Monday Mourning

A sound rose from the huddled form behind me. Half moan, half whimper.

“I’m sorry,” Anne mumbled. “I thought you’d want to know. I’ll go back to the car.” Anne hurried toward the foyer.

I squatted and placed a hand on McGee’s foot.

McGee’s back rose and rounded. The blanket slipped and her face came up like a pale winter moon.

McGee’s lips were trembling.

“You’re safe, Tawny. You and Anique are both safe.”

McGee bucked a shoulder. The blanket opened at her lap.

A rope coiled her wrists.

The image didn’t compute. A rope. Why a rope? Was it tied?

I heard the front door open.

I looked up. McGee’s eyes were filled with horror. I tracked them.

They were fixed on Pomerleau’s retreating back.

My lungs stopped. My heart stopped. I felt the blood drain from my face.

Terror in the hospital.

A face behind a camcorder.

Residue-free hands.

Homolka, a willing participant in her husband’s depravity.

I knew!

I shot to my feet.

Pomerleau was moving down the hall as though hot-wired. I heard a sickening crack, then a thud.

I raced toward the foyer. The door was open.

Anne lay facedown with her head on the jamb, legs splayed across the linoleum.

I peered into the night. No sign of Pomerleau.

“Annie!” I squatted and felt her throat for a pulse.

Too late, I heard movement behind me. The door angled inward, jammed the heel of Anne’s boot.

Before I could turn, light exploded in my head.

I fell into blackness.

36

SECONDS LATER, OR SO IT SEEMED, I FELT MY BRAIN ELBOWING my skull, aggressively seeking more space. I opened my eyes and moved my head. Particles of shattered glass winged through my vision. I closed my eyes and tried to assess.

My chest burned. I was lying on my left side and shoulder. I swallowed, tried to sit up. My arms and legs wouldn’t work. I realized they were under and behind me.

Slowly, awareness crept in. I couldn’t feel my hands. My feet. I had to move.

Tightening my abs, I again tried to rise to my knees.

Nausea enveloped me. I vomited.

Using my ankles and hips, I tried to push back from the mess. The effort made me retch again and again until my stomach offered nothing but bile.

I lay a moment, breathing deeply, fumbling for explanations. Where was I? How long had I been there?

Gingerly, I rolled my head. A stab of pain almost caused me to cry out.

Think! one battered neuron screamed.

I tried. My thoughts wouldn’t congeal into recognizable pictures.

Focus on the moment!

Smell!

Mold. Ratty fabric. Wood. Something else. A chemical cleaner? Kerosene?

Touch!

Rough fibers scratching my cheek. Grit in my mouth. Dust in my nostrils. A carpet?

Sound!

Wind. A branch striking glass. The creaking and breathing of a house interior.

My pulse hammering in my ears.

Muffled footsteps. A hollow clunk.

Distant. Someone moving. In another room?

I opened my eyes again.

I lay on a very dirty carpet. I could see a carved wooden leg, some cranberry upholstery, and the edge of a tattered blanket.

Recognition! I was in Catts’s parlor. The lamp was now off.

A door slammed, then silence.

Armchair ahead. Another slamming sound at a greater distance behind me. My brain was assimilating information with the speed of continental drift.

Had someone used a rear entrance? In the kitchen? Catts’s kitchen.

I tried to call up the floor plan from my previous visits. It wasn’t there.

I held my breath, listened. Not a sound in the house. The blood in my head hammered on. One heartbeat. A dozen. A thousand.

The rear door slammed again. Hurried footsteps approached. I closed my eyes and lay still, every muscle on fire.

I heard a grunt, then splashing.

The smell jumped all my senses. My fingers clenched in their bindings.

Gasoline!

As my eyelids flew open, I was able to identify two shapes.

Tawny McGee sat swaddled in the armchair.

Anique Pomerleau was dousing the room with liquid from a large can.

Fear short-circuited what little rational thought I’d mustered up. What to do? Talk to Pomerleau? Talk to McGee? Play dead?

My lids clamped down. I listened to the liquid sound of a terrible death.

Seconds later I heard another clunk, receding footsteps, then the slamming door.

I opened my eyes. An empty coffee can lay by the baseboard.

Had Pomerleau gone for more gasoline? Where? An outside shed? How long had her previous trip taken? One minute? Two?

My mind zeroed in on one thought.

Get out!

Strobe images. Anne. Pomerleau. A rope circling Tawny McGee’s wrists.

Was McGee tied up? Were her feet bound? I’d stroked one ankle, felt nothing. A shard of hope.

“Tawny.”

Silence.

“Tawny.”

Movement in the chair?

I raised my head. The room was a shadowy pool, the furnishings jagged shapes in the darkness.

“‘Q’ is going to burn the house. We have to get away.”

An intake of breath?

“I know what ‘Q’ did to you.”

The back door slammed. Feet clumped toward us. I lowered my head.

Through slitted eyes I watched Pomerleau enter with a new can and soak the secretary and couch. When the can emptied, she tossed it to the floor and disappeared for another.

“No one knows we’re here, Tawny.”