Translation: I’ve been busy. Are the two of you having fun in CR?
Based on what he’d told Alex, CR meant Costa Rica. So at least he’d been honest, too, about his family background.
The mother-son text exchange went on with a bit more small talk, Carlos promising to be in touch again soon and telling his mother to Dale mi amor a P.
Give my love to P.
P, undoubtedly, was short for Pop or Papi or whatever he called his father.
Now, Alex used Carlos’s phone to send a new text to Mom: Me tengo que ir en un viaje de negocios y estará ausente una semana. Hablaré contigo cuando vuelva!
She sent the same thing in English to Roberto: I have to leave on a business trip and will be gone about a week. Talk to you when I get back.
Alex then sent an e-mail from Carlos’s work account to his supervisor, a woman named Ivy Sacks.
According to the brief conversation she’d had with Carlos—as the macho Nick—in the bar that night, before the medication rendered him a slurring bundle of incoherence, his female boss had more than just a professional interest in him.
Maybe that was true. Maybe, like so many other things he told her, it was a lie.
Either way, Alex carefully worded the e-mail telling Carlos’s boss that his parents had been in a terrible car accident in Costa Rica. His father had been killed and his mother was in the hospital; he was catching the first flight out and wouldn’t be at work next week.
That way, even if Ivy Sacks has a crush on her employee, she won’t be sniffing around looking for him right away, trying to pick up his immediate trail while it’s still fresh.
Not that it would even be possible, now, for anyone to connect Carlos to Alex. She signed into his InTune account—he’d saved the password for that account, like all the others, on his phone, how convenient!—and deleted “Nick Santana’s” entire profile. For good measure she also went into Carlos’s Facebook account and disabled that as well. She was pleased to note that Ivy Sacks wasn’t listed on his friends’ list.
Later, she deleted her own latest profile on InTune. With the press of a button, “Sofia” evaporated from cyberspace, never to be heard from again.
She kept Carlos’s phone and his wallet. If he checked his pockets for them when he woke up, she could always lead him to assume he must have drunkenly dropped them somewhere along the way.
She waited patiently that night in the driver’s seat of the BMW until Carlos Diaz—aka Nick Santana—regained consciousness.
When he did, he was understandably bewildered. He didn’t bother to check for his phone and wallet, just wanted to know where he was and how he’d gotten here. She explained that he’d suggested they go back to her place, then drunkenly passed out in her car on the way home.
“You mean you don’t remember anything?” she asked him incredulously as she led him—on unsteady legs—into the house.
As embarrassed as he was confused, he downplayed the whole thing—especially once they were comfortable on the couch and he sensed what was about to happen.
Seducing him was the easy part.
That first night, anyway.
It always is. After that—after they’ve settled into her basement guest quarters—it becomes a bit more . . . challenging.
But it must be done.
And she has a foolproof way to get it done.
No reason to get ahead of herself just yet, though.
Now, Alex turns her attention back to the task at hand.
She opens the fast food bag she bought on the way home from her nursing job. She unwraps the double cheeseburger and sets it on a sturdy plastic plate, dumps the french fries beside it, and pours the milk shake into a tall plastic cup.
Then she sets the plate on a tray and adds a vase holding a bouquet of cheerful red flowers.
There. That’s a nice, thoughtful little touch. She’s not a monster, after all.
She stopped to pick the blooms from the overgrown perennial patch by the back door on her way into the house. The gardens surrounding the house were planted decades ago by former owners, and she doesn’t bother to tend them.
Carmen did, when he was here. But as a commercial architect, he traveled often. Once, when Alex was newly pregnant and he was leaving for an entire summer in South America, he said, “All you have to do is pluck the weeds now and then, and water the beds if it doesn’t rain for a week.”
“Okay. I’ll try to remember. But if I forget, don’t take it as a sign that I’ll be a lousy mother.”
