Chapter 25

       “What do you want from me, you bastard?” Alice Folger said.

       “I need you to take off your panties and hose.”

       Alice Folger glared up at her captor. He stood above her with a bright knife as she sat on the floor with her fingers laced behind her head. She appeared to be in the home of someone with money, the floors polished wood, the furniture tasteful. There was art on the walls and in curio cases. The only light was coming from a dozen or so candles arrayed in the three rooms she could see.

       “Fuck you,” Folger said.

       Her captor nodded as if understanding, then his arm became a blur, the knife slashing an inch from Folger’s eyes.

       “TAKE THE GODDAMN THINGS OFF!”

       Glaring defiantly through her terror, Folger wriggled from her trousers, slid off hose and panties, leaving a hand over her pubis.

       “Stand up.”

       She stood, hand in place. Knife tight in his palm, the man circled her, staring at her legs and buttocks. She closed her eyes, tried to still her racing heart. The man stepped behind her.

       “Open your legs.”

       She put her feet a few inches apart, knees shaking.

       “WIDER!”

       She stepped out further and heard the floor creak at her back. It sounded as if he was crouching and studying her. After a long minute he walked out in front of her and pulled a folded brown bag from his pocket, bending to grab the garments on the floor. He stopped, frowning. His eyes scanned the room until seeing a broom in the corner. He grabbed it, using the handle to push the clothing into the bag. He rolled the bag shut, flashing a glance at her crotch.

       “Get something over that before the smell makes me sick.”

       “I can put on my pants?”

       “Either that or weld a plate over your … thing.”

       Folger almost gasped with relief. She pulled on her trousers with shaking fingers.

      When I arrived at the hotel, I patted my jacket for the electronic key, but it seemed to have disappeared. I recalled my stop for coffee, how I’d slipped the jacket off. It seemed the slippery plastic card had fallen out.

      I’d run back inside the shop for a couple of minutes to grab a refill, leaving the jacket in the adjoining chair, but a thief would simply have taken the jacket. The card was probably laying beneath the chair, useless without the room number.

      No harm done. I had the deskman generate a second key.

      Sickened by events I hid in my room and wondered why Jeremy had targeted Folger. It was apparent that at some point when Jeremy was following me, he had seen Folger. She had flipped his switch.

      It was my fault. I hadn’t figured he’d tail me.

      What did he have planned for Folger? Was she already dead? And why had he killed the tenant so brutally? She, it appeared, had flipped his switch as well.

      Jeremy was falling apart at a terrible rate.

      I turned on a muted television for quiet company, something to keep me from being alone with the horror of my thoughts and culpability. I watched until the news show focused on Cynthia Pelham’s campaign and the rancor it aroused in many. Faces screaming soundlessly are even uglier than with sound. I turned off the idiot box, pulled the blackout curtains, and lay in the dark.

      Several minutes passed and I became aware of an indefinable presence I could not identify, like a sound just past the edge of hearing. The sole light fell from the red LED clock numbers. I listened into the room until I fell into sleep.

      Sometime later my eyes snapped open. I heard my last snore in the air. My heart was racing. Why? I looked for the clock but couldn’t see its display. The room was as black as a coal mine. My open eyes saw little more than my closed eyes.

      I felt something in the room. A presence.

      It’s standing by the bed, said my child’s mind.

      Nothing’s there, the adult countered. You’ve felt this before. There’s never anyone there.

      It’s coming closer, gasped the child. It’s above us!

      I held my breath, ready to attack what I could not believe was there. Then, softly … a sense of movement. Followed by the most terrifying whisper I’d ever heard, hatred shredded through broken glass.

      “A gun is aimed directly at your heart. I have night-vision goggles. Move and you die.”

      “I’m not moving an inch,” I whispered.

      “I’m going to restrain your arms,” the voice said. “Roll over and put them behind your back. This is the most dangerous moment in your life.”

      I complied. Tape wrapped my wrists, ankles, my legs at my knees. I heard a chair pulled close to the bedside. The chair squeaked under weight. Another voice appeared in the air, light and conversational.

      “Jesus, Carson. Can you believe the price of a good steak in this town?”

      Jeremy. The room went silent save for the traffic on the street. I strained my eyes in his direction, but the room was lightless. I wondered if he was studying me through his goggles, making an inspection.

      “I want to help you, Jeremy,” I said, as calm as I could muster. “The police might kill you on sight. You’ve got to go in and … talk with them. I’ll go with you, keep you safe.”

      I felt his warm voice at my ear. “For sure you’re going to keep me safe, little brother. Timmy’s in the well.”

      “Timmy’s in the … would you please make sense?”

      “THINK ABOUT IT! Do you remember those old Lassie re-runs we used to watch? Lassie’s owner, that idiot Timmy, was always stuck in a cave or falling down a well. Little Timster depended on Lassie to bring help. Arf.”

      It took scant seconds for the realization to sink in. “Folger’s dependent on you for food and water. Maybe even air.”

      “I don’t get to her for a few hours … goodbye Alice.”

      “What if something goes wrong and you can’t get back to her? I don’t want her to die, Jeremy.”

      “Dear Carson, ever the hero on water and land.” His fingers scruffed my hair. “Obviously, it’s incumbent on you to keep me free.”

      I heard his feet start away.

      “Jeremy?”

      “Si?”

      “You held something over Vangie, right? Leverage?” Hoping against hope.

      “Her idea, start to finish. Prowsie needed me to be her Sirius, Carson.”

      “What are you talking about? Her