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“Yes.”
“Once a week. So that’s going to help me a lot if I’m already dead. Ugh!” She shook her head so fast it whipped her hair about and probably rattled her brain. I almost…almost put my hand to her back. “I was starting to trust him.”
I bit back saying anotherI’m sorry. Charity was seeing the ramifications of this way too fast. If she knew all the reasons we wanted this done, she’d be even more traumatized. Still, we owed it to her. I would get in touch with Jacob and tell him so.
“Where is it? The island.”
“Not at liberty to say. Sorry.” And there was that sorry.
“And you haven’t said how you guarantee this is true.”
It was my turn to spread my hands and look sheepish. “How can I? What proof could we show you that you would accept? We cannot sign anything.”
She lowered her head and stared at the grass. I leaned into the back of the seat and waited.
Finally, she inhaled and spoke. “I’ll do it. I don’t suppose I have any great choice in this. Yes. I’ll try.”
“Good.”
“Do I get a phone to take photos? Something to record with?”
“No. I can’t do that. Not yet, anyway.”
“If you’re right, being with the doctor could be extremely dangerous. What if he finds out I’m spying for you? You’re treating me as if I am this object that hasuses…” She’d spat out that word. “…until I suppose you decide I’m disposable. You are a dick, just like everyone I’ve met since…that day.”
I stood and beckoned to the male guard who’d taken up a post by the door leading into the house.
She dabbed at her nose with the back of her hand and rose to go with the guard.
I watched her walk away and felt both helpless and, yes, a total dick.
Before I read the report, her surliness had made me wish I could kiss that petty and dangerous insolence out of her. The facts in the doc made me wish I hadn’t been given this job, but if not me, someone else would’ve descended on her to make these demands.
This was another of life’s little tragedies. For once, unlike the other jobs I’d been given by Jacob, she seemed an innocent. Did anyone ever deserve to be killed or raped? Was rape worse than death? Me, I liked being alive. It was one of those questions I preferred to leave in the too-hard basket. If I were ever sodomized and raped, I’d make sure to kill them afterward. It wouldn’t reverse history, but I’d feel a lot better.
5
CHARITY
Thethwop-thwopof the helicopter blades and the engine noise had been muted by the headphones. Until those were placed over my ears, the blades had seemed an ominous repetitive noise, drumbeats counting down my captivity. When they stopped, I’d be on his island. The house had become my cocoon of safety while this could turn into a horror story. Knowing that and pushing it aside to keep myself sane no longer worked.
I sat mostly still. They’d taped covers over both my eyes then dressed me with heavily tinted enclosing sunglasses and a long coat. In the limousine, as we drove to some small private airport I’d seen the sunglasses, the tape, and the eye covers, tucked inside a briefcase.
Shouting will get you nothing except pain and punishment, the doctor had said, once I was blinded and dressed. Then we had exited the car. It was a chilling announcement, and all the more so, now that the visitor had told me the doctor might be a murderer.
Murderers, rapists, and thieves, was that a quote from somewhere? Wherever I’d seen that, that was who I was dealing with. Wait, no.Lawyers, guns, and money by Warren Zevon. I was going a long way back for that one and, look ma, nothing has changed. The CNC Frat boys would have lawyers as members, for sure.
Was the doctor a murderer? The visitor’s words had made me doubteverythingfrom that moment onward. The doctor’s promises, the reason my visitor had asked me to help them, and that prize of freedom too—I doubted that most of all.
If they were this particular about hiding me away, would they ever let me go? No, surely.
In a strange loop of logic, if that was so, then part of what Dr. Romanus had said was true. He said he was going to keep me, forever.
I had no fucking way to judge this stew of soggy facts.
My braver self was chastising me for not screaming at the airport, for not yelling I was being kidnapped or something. My less brave but more sensible self knew he’d never have done this if it was to be that simple for me to escape him.
My fingers felt cold. My chest tight.
