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She approaches slowly, as though she half expects me to grab her and take a bite out of her, too. When I make no threatening moves, she seems to relax. She perches on the edge of the spare chair and reaches for the potato wedges.
She eats, hesitant at first but then with more gusto. I defy anyone to resist Giuseppe’s thin and crispy for long. We share the pizza, the only sound that of the pair of us slurping cola and chewing and the occasional ‘thank you’ when I refill her plastic cup or pass her a chicken strip.
Eventually, she leans back in her chair. “Enough. I’m stuffed.”
“Me, too.” I tip the remaining wedges and chicken into the box with what’s left of the pizza and flick the lid closed. “I’ll get rid of all this.” I get to my feet. “Is there anything else you want?”
She shakes her head, then, “Are you going?”
“Things to do,” I reply.
“Oh. I just…” Her voice trails off.
“What?”
“I just wondered if you could…stay a bit. I’ve had no one to talk to all day. It gets boring.”
I’m about to dismiss her request. What am I? Some sort of escort? But I don’t. Instead, I set the box back down and conjure up what might pass for a smile. “You want company?Mycompany?”
Her lip quirks. “I’m so fed up I’d even settle for you. As long as you keep your belt on.”
Now my grin is genuine. “I made some sort of impression, then. I was afraid I was losing my touch.”
“No. I don’t think you are.” She pauses, then, “Would you really have caned me?”
“That was the plan. I overestimated your level of resilience, clearly.”
She’s silent for a few moments, then she starts again. “You’re not really going to kill me, are you?”
“What makes you think that?”
“If you were, you’d have done it when your friend got the gun off me.”
She makes a decent case. I’m not entirely sure at what point, precisely, I came to the conclusion that I wanted to protect her, but that’s the way it is now. It’s unlucky for her that she blundered in here, and if she wasn’t a police officer and therefore a threat to us, I’d have already sent her on her way. But it’s all a lot more complicated than that, and now I’m pinning my hopes on a family link that might be enough to keep her quiet. And convince Ethan that we can let her live.
Time will tell. And the DNA results.
“What’s your plan now?” she continues. “How long will you keep me here for?”
I wish I knew.
“Why didn’t you kill me?” She presses.
Another fair question.
“You killed those men. I saw you. And I bet they weren’t the first.”
“No. They weren’t,” I admit. “You caught me on a good day. I must be mellowing.”
Her snort of derision is sufficient to let me know what she thinks of that theory. I guess those months of police training weren’t entirely wasted.
“Will you answer me another question?” she goes on.
“I might. Ask it.”
She gets to her feet and paces around the room. Suddenly she halts, turns to face me. “You…you stripped me.”
“I did.”
