Eye of the Beholder

  “Shit,” Joey swore under his breath, just loud enough for Detective Sheridan to hear.

  “Friend of yours?” the detective asked.

  “No,” Joey mumbled. “He just likes to talk, so he usually comes over and shoots the shit for a few minutes.” The kid finished his cigarette and threw it on the saturated ground, where it sizzled lightly in the dampness. “It breaks up the day.”

  Sheridan nodded. He remembered high school; he’d hated it with a passion, and any distraction had been welcome. But he also thought about what Officer Willoughby had said: “These kids know everybody.” Glancing at his watch, he noted that it was almost twelve—time to go.

  “So long. Let me know if you hear or see anything. You still got my card?”

  Joey nodded sullenly, returned to his I-hate-the-world expression, and slouched away.

  Sheridan thought to himself that if the youth of today was the hope of tomorrow, the world was in pretty bad shape.

  And it wasn’t their fault.

  Chapter 50

  Leah watched nervously for her chance. It came when Vince announced loudly that he was going home for lunch. She picked up her sweater and her courage, swallowed hard to force her heart back down out of her mouth, and followed him out to his parking space, wrapping the sweater over her shoulders.

  It was important that she do this somewhere that they wouldn’t be overheard, so it couldn’t be in the bank, and somewhere they could be seen, so in full view of the bank’s front windows was perfect.

  “Vince!” she called out just as he was beginning to pull his helmet over his head. He turned, and that predatory, reptilian smile crept over his face. She noticed that his skin looked older, stretched out, and there were circles under his eyes. The drinking and the drugs were beginning to mar his good looks.

  “Yeah?” He had paused, helmet in hand, to see what she had to say, and he looked genuinely curious. “If this is business, it can wait until tomorrow.”

  “Aren’t you coming back this afternoon?” Leah asked.

  “No, I’m taking the afternoon off for personal reasons.” He smiled again gloatingly. “Which means because I feel like it.”

  “Fine by me,” Leah said with genuine relief. “The less I see of you the better. And by the way . . .” She took a breath, glanced around to be sure that no one was nearby, and then said, “I’m not the only one who feels that way.”

  “Really? You and the other coin counters been gossiping over by the water cooler? Am I supposed to feel threatened because somebody thinks I’m mean?”

  “No,” Leah said, her resolve thickening from liquid into a kind of thick mud as she spoke. “You’re supposed to stop bothering Terry or I’ll tell the police about the drugs.”

  Vince stopped smiling. His head spun quickly to both sides, checking to see if there was anyone nearby. His eyes studied her, and she was pleased to see a hint of fear in them. Then his smarmy self-confidence returned and he smiled again. “You’re not serious,” he sneered.

  “I’ve never been more serious,” Leah told him. “If you leave her alone I won’t say a word, I swear, but if you hurt her again you leave me no choice.”

  “I’ll waste you.” Vince’s voice was a snarled hiss.

  Leah took a step back, stunned by the twisted hatred on his face. “Maybe,” she said. “But there are people who know what to do if anything happens to me,” she lied. “And that’s a chance I’m willing to take.” She could feel her own anger rising, turning her jelly legs firm, stiffening the tremor in her voice, solidifying her resolve. “You can’t do that to me—or to anyone else—and get away with it anymore.”

  Vince looked completely shocked. His normally cool facade had melted down. He glanced around again and spotted several customers coming out of the bank, then visibly struggled to compose himself. “All right, all right. Fine.” He laughed as though the whole thing were a joke. “Hey, she doesn’t want to see me anymore? Fine. She’s history.” He turned back to his bike, and Leah saw his hand shake as he pulled his heavy key chain out of his jacket pocket. “But,” he said, and the venom had returned to his voice, “the other part of our deal stands. You say one word, and I’ll be seeing you.”

  Leah didn’t wait to watch him pull away; she had turned and was fleeing back to the safety of the bank.

