Zoe felt herself being rolled over and over. And then she felt the end of the rug being pulled out from under her. Felt herself slip out onto the rough surface of a gravel driveway. She opened her eyes and was blinded by a sudden flash of sunlight. She shut them again. Last night’s chilly wet weather had turned into bright sunshine. At least the sun was shining here. Wherever here was. She scrunched up her face and reopened her eyes, slowly this time, allowing them to adjust to the light.
Someone, probably Bradshaw, was standing over her looking down. With the sun behind him, all she could see was the black silhouette of a man who looked enormous.
“Well, Ms. Zoe McCabe, or may I just call you Zoe? Welcome to the Hotel California.” His voice had a mocking tone to it. “So glad you accepted my invitation.”
The Hotel California? The old Eagles song?
Bradshaw reached down, slipped his hands under her armpits and pulled her to her feet. She wobbled a bit but managed to stay upright, hands still cuffed behind her, mouth and feet still taped. At least she was able to get her first good look at him. No question. It was the same guy who’d walked her home last night. She wondered if Tyler Bradshaw was his real name.
Probably not. Why let his victim know his real name? On the other hand, what difference did it make if he was going to kill her anyway? There was no one she could tell.
Bradshaw, or whatever his real name might be, reached behind her head, grabbed the end of the tape and ripped it off. It stung badly enough she figured it must have taken some skin and hair along with it. Still, she didn’t cry out. Didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of letting him know he’d hurt her.
“Open wide,” he said. “I’m going to pull the gag out. And don’t try to bite or I promise you will regret it.”
Perhaps it was the challenge inherent in Bradshaw’s warning that prompted her next move. Or just as likely a desire to fight back, even if the attack turned out to be suicidal. But seconds later, when he pushed his oversized thumb and forefinger into her mouth to grab the end of the handkerchief, she clamped her teeth down as hard as she could on the thumb and held on, hoping she could somehow gnaw through skin and bone and bite the damned thing off. Sadly, digital amputation turned out to be harder than she’d imagined and, he struck back instantly. An open-handed blow with his left hand against the side of her face loosened her grip and allowed him to pull his thumb free. Still, the bastard’s howls of pain and rage provided Zoe with a split second of intense pleasure. One that lasted only until he struck her again, this time hitting her across the face with the wounded right hand so hard it felt like she’d been whacked with a two-by-four. She staggered sideways and then fell hard onto the rough gravel driveway. She managed to push the handkerchief from her mouth.
“I warned you, but you wouldn’t listen, would you?” Bradshaw followed the slap with a kick to Zoe’s gut that knocked the wind out of her. She curled up in a fetal position, struggling for air, waiting for the next blow to come.
When it didn’t, she opened her eyes and saw Bradshaw, holding his injured thumb, his face twisted with rage, kneeling by her head. He lowered his face till it was only inches from her own.
“Are you telling me you want to die now?” Bradshaw spat the words out through gritted teeth. “Is that what you’re telling me? Because I can promise you’ll get your wish if you ever try anything like that again. Do you understand?”
His face was so close she could feel the spray of his spit. Smell the staleness of his breath. She thought about spitting back and then biting his aquiline nose, which he’d thrust only inches from her mouth. Wondered if it would be easier to bite off a nose than a thumb. That’d fix the bastard. They’d call him No-Nose Bradshaw. But it’d fix her too. Try anything like that and he’d kill her for sure. Suppressing the strong desire to fight back, Zoe simply nodded. It took all of her acting skills to model her face into the expression of abject surrender she’d so recently used on stage.
Leaving her on the gravel, Bradshaw rose and walked back to the car. A big, black Toyota 4Runner. He got in, shut the door and started the engine. Was he leaving? Could he have just been delivering her like a package for somebody else to abuse and kill? Somebody who lived in the big house she could see. But instead of heading back down the driveway, he drove the SUV into a gray, shingled, barnlike structure maybe fifty yards into the woods. She supposed it served as his garage.
Alone for a minute, Zoe lay still. She opened and closed her mouth. Moved her jaw from left to right. Everything seemed to be working okay. Though her face still stung, it didn’t feel like any bones had been broken. Still, she was sure it would bruise. Maybe having a black and blue face would discourage him from assault. She doubted it.
He emerged from the barn, closed the door, locked it and then walked back and stood over her. He was carrying a black duffel bag she recognized as her own in his injured hand. The one with flowers on it that she’d had since she was fourteen. In his other hand he carried three large grocery bags filled with stuff. Leaving her where she was, he walked them into the house. A couple of minutes later he emerged through the now open door.
