pretend to cut the thread, leaving it slack in his palm. He’ll tie it off, then leap behind the chair, forcing the man to try to get up—only to discover that he’s tethered to his seat. Then John will run out of the room and down the hall to the master bedroom, closing and locking the door behind him. Even if the man shoots the lock, that’ll give him plenty of time to make it to the panic button on the far side of the dresser.
He works slowly on the next couple of stitches, mentally rehearsing the plan. His old athletic reflexes haven’t left him altogether. Even if the moves don’t go exactly as he’s imagining, he’ll be able to make it work. His muscles are still loose and warm from the yoga class. He’ll be able to get the job done. As long as he moves swiftly and surely.
And as long as there are no variables he hasn’t accounted for. There’s the rub.
In the birthing unit, he makes a dozen or more tough calls a week. But that’s a controlled environment, where he knows what the factors are and can quickly assess the risks. Here, in this insane situation, there are so many uncertainties. Unknown unknowns. Questions it hasn’t yet occurred to him to ask.
The door to the master bedroom, for instance. Supposing the man knows about the panic button, might he have found the spare house keys and locked the door? He was able to get past the security system—he must know something. If the door is locked, then John will make it all the way to the master bedroom only to have to double back and either head for the office at the far end of the hallway—which might also be locked—or back down to the kitchen. That could give the man enough time to intercept him—o
r to make it to Val, wherever she is.
The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes just how many things could go wrong. Still, this might be the best chance he’s going to get. It might be the only chance. He isn’t likely to be free of his bonds again until the man has done whatever he’s there to do.
Which is, of course, the big, screaming unknown at the center of this whole equation: what in hell is this man here for? He told John he doesn’t want to touch Val, but beyond that he hasn’t said a word about his agenda. If he were a burglar, it would have made more sense to take his haul and make a quick exit, then head to a hospital in another town. Why let John get such a long, close look at him? Why let his hostage insert the stitches that will become his identifying marks in a line-up? He’ll be a sitting duck after this, unable to show his face on the street. Why subject himself to this? Perhaps he is stupid.
Or perhaps he’s up to something else.
Perhaps getting away isn’t part of the equation.
Perhaps he’s planning to stay here for a while.
A chill presses into John’s gut. The cost of inaction here might be dire. The longer the man is here, the more opportunities there are for things to go south and for somebody to get hurt. If he’s going to put a stop to this, it’s best to do it soon, to strike before things have time to get messy. Remember the Bhagavad-Gita: when the time comes, you must not hesitate to act.
As he ties off the eleventh stitch, John looks at the remaining stretch of open flesh cutting across the man’s temple. Four more ought to do it. Just a few more minutes to make his decision. He threads the needle, racked with doubt.
Then another concern intrudes on his deliberations: He took an oath when he became a doctor, an oath to preserve the finest traditions of his calling and to heal all those who seek his help. That might seem like a trivial technicality given the urgency of the present situation, but John takes his oath as seriously as he takes anything in his life. Never much of a religious man, his responsibility as a doctor is as close as John comes to holding something sacred, on a par with his marriage vows and his unspoken devotion to his children.
Would it violate his integrity as a physician for him to injure this man? Of course not. He’s performing the procedure under duress. Any actions he takes would be taken not as a doctor but as a captive trying to save his own and his wife’s lives.
Still, to use his position, the instruments and skills of his vocation, to harm someone who has asked for his care… it violates some of his most basic impulses and his deepest convictions. No one in the medical community would say he’d done anything wrong. But that’s not what he’s afraid of. He’s afraid of the cost of living with the decision. No matter what anyone else thinks, it will be a transgression. It will put a stain, however faint, on his practice. It will bleed into his awareness, piercing his conscience with every post-Caesarian suture he inserts for the rest of his career.
As he ties off the fourteenth stitch, John knows that he’s already made up his mind. He can act with alacrity when he’s confident of the grounds for his action, but in the face of this kind of uncertainty he can find no purchase.
He won’t be able to go through with his plan.
His heart pounds, urging him to do something—good God, do something!—but he knows he cannot. His fingers shake slightly as he brings the scissors toward the thread, reproaching himself for his inability to act.
No!
He’s got to do it. He won’t be able to look himself in the mirror if he lets this opportunity slip by. Something switches over in him. Without thinking, he pulls the thread taut and pretends to cut it off. Then he palms the extra length of thread and reaches toward the back of the chair as his other hand feints the empty needle back into position.
The doorbell rings. John freezes with the needle poised at the man’s temple. The man looks up at John.
“You expecting company?”
John shakes his head. A few chilly seconds pass. Neither of them moves. The doorbell rings again, followed by the sound of footsteps—someone running across the floor below. The man’s eyes widen.
“Back up!” he shouts.
John takes a step back. He raises his hands, dropping the loose thread so that it dangles from the man’s temple.