  Once inside she searched though her bag until she found the card that Jenny had given her earlier that day. She knew that to go home alone tonight would be to flirt with Vince’s unstable hold on his anger. She hesitated for only a moment before calling the number.

  “Hi, Jenny? It’s Leah. Listen, were you serious about letting me stay with you for a day or two? Because I think I might really need to take you up on it. I can stay at a hotel; it’s no big deal—”

  But Jenny cut her off with a warm welcome. “No, I was actually going to call and ask you to dinner tonight anyway, so why don’t you plan on staying over?” After Leah had checked twice more to make sure she wasn’t imposing, she wrote down the directions that Jenny gave her and then decided she’d better go to her house now during her lunch hour to collect a few things, rather than wait until after work. She slipped the directions into her pocket along with the card Jenny had given her. Then, keeping her head down to avoid questions, she slipped out, wondering how long it would be before she felt safe again.

  Chapter 51

  The darkness of the closet had begun to weigh on Joy as though it were made of iron—black, heavy metal that wrapped itself around her and pressed down with massive weight.

  She knew that the time was coming closer, that it had been only an accident of fate that she was still breathing and thinking for herself, and inside a voice screamed at her to use what she had left. Forcing the numbing terror away, she concentrated on what she had. Her hands were tied, but in front of her, and that was a good thing. Her feet were loose—another plus. She was in a closet, a closet where things were stored; what things? Twisting herself around and fighting off the stabs of pain from the sleep in her legs, she began to feel blindly around on the floor of the closet, taking stock of what she could identify. A pair of cowboy boots, a box containing some kind of paper, possibly bills. That was it for the floor. Above her head hung coats, short coats that took up almost all the space across, but by pushing her body back and forth she managed to squirm her way up between them. First she checked the pockets, and came up with nothing more than a few loose coins and what felt like a movie stub.

  Think, she told herself. When he had put her in here she had seen a shelf above the coats. Straining and sweating from the claustrophobia and the tightness, she forced her arms up over her head like a belly dancer performing a snake dance until she could feel the ledge. More boxes, stacked in an orderly fashion, met her touch, and her fingers were becoming more and more educated as she used them to see with. She pulled one down and was showered by more paper. Damn. He’d see that if she didn’t get out of here, and it would make him angry. She would have to put it all back. She’d never known anyone so compulsively neat.

  The second box held what she assumed were office supplies: a stapler, a box of paper clips, and some packing tape. She knelt down and put the packing tape into a corner of the closet where she could find it again, and then resumed the laborious search. This time she hit on something with a handle and a long metal attachment: a screwdriver.

  The beginning of hope stirred in her heart as she slipped the tool into the crack of the door and felt sightlessly for the catch of the lock.

  Chapter 52

  Leah told herself that the fear she was feeling as she opened her front door was unreasonable. Her driveway had been empty, and there were no cars parked on her street. She couldn’t stop herself from pausing to listen as she came in through the kitchen door. Kate was crying loudly for food, making it impossible to hear much of anything else, so she grabbed a small handful of dried cat food and plopped it into the porcelain dish on the side table by the window.

  Placing her keys in he
r raincoat pocket next to Jenny’s card and the directions to her house, she hung the coat on the back of a kitchen chair. Trying not to succumb to the anxiety gnawing in her chest, she forced herself to walk into the living room. Everything looked normal, quiet, just as she had left it.

  Even the back door to the porch. Wishing she could snatch the creepy feeling from the back of her neck and dash it to the ground, she crossed over and checked the lock; it was fastened tight.

  The only audible sound came from behind her in the kitchen, where Kate was crunching the dried bits of food. But the uneasiness remained, and Leah decided to get in and out of there as quickly as she could, if for no other reason than to spare herself the imagined drama. She tried to tell herself that her anxiety was because she’d seen too many scary movies, but a small nervous laugh escaped her as she amended the thought to No, I’ve been in too many scary movies.