“All right, you hurt me,” he said in a much calmer voice. Judging by the bandage he’d wrapped around his thumb, she guessed her teeth had indeed drawn blood. It seemed like a small victory. But, at this point, any victory was welcome. “And I suppose attacking me like that made you feel good. Okay. Fine. Score one for you. But hear me well. If you ever, ever try anything like that again I’m not going to let you off easy with a slap or a kick. I’m going to kill you in the most painful way I can think of. And believe me when I tell you I can be very imaginative when it comes to painful ways of killing people.”
Suddenly Zoe felt herself peeing again. She closed her eyes and let it come. Bradshaw kept talking. He spoke softly. His manner was friendly. The threat to kill her was delivered in a quietly rational way. “So unless you want to find out what that way is, I suggest we just say that we’re even and we start over. Work for you?”
She nodded because she couldn’t seem to manage words. She supposed there was no reason a kidnapper or even a serial killer shouldn’t speak softly or sound either rational or friendly. Perhaps even charming. She remembered reading about Ted Bundy, one of the most famous serial killers ever. Apparently young women found Bundy both handsome and charming.
But once he had them, he raped and murdered at least thirty of them in the most painful way possible before he was finally caught.
Fighting the rising sense of panic, Zoe told herself that the worst thing she could do at this point was show fear. Bradshaw probably got off on women showing fear. Which meant she had to at least try to let the actress in her be in charge. Use her theatrical training and her talent to become someone else and move the conversation from her impending death to something else. The longer she could keep him engaged, act as if the situation was normal, the better her prospects for survival. Sort of like Scheherazade in One Thousand and One Nights. Except she was pretty sure this dude wouldn’t be all that interested in listening to her tell him stories night after night.
She looked up at him looming over her. “Is Tyler Bradshaw your real name?” she asked in a quiet voice.
“Interesting.”
“What’s interesting?”
“That you remember the name I gave you. The drugs you were injected with usually induce amnesia for details like that. They’re used for surgical procedures, and most people don’t remember a thing that happened.”
The truth was, Zoe didn’t remember anything from the moment she felt the hypodermic going into her butt until she woke up wrapped in the rug in the back of the SUV, but she remembered every word and detail from before and after. She had what was called an eidetic memory. It ran in the family. Her uncle Michael had it as well. As did her aunt Fran. Among the millions of bits or perhaps bytes of information stored in the hard drive of Zoe’s memory was every line of every play ever written by William Shakespeare. She never had to struggle to learn a part. She could read a play once and remember every word.
“You told me your name before you gave me any drugs. Is Tyler Bradshaw your real name?”
“Let’s just say it’s the name of the character I play.”
“And where do you play this part?”
“In my own little dramas. I’m the male lead. And I’ve decided to cast you as the female lead. Congratulations.”
In spite of her determination to stay cool, the smugness in his voice turned resolution to anger. She looked around for a weapon. Anything she could use to hurt him. She saw nothing but gravel. And with her hands still cuffed behind her back and her ankles still taped, there was no way she could even throw a handful of that in his face.
“The female lead?” she said. “Lucky me. And could you tell me what the name of my character is?”
“An interesting question. We could call you Desdemona, I suppose. But I think I prefer Zoe.”
“Does that mean the male lead’s name is Tyler?”
“Yes.”
“And does this play have any other characters. Or is it just the two of us?”
“Just you and me. And occasionally for comic relief, my little brother.”
Little brother? Did that mean there were two of them she had to deal with? No way of knowing.
“And, in your play,” she asked, “is Tyler the kind of the character I think he is?”
“And what kind of character that?”
“A kidnapper. And a serial killer. One who murdered a ballet dancer and dumped her body on a beach in Connecticut?”
His face took on a look of injured innocence. “Me? A serial killer? Of course not. Zoe, trust me. I would never do a thing like that.”
She’d learned long ago never to trust anyone who said, Trust me. Never to believe anyone who said, Believe me.
“I wouldn’t harm a fly. Well, maybe a fly. Possibly even a mouse or two. And in the interest of full disclosure, I have shot quite a few quail and pheasants. Most of which I hung, cleaned and roasted. And once I shot a rabbit, which I made into a stew. But destroy a thing of beauty like yourself? I don’t think so.”
He smiled what she supposed he thought was a charming smile. And if truth be told, he wasn’t far from wrong. She supposed that’s what had made her comfortable enough to allow herself not to panic when he approached her on the street. A charming smile, a good-looking face and an educated accent were probably all he needed to attract the women he wanted to kill. She wondered how many there had been. If he was a normal human being, she could imagine a lot of women being interested. But he wasn’t a normal human being. He was a psychopath. Probably a rapist. And almost certainly a murderer. She told herself again that it was important not to show fear. The character she was about to play needed to exude strength. And not just strength. She needed to make herself too fascinating for Bradshaw to want to end the drama. She had create a play in which the female lead was too interesting to kill off. Too fascinating for him to want to bring down the final curtain.