“Turn around!”
John obliges. The man’s left arm encircles his throat. And as the barrel of the rifle settles against the flesh beneath his right earlobe, John hears his window for action slamming shut.
Hands still bound, mouth gagged, Val steps out of Clara’s room and looks down the hallway. A sliver of light spills out from the guest room. The door is ajar. Val remembers the man closing it after he left John there. He must have gone back in, perhaps to work John over.
There’s no time to think about that. She turns and starts down the hallway toward the master bedroom. She stops. The door is closed. It wasn’t closed before—at least she doesn’t think it was. The man may have locked it. She turns around and looks down the hallway. The door to the study is also closed.
Shit.
There’s no use running around, making a racket as she fiddles with locked doors. She’ll have to get her ass downstairs, press the panic button in the kitchen, then get the hell out of there and book it over to a neighbor’s house. John, of course, would be better fitted to that task, with his lacrosse player’s legs. But he’ll do some good here as well. He’s good under pressure, a calming presence. If there’s anyone up to the job of keeping that ogre cool, it’s her husband.
Val tiptoes down the hall to the top of the staircase, glancing at the door to the guest room. She starts down the stairs, her legs shaking badly from the rush of adrenaline and her struggle with the chair, her hands holding the railing behind her to keep her balance.
She makes it to the bottom and emerges into the great room. To her left is the front door, to her right, the short corridor and wide archway leading to the kitchen. She hesitates for a moment; she’s tempted to head straight for the door, to get out of there, into the open air, and make a break for it. Every cell in her body is screaming to get out from under this roof. But she knows that if she reaches the panic button, help will be on the way faster than it would take to get to the neighbors’ door. Plus, there’s no assurance they’ll be home. The Hendersons go out often, leaving their bratty kids alone in the house.
Best to stick to the plan. She trots toward the kitchen as quietly as she can.
The doorbell rings.
Val stops and looks. She sees the fragmented shape of a man’s head peeking through the door’s stained-glass window. Two or three interminable seconds pass. Val stands there, suspended between the two lifelines of the panic button and whoever is on the other side of the door. Perhaps John managed to get to one of the other panic buttons, or the man accidentally triggered the alarm himself. This might be the police, and if they don’t see anything wrong, they might leave, convinced it was a false alarm.
This might be her only chance.
The doorbell rings again.
Val takes off toward the foyer, running full-tilt, no longer attempting to be silent. She slams her back against the heavy wooden door and grasps the handle, turning it downward and swinging the door open.
On the porch stands a wiry man with hair like sunburnt grass. He wears a soiled off-white henley tucked into blue jeans, and a battered denim coat. The man looks her over, smiling quizzically.
“Well, look at you,” he says, chuckling. “Looks like you got yourself all tied up.” He pulls a revolver from the waist of his jeans and pushes Val back into the house, closing the door behind them. She tries to run back toward the kitchen, but he catches hold of her arm and holds her tight.
“Whoa, now!”
She tries to scream, but the sound is caught up in the towel in her mouth. The man works his right arm around her neck and pulls her against his chest. He sets his lips close to her cheek. His breath stinks of tobacco smoke.
“There’s no need to scream…�
� A ring of cold steel presses against the side of her head. “I’m right here.”
There are footsteps in the upstairs hallway. The wiry man drags Val to the base of the stairs, half-carrying her, the barrel of the revolver glued to her skin. At the top of the stairs, the ogre stands behind John, a dozen stitches sewn into his brow, one long unfinished suture hanging from his face.
“Looks like one of ‘em got away from you,” the wiry one says. He presses the gun harder into Val’s skull. “Hell, my man, you look like Frankenstein’s monster, you know that? Only half-finished.” He laughs. “What do you say you and me have ourselves a little conference?”
The big man nods dully.
Val looks up at John, trying again to speak to him with her eyes, this time to say that she’d almost gotten them out of this. And through the thickening cloud of menace surrounding them, she sees the same look reflected back at her.
CHAPTER THREE: Declaration
John spots Val out on the lawn. She’s drinking a Diet Coke, and there’s an enormous Neuropsychology textbook tucked under her arm. He takes a deep breath, pops a mint into his mouth, and approaches her.
“That’s quite a party favor,” he says.
It’s the fall of ‘78. They’re both taking a course in Renaissance Drama, John as an elective, Val towards her concentration in Comparative Literature. He’s noticed her plenty in class, and he’s pretty sure she’s noticed him, though they haven’t spoken the whole semester except occasionally to comment on each other’s observations in class. The professor is a jovial literary eminence who, one might assume, has been teaching Renaissance Drama since the tail end of the Renaissance. At the end of each semester, he hosts a barbecue at his home for his students, the young men and women gathering to eat hamburgers and chicken, drink beer irrespective of their age, and report on their extracurricular interests to their obliging host.
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