  She went straight to her bedroom, grabbed a few clothes, and put them into a small bag. She stopped long enough to call her neighbor and ask her if she could watch her cat, saying that she was going out of town for a few days. She was in the bedroom when she heard a car door slam.

  Her blood froze and her body stiffened. Straining to hear any small sound, she waited, trying to silence both her breathing and the beating of her heart. Had she locked the kitchen door when she came in? She moved to the hallway door on tiptoe and listened. At first she heard nothing except the faint, distant hum of the refrigerator, and then, distinctly, came the sound of a footfall. Just a soft thump, as though someone had lost their balance and put a foot down a bit too firmly, then nothing again for another lifelong moment, while Leah’s eyes shot around the room looking for an alternate exit. The window, maybe, but it would take her precious seconds to get it open and slip outside, noisy seconds, and her car keys, she realized with a plunging drop of her heart, were in the kitchen.

  She waited, listening, until the thin line of sweat that had formed on her breastbone chilled. Finally, unable to take the suspense anymore, she stepped out into the hall and called out, “Hello?”

  Of course, no one answered. Leah retreated into her bedroom and picked up a heavy pewter candle-holder. Its solid weight reassuring in her hand, she went slowly down the hall, looking into the spare bedroom as she went and pausing to survey the living room. Nothing.

  Another sound came from the kitchen, the sound of movement. A sharp breath escaped Leah, and she raised the makeshift weapon as the soft scraping approached the door.

  “Meow.” Kate rounded the corner, leaning against the molding to scratch her side as she came.

  “Jesus Christ,” Leah swore, and lowered the candleholder. She peeked her head around the doorjamb and she could see, through the kitchen window, her gardener beginning to unload his equipment. The thump she had heard, she now realized, had been Kate jumping from the table to the floor.

  “Too many matinees,” she said to Kate, bending to pet the cat. She retrieved her bag, put on her coat, and headed to the door. Kate leaped up onto the kitchen table and reprimanded her noisily.

  Leah stopped and turned back. She was thinking of the night Vince had taped Kate up inside a box and then talked about how his pit bull liked to eat cats. “Too many movies,” she repeated, looking down at the small ball of fluff. “Let’s go.” She scooped Kate up with one arm, threw the bag over the other shoulder, and retrieved her keys from the pocket of her raincoat. She would drop her cat off at the kennel before she headed back to work for the rest of the afternoon. That was one B-movie scenario she would not see played out.

  Fortified by her planning and the presence of her yardman, Leah waved, locked the door behind her, and, juggling cat, bag, purse, and keys, started to her car.

  Behind her, on the floor of the kitchen where it had fallen when Leah had pulled her keys out of the same pocket, lay the card with Jenny’s name and address on it.

  Chapter 53

  Joy had spent the last forty minutes digging at the wood behind the lock of the closet door. Every few minutes she would feel around on the floor and collect any shavings she could detect in the darkness, dropping them into one of the boots that sat next to her. Since the door opened outward, she knew she either had to dig all the way around the metal bolt, which would be seen from the front, or that her other plan would have to work, and that would mean she would have to survive him at least one more time.

  It had been hours, days, forever that she had scraped and dug away at the soft pine of the door molding. She slipped often and she could feel the nicks and scrapes on her knuckles, tasting blood more than once when she had sucked at each fresh wound.

  The sound of the motorcycle and the frenzied barking of the dog greeting it sent her into a flurry of activity. She reached over her head and hid the screwdriver in a deep pocket of one of the jackets, hastily clawed at the floor of the closet where she guessed any shavings might lie, and then, most important, she felt for the triple thickness of packing tape that she had prepared and attached to the wall, just inside next to the lock. This would take luck, courage, and time. She prayed she had enough of each of them left.

  He let the dog in this time. The monster animal came right to the crack of the closet door, and she heard his snuffling and growling just on the other side.

  Shit, the dog. Was he going to let the dog attack her? She had spent hours imagining all the ways he would hurt her, how she might die, but she hadn’t counted on this.