“You, mi amor, will be a wonderful mother.” He’d kissed her on the head, picked up his bag, and headed out the door.
That time, he came back home again.
Alex carries the tray and a flashlight across the kitchen to the basement door, turns on the light and walks down the steps.
She hasn’t used the gym equipment in a couple of days. Once she’s pregnant, she’ll have to stop altogether. It’s okay. Strong muscles won’t be so important then. She won’t need them to carry anything but her precious son.
She walks over to the bookcase, sets the tray on the floor and the flashlight on the tray, removes the books on the far right of the middle shelf, and pulls the latch that allows the bookshelf to swing out toward her.
Then she picks up the tray again, turns on the flashlight, and reaches for the doorknob.
Every evening, the same ritual. It becomes exhausting after a while.
But maybe this will be the last time.
There’s another pregnancy test waiting upstairs in the medicine cabinet. The last few were negative, but maybe they were taken too early. This might be the one.
She really hopes so.
Otherwise, she’s looking at another month of this. Another month, at least, before it’s Carlos Diaz’s turn to be lugged into the car trunk, driven upstate, and buried alongside the others.
Halfway through the third inning, Gaby spots him.
Not in person. No, she sees his face on the stadium’s enormous Jumbotron as the camera pans the crowd. He’s here.
Ben is here.
She forces down the mouthful of Crackerjacks she was crunching when Ryan pointed to the screen and said, “Here comes our section. Look for us.”
Ben was only visible for a second or two before the camera swept on past, but it was unmistakably him. Like many other men in the crowd, he was wearing a navy blue cap embroidered with an interlocking white NY logo. He had a pair of sunglasses sitting above the brim the way he often did, and he was sitting with his brother Luis.
His cheeks were stubbly—she’s not a fan of stubble—but still, he looked good. Casual and handsome, his skin bronzed as though he’s had some beach weekends already this summer.
Ryan literally pales by comparison. He’s attractive, too, but not as strikingly handsome as Ben. And he looks a little stiff, still dressed in his work clothes, though he’s removed his tie and jacket. He isn’t wearing a cap, thank goodness. If he were, it would have a Boston B on it. And if Ben saw that—
“Want some more?” Ryan holds out the bag of Crackerjacks.
“Hmm?”
He shakes the bag. “Crackerjack?”
“Oh. Umm . . . no. No, thanks . . .” Thoughts racing, she fights the urge to turn and scan the crowd sitting behind them, where the camera had focused.
Suddenly, the evening heat feels oppressive. Sweat trickles down the back of her neck and beads her forehead. She clutches the almost empty water bottle in shaky hands, trying to stay focused on the Red Sox batter stepping up to the plate.
Fancy meeting you here . . .
She never did respond to the private message Ben sent her on InTune. Maybe she should take out her phone and type a reply right now using the exact same words.
Fancy meeting you here . . .
Except she doesn’t want him to know she’s here.
“Swing and a miss,” Ryan mutters, reaching into his pocket as a vendor holding a strapped-on box of water bottles ascends the steps
toward their section. “I don’t know if it’s the heat or the Crackerjacks or that big pretzel I ate before the game even started, but I’m dying of thirst. Want another water? Or a beer or something?”
“No, thank you.” She, too, is thirsty, but she was already thinking she’d have to visit the ladies’ room before the end of the inning. Now that’s out of the question.
It’s located behind her, and so is Ben’s seat. She’ll just have to wait until the end of the game. And if that proves impossible . . .
Gaby shifts in her seat as the batter swings and misses again and Ryan opens his fresh water bottle and takes a long drink.
Yes, it’s impossible. She suddenly has to go, and badly. But she’s trapped.
This is crazy.
What are the odds that this could happen?
Oh, come on . . . the odds are pretty high, actually.
He’s a huge fan, goes to plenty of games every season, and this is one of the biggest of the year. Of course he’d want to be here.
“Want some water?” Ryan offers her the bottle.