She wondered if she could make him genuinely fall in love with her. Make him not want to live without her. And fool him into thinking that she loved him back. She thought of the tough, manipulative female characters she’d seen in old movies. Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity, Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, or Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Any one of them could probably have played Tyler Bradshaw like a fiddle. But could she? Was Zoe McCabe tough enough, sexy enough and devious enough for someone like Tyler Bradshaw to literally die for?
However good an actress she might be, she wasn’t one hundred percent sure she could handle the role. After all, didn’t they say about psychopaths that they never really love anyone but themselves? Still, she had to be strong enough to try. “So you don’t want to kill me?”
“No. I don’t want to kill you.” A long pause. And then a smile. “At least not in the first act.”
“Ah, so we save that for the final curtain?”
Bradshaw smiled. “No, not quite the final curtain. Perhaps Act V, Scene II.”
“I see. A death like Desdemona’s. But before we get to that, what exactly are your plans? A little rape perhaps? I would have thought a man as good-looking as you, and frankly as charming as you were last night, could succeed with women without resorting to violence? Without forcing himself on them? But perhaps you can’t.”
“Of course I can.”
The delivery of the line was a little defensive. Exactly how she would have told him to deliver it if she were directing the play.
“And I have many times.” A little more confidence in the follow-up. “With many women.” Back to defensive.
“Without having to resort to rape?”
“Zoe, rape is such an ugly word. I wish you would stop thinking in those terms.”
“I’m sorry, Tyler. You’re right. You seem like a man with enough self-confidence not to have to resort to that. But you do want to make love to me? And that’s the reason you brought me here?”
“Yes.” Another phonily charming smile. “Making love will do.”
“Don’t you think we should marry first?”
“Now you’re being silly. I mean you did live with Dr. Alex for two years without marriage.”
Bastard must have been stalking her for some time to know that. Why had he only surfaced now? Was it because of the breakup with Alex? She supposed it had to be. “Ah,” she said, “you know all my secrets.”
“No. Just a few. And perhaps someday we will marry if I can convince you to take that step. In the meantime, all I really want is for you to stay here with me, at least for a while, and see if you might not come to love me when you begin to know me. And if you do, you may decide you want to stay here till we both grow old.”
“Wouldn’t you grow bored with me?”
“Bored with you? Never.”
Jesus Christ, this guy really was loony tunes. The key was to work that to her advantage if that was at all possible, and she wasn’t sure it was. She smiled at him, “I hope not. I will try my best to make you happy.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.”
That seemed to make him happy. At least for the moment. “Stay here. I need to get something else from the car.” He headed toward the barn, leaving her standing alone in the middle of the gravel, still handcuffed and taped. The only way she could move was to hop, and that wouldn’t get her very far.
Zoe looked around to get her bearings. The narrow dirt road they’d come up led into the circular gravel driveway where she was now standing. Directly in front of her loomed a large three-story house. A mansion really, boasting high gables on either side and at least four chimneys and possibly more she couldn’t see. The place looked enormous. Six or seven thousand square feet. Maybe more. A kind of bastardized Tudor-style, gussied up with extraneous details and a Spanish-style red tile roof. The house reeked of excess that would have looked more appropriate in Palm Beach or maybe Beverly Hills than it did here in the more conservative northeast.
To the right of the house Zoe saw a clay tennis court with no net that looked like it hadn’t been played on for a long time. Years, she guessed. Near the court was a rectangular swimming pool that held no water and had no plastic cover like the one Zoe’s father had the pool company install every fall over the pool at their house in Dutchess County. Some of the tiles had fallen from the trim and there was a fair amount of leaves and other debris scattered across the bottom. Again, it looked like it had been many years since anyone had used it for swimming.
Zoe let herself wonder if a much younger Tyler Bradshaw once splashed around in this pool or played on the tennis court. No way of knowing. On the pool’s far side was a pool house, or maybe a guest cottage, that looked big enough to house a good-sized family. Guests? Maybe servants? Beyond that was a mess of plantings and weeds that might once have been a formal garden. In the direction of the road she saw nothing but seemingly endless woodland. Large stands of first-growth maples and oaks, tall pines and spruce. Most of the deciduous trees were cloaked in their full autumnal glory. Zoe listened hard but couldn’t hear any cars passing by. It was as though she was standing in front of a haunted house in the middle of nowhere. What ghosts might be wandering inside this place she couldn’t begin to imagine.