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To kill you slowly. To extract his own, sadistic punishment. Don’t let him, Sam.
With all her concentration, she tried to set her jaw to steady herself, to get her hands to work, to take control. But her teeth rattled. Her muscles convulsed. Her eyes seemed to wiggle in their sockets.
You can do it.
You can.
You have to. For yourself. For Ty. For the boys.
Her heart wrenched at the thought of her sons. She couldn’t imagine not ruffling their hair, or teasing them, or holding them close when they were hurting. And Ty . . . oh, God, she wouldn’t think of not seeing him again, not kissing him or touching him. Tears filled her eyes, but she wouldn’t break down. She couldn’t. She had to find a way to get free, to save herself, to see her family again. She forced back her fear.
Seconds ticked by, then minutes.
How long had he been gone?
Five minutes? Ten? Twenty?
She had no way to tell time, but slowly her control was returning. She stretched her fingers and most of them complied.
Come on. Come on!
Her legs, still twitching, were heavy. Awkward, but she could move them slightly.
And her arms . . . yes, they were responding!
Sweating from the effort, she fought to steady herself and reach for the rosary.
The car beeped.
Interior lights flashed on, nearly blinding her.
She started, pretended that there were still some tremors in her body. He cast a glance her way, but slammed the door shut, started the car, and hit the gas, rapidly backing up, hitting the brakes, then switching gears, punching the accelerator.
Sam was thrown backward and forward and in that moment, her fingers scraped the back of the driver’s seat. The cross caught between her fingers.
As the car bumped and shimmied onto the smooth pavement of the parish road, she tugged. Like a snake sliding out of its den, the rosary finally slithered from the pocket to twine through her waiting fingers.
CHAPTER 37
Ipace.
Back and forth, back and forth, over and over again as the television glows, mocking me. I feel the old anxiety building with every passing moment. I’ve been patient, but my patience has worn razor thin. I know it’s risky, but I can’t wait any longer.
I click off the television after watching the segment ofBonjour, New Orleans!with Kristi Bentz over and over again. I can nearly recite the personal, provocative questions from that twit Renee-Claire. The whole segment was intended to embarrass me all over again. And it did. Even now I can feel my blood boiling, a tic starting near my eye. I touch my face to stop it and feel the scab, now nearly healed, from Kristi Bentz’s umbrella, but still visible. She nearly took out my eye with that pointed tip.
Bitch!
I rewind the show again, this time to Kristi Bentz’s segment, and there she is talking aboutherbook,herstory, as if it wasn’t my life she’d exposed, baring all the flaws for the whole damned world to see.
The tic becomes stronger.
Humiliating, that’s what it is!
Embarrassing.
But the program holds a sick fascination for me and I can’t seem to stop myself from sitting here, in my private quarters, replaying the whole mortifying, disgraceful show. I’ve even suffered through the segments with the near-dead-looking saxophonist and the inane cat lady with her nearly comatose feline on his tufted pillow.
But those parts of the show were only filler; the real show was the drama of Hamilton Cooke, Reggie, and that bitch Kristi Bentz.