“No thanks, I . . . I . . .” She’s on her feet.
No! Sit down! What are you doing?
Ryan looks up at her, startled. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, I’m going to the ladies’ room. I’ll be right back.”
“Okay.” He stands to let her out of the row, as do the other disgruntled fans between her seat and the aisle. She should have waited until the top of the inning gave way to the bottom—or at least until the action was between batters. But it’s too late now.
She begins the long climb up the concrete steps, keeping her eyes focused straight ahead.
On the field behind her she hears the crack of a bat hitting a ball, and the crowd erupts. She picks up her pace, scurrying the rest of the way with her head down.
Making it all the way to the ladies’ room without running into Ben, she wants to hide there for the rest of the game. The announcers’ coverage is piped in. The batter who hit the ball as she left her seat was out on a pop fly; the next struck out. As the top of the inning gives way to the bottom, the ladies’ room grows more crowded. Still, she lingers aimlessly at the sink area in front of the mirror, scrubbing her hands, scrubbing again, blotting her sweaty face, blotting again . . . wishing she’d thought to grab her bag so she could at least comb her hair, put on lipstick, find some reason not to make her exit.
Eventually, though, she has to head back out into the stands.
Making her way back out through the throng, she looks for the doorway leading to her section. Seeing a security guard posted there, she remembers that Ryan has her ticket stub; it hadn’t occurred to her to grab it. Hopefully the guard won’t stop her and ask for proof that she belongs in these premium seats.
He doesn’t stop her.
She hurries past him, and then, feeling a hand on her arm, stops short. So he did stop her after all.
No, he didn’t.
It’s Ben.
“Aren’t you going to eat?”
Carlos shakes his head mutely, though his stomach rumbles loudly in protest as he stares at the food on the tray she brought him, illuminated in the flashlight’s beam.
Not homemade this time, but fast food. He can tell by the look and smell of it, though she removed it from the wrappers.
“Come on, I know you’re hungry.”
He is. But that’s the least of his worries. Sometimes he does manage to choke down what she brings him, but only when he’s utterly weak with hunger or so overcome by thirst that he’s willing to take a chance.
So far she hasn’t poisoned him.
Not since that first night, anyway.
He should have been suspicious when she handed him that Maker’s Mark.
Why, oh why, wasn’t he suspicious?
It was because he was so damned appreciative at how the tables had turned, that’s why. For a change a woman was buying him a drink! He stupidly guzzled it down without hesitation.
He felt woozy before he’d finished it, but what did he know about good whiskey? He figured it was just the normal effect.
A few more sips, and he decided he’d better stick with the cheap stuff from now on.
That’s the last coherent thought he remembers having, along with a vague recollection of stepping outside with her to get some air.
When he came to, it was hours later. Well past midnight. He was in her car, parked in a garage with the door closed.
They were at her place, she said. His idea.
That made sense. That, after all, had been the master plan—to get her wasted and go back to her place. It’s always been the plan, with everyone he’s dated since the divorce.
Maker’s Mark aside, there was no reason for him to be suspicious, or think Sofia—if that’s even her real name—was different from any of the others.
She seemed so normal, so appealing. She was such an attractive woman, capable of holding an ordinary conversation just like anyone else. Better, even.
Some women you meet just offer a running monologue about themselves. Not her. In the bar, and then again later in her car that night, both before and after they had sex right there in the backseat, she asked him question after question. She seemed genuinely interested in finding out more about him.
At the time, he thought she was just into him.
It’s agonizing to realize that he could have—should have—gotten the hell away from her the second she handed him that drink.
He woke up in her bed—with no memory of having gotten there—and stumbled downstairs to find her making him a nice hot breakfast with coffee, black and strong, just the way he likes it. Still . . .
“You have a cat?” he asked her, sickened and irritated by the sight of pet bowls on the floor.
“I do, but I let him out.”
“I’m allergic to cats.”
