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Swimming.
Escaping.
Reach, slightly cupped hand, S-figure with her arms, pull at the top, grab the water. Tip through to the belly button, then down through the bottom of her swimsuit. Swoosh, swoosh, kick, kick, feeling hot inside, but the water was cooling, refreshing, invigorating. Feeling empowered because she was feeling stronger.
She had been thinking about escape for much of the day, or what she thought of as a day, anyway. Now she began to get serious about other things.
She reviewed what she knew about this place—the closet—and the vicious, horrifying man who kept her. The Wolf. That was what the bastard called himself. Why the Wolf?
She was somewhere in a city. She was almost sure the city was in the South, and fairly large, lots of money in the surrounding area. Maybe it was Florida, but she didn’t know why she thought that. Maybe she had overheard something and it had only registered in her unconscious. She’d definitely heard voices in the house when there had been large parties or, occasionally, smaller get-togethers. She believed that her vermin captor lived alone. Who could possibly live with such a horrible monster? No woman could.
She knew some of his pathetic habits by heart. He usually turned on the TV when he came home: sometimes ESPN, but more often CNN. He watched the news constantly. He also liked detective shows, such as Law and Order, CSI, Homicide. The TV was always on, late into the night.
He was physically large and strong, and he was a sadist—but also careful about not hurting her badly, not so far, anyway. Which meant—what did it mean?—that he planned to keep her around for a while longer?
If Lizzie Connolly could stand it here for another minute. If she didn’t flip out and make him so angry that he’d snap her neck, as he’d threatened to several times a day. “I’ll snap your little neck. Like this! You don’t believe me? You should believe me, Elizabeth.” He always called her Elizabeth, not Lizzie. He told her that Lizzie wasn’t a beautiful enough name for her. “I’ll break your fucking neck, Elizabeth!”
He knew who she was and quite a bit about her, and also about Brendan, Brigid, Merry, Gwynnie. He promised that if she made him angry he’d not only hurt her, but he’d do the same to her family. “I’ll go to Atlanta. I’ll do it for kicks, just for fun. I live for that kind of thing. I could murder your whole family, Elizabeth.”
He was desiring her more and more—she could certainly tell when a man got like that. So she did have some control over him, didn’t she? How about that? So fuck you too, buddy!
Sometimes he would leave her binds slightly looser and even give her free time to walk around in the house. Tied up, of course—on a kind of chain leash that he would hold in his hands. It was so demeaning. He told her that he knew she’d be thinking that he was getting kinder and gentler but not to get any stupid ideas.
Well, what the hell else could she do except get ideas? There was nothing for her to do all day in the dark by herself. She was—
The closet door swung open violently. Then it slammed against the wall outside.
The Wolf screamed in Lizzie’s face. “You were thinking about me, weren’t you? You’re starting to get obsessive, Elizabeth. I’m in your thoughts all the time.”
Damn it, he was right about that.
“You’re even glad for the company. You miss me, don’t you?”
But he had that wrong, dead wrong.
Lizzie hated the Wolf so much that she contemplated the unthinkable: She could kill him. Maybe that day would come.
Imagine that, she thought. God, that is what I want to do—kill the Wolf myself. That would be the greatest escape of all.
Chapter 58
THAT SAME NIGHT the Wolf had a meeting with two professional hockey players at Caesars in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The suite where he stayed had gold-foil wallpaper everywhere, windows facing the Atlantic, and a hot tub in the living room. Out of respect for his guests, who were big stars, he wore an expensive chalk-stripe Prada suit.
His contact happened to be a wealthy cable TV operator, who arrived at the Nero suite with the hockey players Alexei Dobushkin and Ilia Teptev in tow. Both were members of the Philadelphia Flyers. They were top defensemen who were considered to be tough guys because they were big men who moved quickly and could do a lot of damage. The Wolf didn’t believe the hockey players were that tough, but he was a huge fan of the game.
“I love American-style hockey,” he said as he welcomed them with a broad smile and a hand extended.
Alexei and Ilia nodded his way, but neither of the hockey players shook his hand. The Wolf was offended, but he didn’t reveal his feelings. He smiled some more and figured that the hockey players were too stupid to understand who he was. Too many wooden sticks to the skull.
“Drinks, anyone?” he asked his guests. “Stolichnaya? Whatever you like.”
“I’ll pass,” said the cable operator, who seemed incredibly self-important, but a lot
of Americans were that way.
“Nyet,” Ilia said with disinterest, as if his host were a hotel barman or a waiter. The hockey player was twenty-two years old, born in Voskresensk, Russia. He was six-foot-five, with close-cropped hair, stubble not quite amounting to a beard, and a block of a head sitting on an enormous neck.
“I don’t drink Stoly,” said Alexei, who, like Ilia, wore a black leather jacket with a dark turtleneck underneath. “Maybe you have Absolut? Or some Bombay gin?”