  “Get away from there; get outside!” she heard him command, and she heard the dog whimper reluctantly, then trot out of the room. If she ever did get out she’d have to deal with the animal, and she had no idea how. She put it out of her mind for now. She’d have to cross that obstacle when and if she got to it.

  After a few minutes he opened the door. From the light outside, Joy guessed that it must be late afternoon, but she was in no fit state to make an accurate assessment.

  Her legs gave a little as she stood, and she fell against the side of the doorway, putting out both hands to stop herself from smacking into it, one hand cupped heavily over the other, as they were still tied together, and pressed herself back upright.

  He pulled her out, untied her hands, and let her use the bathroom again. Then he settled himself on the sofa while he left her standing in the middle of the living room. He lit a cigarette and watched her, obviously enjoying her discomfort.

  “Take off your shirt,” he commanded.

  Joy didn’t move. She found an imperfection on the sofa fabric, a small pull that she focused on, trying to will herself away from this place. His voice came again, and she crossed her arms in front of her, closing her eyes against the assault that she knew would come.

  But nothing touched her. She heard the jangle of his keys and the sound of his lighter flicking open again, and in a moment she cracked her eyes open to see what he doing.

  He was holding the charm she had seen on his key chain in the flame from his lighter. The cigarette dangled from his lips, and his eyes squinted to keep out the smoke that curled up his face.

  She whimpered. “What are you doing?” she asked in a tiny voice.

  “Oh, I think it’s time I made my mark.”

  The possibility of what might be happening was too horrific for her mind to hold. Seeing no other options, Joy took hold of the bottom of her shirt and pulled it quickly off over her head. She stood in her lace bra, the one she had chosen so carefully when she thought that this would be grown-up fun, and tried to focus on the floor through her tears.

  She heard the lighter snap shut. She heard him stand, and felt him come near her.

  “That’s better,” he said. “That’s much better.”

  He dangled the charm inches in front of her face, and it swung back and forth, assaulting her senses with a familiar aroma. It took her a minute to place it, and then it came to her: It was the smell of a car engine after it had been on a long drive—the smell of hot metal.

  Chapter 54

  Joshua raised his head an
d looked quickly around his room. He could smell something—something hot. For a split second before it happened, Joshua recognized the feeling of an approaching unbidden vision.

  Even as the room around him darkened, he thought, Well, at least I’m starting to recognize it.

  When the image came it was the eye, but not the crude representation he had seen, rather the actual metal charm that held its shape. It moved in front of him, but this time the hand that held it was not a girl’s; it was a man’s.

  The image faded as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving a metallic bitterness in Joshua’s mouth.

  Joshua knew now what the charm would be used for. He had seen Zoe’s heavily bruised and bandaged face, and the smell of heat sent him racing for his door.

  But he drew up suddenly at the top of the stairway. His mother wasn’t here. She’d gone to work, and there was nothing he could do. He collapsed at the top stair and slumped against the wall. This was it? He was destined to watch as Joy was tortured, killed, to get little glimpses of the pain and horror she was enduring but be unable to help her in any way?

  “No!” he shouted suddenly. “I will not see this!” Tears started in his eyes, and he covered his face with his hands. “I don’t want to see this,” he screamed, his voice ragged with anguish. “Either let me help her, or leave me alone!”

  Joshua’s body slid onto the hard wooden floor of the landing as he succumbed to the desperation that had been held back by the fragile barrier of false hopes and denial he had constructed.

  A fence made of brittle twigs that snapped like matchsticks as Joshua’s sobs echoed through the empty house.

  Chapter 55

  Greer’s head snapped up from the appointment book she had been staring at, trying to focus on. Something was wrong with Joshua.

  Without even a word to the customer she’d been helping, she moved quickly through the salon, almost feeling her way as she went, until she came to her treatment room, where she closed the door on the noise and distractions. She cast around until she found his energy. No, he was safe—distraught, but safe.