“I know you are. I read it in your profile. That’s why I let him out.”
“What about kids?” he asked, seeing the crayoned art gallery that all but hid the refrigerator.
“No, no kids.”
Yeah, he thought. Sure.
“Do you take milk in your coffee?”
“No!” he said quickly, though he does. “I don’t want coffee.”
“Of course you do.”
“I have to go.” He’s not the neatest person in the world, but the thought of eating anything in that house, permeated with the fetid smell of cat food and sour milk, made him sick.
“I know you do. After breakfast. Have a seat.”
He tried to beat a hasty retreat—said thanks but no thanks to breakfast and told her he’d find his way to the train station—but then he realized he didn’t even have his wallet or phone. She told him he must have lost it at Tequila Sam’s.
“They won’t be open now, but you should call later and check,” she said blandly, cracking eggs into a bowl. “Just relax and get something into your stomach, and after you eat, I’ll take you to the train station. I can lend you money for a ticket back to the city.”
That seemed reasonable at the time. But as he sat there at her kitchen table sipping the coffee she handed him, watching her fry up an omelet, he began to feel woozy again.
He shouldn’t have accepted the coffee. But he was exhausted, needed the caffeine, and it seemed safe enough. Coffee is only hot water strained through ground coffee beans, right? How terrible could it be?
It tasted off to him, but he drank it anyway, telling himself it was simply because it was black. He was used to coffee con leche.
But that wasn’t it. His head was spinning; the room was spinning. He should have grasped sooner that something was seriously wrong with the coffee. With her.
When Carlos came to, he was here, alone in a dark, silent dungeon with shackles around his ankles, chained to the wall.
He has no way of knowing for sure how long he’s been held prisoner here. There are no windows allowing him to keep track of the rhythm of days passing: sunrise, sunset.
There’s only pitch-blackness—unless, of course, she’s here. She carries a flashlight when she comes, and the bright beam hurts his eyes. It’s better to be in the dark; better to be alone.
Then he can lie here and fantasize about the police breaking down the door.
By now someone must have reported him missing.
If only he’d told someone where he was going.
But the divorce hadn’t been easy. He had never been so isolated in his life. He hadn’t just lost money—not to mention most of his worthwhile possessions, plus his dignity: he’d also lost his closest friends. His social circle in recent years consisted mainly of a group of couples he and his ex had gotten to know while they were married. When she left him, the wives sided with her, and the husbands—pendejos, all of them—went along with the wives.
His other closest pals, in recent years, had been his wife’s brothers and cousins. Naturally, those ties were also cut when she dumped him.
His father had died years ago and his mother has been living in Costa Rica with her gentleman friend, Pasqual. His only brother, Roberto, is in Florida. They’re all used to not hearing from him for weeks or even months at a time, and he’d been in touch just recently.
Still—when he didn’t show up at work on Monday, someone there would have known something was wrong. Ivy would have tried to reach him, and when she couldn’t get in touch, she’d have been concerned.
Surely she would have called the police. But . . .
How are they going to find me here? How are they going to trace me here, to this crazy person?
Once, early on, he tried to overpower Sofia when she came to bring him a meal.
He lay very still as she came into the room, forcing her to come closer, closer, bending over him, calling his name . . .
Then he lunged at her, got his hands around her neck.
She fought back like a tiger, though. She wasn’t just tall, she was strong—freakishly strong.
“Don’t you ever try that again,” she snarled, having freed herself from his grasp and retreated to the doorway again. “If you do, you’ll be sorry. You’re chained to the wall, remember? And if you think I carry the keys to those shackles when I come in here, you’re wrong. They’re tucked away where you’ll never get to them. No one knows you’re here. If anything happens to me, no one is going to show up looking for me, believe me. And if you scream for help, no one will hear you. You’ll lie here wasting away until you die of hunger and thirst. Is that what you want?”
The Black Widow Page 7