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Then he gets home and he’s there. Dr. fucking Sharma with his good hair and beautiful blemish-free skin. He remembered him from before—and here he is, looking even better. Christ—even he would fuck him if he was feeling a little more on form.
But at last he leaves. And Jess stays. Griffin doesn’t know why, but she lies down on the bed next to him. He waits for the one solitary capsule to work. He waits for some sort of relief.
Earlier that day, when Jess mentioned Mia, he’d felt a bolt go through him. He knew he should offer some sort of explanation, but the sudden thought of her blind-sided him.
For the best part of a year, very few had referred to her. People tiptoed around him, euphemistically talking about her “passing.” But now, with all these murders, she is everywhere. Her face in photographs, her name, back in the room.
And it’s good. He once thought that it would destroy him to talk about her, but it makes her feel more real. She is real—the person he loved, the person who loved him.
“Mia was my wife,” he whispers to Jess in the darkened room. “We’d been married for exactly one year and six days when she was murdered.”
And he starts to talk.
* * *
It must have been one or two in the morning. Griffin’s confused. The flashlight shines in his eyes, waking him up. Next to him, he feels Mia jump, her body move against his back for protection. Something hard and cold is pushed against his head.
“I have a gun,” a voice hisses. “Stand up.”
Griffin hesitates and the man moves. The gun is taken away, but next to him he hears Mia gasp in fear.
“I have the gun to your wife’s head. Don’t try anything stupid.” Spoken through clenched teeth, angry and hard.
Griffin slowly raises his hands. He swings his legs out of bed, looking around him. He’s wearing boxer shorts, he knows Mia’s in no more than a thin nightdress. In the darkness he can only see shadows, a figure in a ski mask standing next to his wife.
“Tie him up.”
Mia comes over and he puts his hands in front of him.
“No, behind you.”
He does as he’s told, and he feels Mia wrap cord around his wrists. Her hands are cold, she’s shaking. He holds them slightly apart, hoping to keep some give in the bindings, but after she’s finished, he feels them being adjusted, pulled taut so they dig tightly into his skin.
“What do you want?” Griffin says. “Take anything, anything you want.”
“Oh, I will,” the voice says, muffled through his mask. “Now lie down on the floor.”
Griffin gets to his knees on the carpet, and a hand pushes him over. He falls heavily onto his side. He’s thinking: overpower him, get the gun, punch him in the face—he’s probably smaller than you. But a thought goes round and round: What about the gun? What about Mia?
As if reading his mind, the man growls, “Don’t move, or I’ll kill her.”
He feels the cord being wrapped around his ankles, then his feet are pulled up behind him.
Something is pushed into his mouth, fabric, maybe an item of clothing. A gag taut around his head to keep it in place. A blindfold next. He tries to move, but he’s hog-tied—his feet securely fastened to his wrists. He pulls again, but it only seems to make the knots tighter.
He can’t see, but he can still hear. Footsteps, Mia’s bare feet stumbling away. He can hear whispering but can’t make out what the man’s saying. He guesses they’re in the living room, and a door closes. He can’t hear anything now; his imagination goes into overdrive.
Griffin struggles again. He curses for allowing himself to get into this position. But he’d been half asleep, he hadn’t imagined—
Imagined what? He still can’t hear anything. But then—Mia’s voice, pleading, begging. She’s saying no, don’t, please, no. He tries to shout, but his voice is muffled, useless. He struggles again, the cord cutting in tighter. He pushes his head against the carpet, trying to get the blindfold off, the gag, anything.
He hears her screaming in pain. He hears furniture falling, glass breaking. Sobbing. Crying. Sounds that pull his heart into pieces. Tears soak into the blindfold. Helplessly, he thrashes in anger on the carpet, listening to his wife howling his name.
He can’t feel his hands now, the cord has cut off the blood supply. But he still can’t get free.
Minutes pass, then hours. He loses track of how long he’s been lying on the floor. He strains to hear what’s happening in the next room. Occasionally he hears cries, a few words, whispering, then silence.
Then a click. A door opening. There’s someone in the room with him. He struggles again, and manages, somehow, to get upright, resting on his knees, his hands behind him. But before he can do anything else, he feels something hard strike him on the shoulders. Then in the stomach. Then across his face. He tastes blood in his mouth. Nose shattered. Pain rips through his body and he falls down, but his hands come loose. He pulls them around, numb, but the blows come fast, and all he can do is try to defend himself, putting his arms up in front of him. He feels the hit to his forearms, he hears the bones break.
