The man smiled again.
Garcia held the man’s stare for an instant. ‘I’m sorry, but is the blade swapping and the stare-down supposed to scare me?’
The man shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Is it scaring you?’
‘No, not really.’ Garcia paused, his eyebrows lifting ever so slightly. ‘Well, maybe just a little bit. But that’s probably because without any eyebrows, your forehead seems to go on for weeks. Do you actually know where it starts and where it ends?’
The man put down the cleaver. ‘Have you ever heard the saying – sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?’ He reached for something else on the table – a kitchen blowtorch.
‘Of course I have,’ Garcia replied. ‘But that thought is incomplete. What it truly says is, sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, but the highest form of intelligence – Oscar Wilde said that.’
‘Oh.’ The man tried to sound impressed. ‘An educated cop. That’s surprising.’
‘Really? You should meet my partner, then, Trevor. Can I call you Trevor, or do you prefer one of the other names? I’d rather have a name than not.’
‘Russell.’
‘WHOA!’
The whispered name caught Garcia totally by surprise, making him jump in place. It hadn’t come from the man in front of him. It came from somewhere to his right. And it scared him stiff.
Reflexively, he tried to turn his head in that direction, but it just wouldn’t move. His eyes, on the other hand, darted hard right, but whoever had spoken was hidden in the dark shadows and way out of his field of vision. Despite his feebleness, Garcia could clearly identify the voice as being female.
‘Who’s there?’ he asked.
No reply.
Garcia’s eyes moved back to the man ahead of him. ‘Who’s there? Who’s in here with me, Trevor?’
‘Russell,’ the female voice said again.
‘Who are you?’ Garcia asked.
The man put down the blowtorch. ‘Who is she?’ He sounded confused. ‘I thought that you were here for her.’
Garcia’s heart sank until it was nothing but a lead weight at the bottom of his stomach. The man could only be talking about a new victim. Someone that he’d already been torturing for days.
‘But you’re not here for her, are you?’
‘Listen,’ Garcia said, addressing whomever else was in the room with him and trying his best to sound confident. ‘Everything will be all right, OK? I’m a detective with the LAPD. We’ll get you out of here.’
Russell laughed. ‘Are you sure about that, Mr. Highest Form of Intelligence, LAPD Detective? Because from where I’m standing, it doesn’t look too good for you.’
Garcia kept his eyes on Russell.
‘You have no idea who she is, do you?’ Russell asked.
Garcia stayed quiet.
‘OK. Let me show you.’
Russell walked over to where Garcia was sitting and rounded his chair.
‘What are you doing?’ Garcia asked.
Instead of answering him, Russell unlocked the wheels and swerved the whole chair ninety degrees to its right.
There was nothing there but darkness.
