LITMIR.BIZ

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that.”

      “You keep it together, damn it. You keep it together and have a life.”

      “You’re my life.”

      “You keep it together, mower jockey, or I’m going to be way pissed.”

      “I’ll do what they want. I’ll get you back.”

      “If you don’t keep it together, I’ll haunt your ass, Rafferty. It’ll be like that Poltergeist movie cubed.”

      “God, I love you,” he said.

      “I know. I love you. I want to hold you.”

      “I love you so much.”

      She didn’t reply.

      “Holly?”

      The silence electrified him, brought him up from the chair.

      “Holly? You hear me?”

      “I hear you, mower jockey,” said the kidnapper to whom he had spoken previously.

      “You sonofabitch.”

      “I understand your anger—”

      “You piece of garbage.”

      “—but I don’t have much patience for it.”

      “If you hurt her—”

      “I already have hurt her. And if you don’t pull this off, I’ll butcher the bitch like a side of beef.”

      An acute awareness of his helplessness brought Mitch crashing down from anger to humility.

      “Please. Don’t hurt her again. Don’t.”

      “Chill, Rafferty. You just chill while I explain a few things.”

      “Okay. All right. I need things explained. I’m lost here.”

      Again his legs felt weak. Instead of sitting in the chair, he brushed a broken dish aside with one foot and knelt on the floor. For some reason, he felt more comfortable on his knees than in the chair.

      “About the blood,” the kidnapper said. “I slapped her down when she tried to fight back, but I didn’t cut her.”

      “All the blood…”

      “That’s what I’m telling you. We put a tourniquet on her arm until a vein popped up, stuck a needle in it, and drew four vials just like your doctor does when you get a physical.”

      Mitch leaned his forehead against the oven door. He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate.

      “We smeared blood on her hands and made those prints. Spattered some on the counters, cabinets. Dripped it on the floor. It’s stage setting, Rafferty. So it looks like she was murdered there.”

      Mitch was the turtle, just leaving the START line, and this guy on the phone was the rabbit, already halfway through the marathon. Mitch couldn’t get up to speed. “Staged? Why?”

      “If you lose your nerve and go to the cops, they’ll never buy the kidnapping story. They’ll see that kitchen and think you croaked her.”

      “I didn’t tell them anything.”

      “I know.”

      “What you did to the dogwalker—I knew you had nothing to lose. I knew I couldn’t mess with you.”

      “This is just a little extra insurance,” the kidnapper said. “We like insurance. There’s a butcher knife missing from the rack there in your kitchen.”

      Mitch didn’t bother to confirm the claim.

      “We wrapped it with one of your T-shirts and a pair of your blue jeans. The clothes are stained with Holly’s blood.”

      They were professional, all right, just like she had said.

      “That package is hidden on your property,” the kidnapper continued. “You couldn’t easily find it, but police dogs will.”

      “I get the picture.”

      “I knew you would. You aren’t stupid. That’s why we’ve bought ourselves so much insurance.”

      “What now? Make sense of this whole thing for me.”

      “Not yet. Right now you’re very emotional, Mitch. That’s not good. When you’re not in control of your emotions, you’re likely to make a mistake.”

      “I’m solid,” Mitch assured him, although his heart still stormed and his blood thundered in his ears.

      “You don’t have any room for a mistake, Mitch. Not one. So I want you to chill, like I said. When you’ve got your head straight, then we’ll discuss the situation. I’ll call you at six o’clock.”

      Though remaining on his knees, Mitch opened his eyes, checked his watch. “That’s over two and a half hours.”

      “You’re still in your work clothes. You’re dirty. Take a nice hot shower. You’ll feel better.”

      “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

      “Anyway, you’ll need to be more presentable. Shower, change, and then leave the house, go somewhere, anywhere. Just be sure your cell phone is fully charged.”

      “I’d rather wait here.”

      “That’s no good, Mitch. The house is filled with memories of Holly, everywhere you look. Your nerves will be rubbed raw. I need you to be less emotional.”

      “Yeah. All right.”

      “One more thing. I want you to listen to this….”

      Mitch thought they were going to twist a scream of pain from Holly again, to emphasize how powerless he was to protect her. He said, “Don’t.”

      Instead of Holly, he heard two taped voices, clear against a faint background hiss. The first voice was his own:

       “I’ve never seen a man murdered before.”

       “You don’t get used to it.”

       “I guess not.”

      “It’s worse when it’s a woman… a woman or a child.”

      The second voice belonged to Detective Taggart.

      The kidnapper said, “If you had spilled your guts to him, Mitch, Holly would be dead now.”

      In the dark smoky glass of the oven door, he saw the reflection of a face that seemed to be looking out at him from a window in Hell.

      “Taggart’s one of you.”

      “Maybe he is. Maybe not. You should just assume that everybody is one of us, Mitch. That’ll be safer for you, and a lot safer for Holly. Everybody is one of us.”

      They had built a box around him. Now they were putting on the lid.

      “Mitch, I don’t want to leave you on such a dark note. I want to put you at ease about something. I want you to know that we won’t touch her.”

      “You hit her.”

      “I’ll hit her again if she doesn’t do what she’s told. But we won’t touch her. We aren’t rapists, Mitch.”

      “Why would I believe you?”

      “Obviously, I’m handling you, Mitch. Manipulating, finessing. And obviously there is a lot of stuff I won’t tell you—”

      “You’re killers, but not rapists?”

      “The point is that everything I have told you has been true. You think back over our relationship, and you’ll see I’ve been truthful and I’ve kept my word.”

      Mitch wanted to

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