She waited until he opened his eyes again before speaking. “Hasn’t anyone ever loved you, Tyler?” she asked. “Really loved you?” The words came out unplanned. Ad-libbed, as it were. She had no idea how he would react.
“Yes. Of course. Lots of people.”
She detected a defensive undertone to his response. “Women?”
“Of course, women.” The defensiveness was still there. Sexual insecurity? It felt like it to Zoe, but that seemed odd in somebody as strong and relatively attractive as Bradshaw.
“I’m glad,” said Zoe. “Because you know that you’re worth loving. You’re very smart and you’re very good-looking. You have beautiful brown eyes. Did anyone ever tell you how beautiful your eyes are?” she asked.
“Do you love me?” he asked.
“No. But if you weren’t keeping me prisoner, if you weren’t threatening to kill me, it wouldn’t be out of the question.”
Was it hope she saw quickly flitting across his face? Was that cause for her to feel hope as well?
“If you drove me back to New York, back to my apartment, perhaps we could start over. Rewrite Act I of our script, as it were. Maybe make it a love story instead of a tragedy.”
“I’m afraid that can’t happen, Zoe. It’s too late. The action has already taken us beyond the point of no return.”
She looked across at him and smiled gently. “Well, I guess we’ll just have to see how it plays out. Meanwhile, let’s enjoy our wine. I think it’s important that I get to know you a little better now that we’re together. And that you get to know me. Not as Desdemona. But as the person I really am. Zoe McCabe.”
“And why do you want that?”
“Because Desdemona was a victim. And I am anything but.”
“A survivor?”
“Yes.”
“A survivor who thinks I might be worth loving?”
“Ultimately, yes. I think you’re a very interesting man.”
“A leading man?”
“It’s possible.” At least, she thought, that wasn’t totally a lie. He was interesting. Weird. And scary. But also interesting. She held up her glass. “To you and me, Tyler. To us. Let us not speak of killing, but rather of loving. It doesn’t have to end the way it did in the play.”
He hesitated.
“There’s nothing to be afraid of. There’s no way I could possibly hurt you,” she said.
“Don’t you know you’ve already hurt me? You and those like you. Damaged me deeply. More than once.”
More than once? Me and those like me? What was he talking about? Should she apologize? She sensed that what she had to do was to soothe his fragile ego.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you. Biting your thumb was the only thing I’ve done that was meant to hurt you. And I only bit it because you frightened me. Terrified me, in fact.”
“You know perfectly well I’m not talking about my thumb.”
“Then what are you talking about?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t matter. It wasn’t really you. It was others.” They both sat quietly for a moment sipping the wine. Zoe trying to figure out what would happen next. What she should do or say next. She’d always done well at her improv classes at Juilliard, but knowing how to handle Tyler Bradshaw without setting him off was tougher than any improv scene she’d ever played. She took another sip. The wine was delicious. The glass she drank from was long-stemmed, thin and delicate. Was it another potential weapon? She toyed with the idea of tossing the wine in his face, breaking the glass and while he was wiping it out of his eyes, slamming the long, slender shards into his wine-blinded eyes. What then? Run like hell? Or finish the job with the fireplace poker. Even if it didn’t kill him, it would at least give her long enough time to find a way out of the house and out to the road before he caught her. Still, she hesitated. She’d never killed anyone. As a well-brought-up young lady, she’d never physically attacked anyone aside from biting Bradshaw’s thumb and slapping Alex’s face when she walked in and caught him in bed with Call Me Bella. Didn’t know if she could. She glanced again at the bulge the knife made in the pocket of the faded red trousers.
Getting it and using it seemed like such a long shot. It might be better to play to her strengths.
“You’re thinking about it again.”
“What?”
“Ways of killing me.”
“How do you know?”
“I always know what people are thinking.”
She let the comment pass. “How did you get that scar? The one on your neck? It looks quite old.”
“It is quite old. I was twelve at the time. In the seventh grade.”
“What happened?”
“My father tried to rape me,” said Tyler, staring into the glowing coals of the fire and sipping his wine.
“Dear God. How?”
He turned and looked at Zoe with what could only be called a sardonic smile. “How? The regular way. At least it’s the regular way when you’re doing it with boys. In the ass, bent double, with my pants down. Don’t look so horrified, Zoe. He did it quite often. Although when I got the scar was the last time he tried it with me. Tucker was easier. He was smaller and didn’t fight back so hard.”
“And the scar?”
“It happened the last time. I managed to wriggle free. Ran to the kitchen as fast as I could with my pants and underpants down around my ankles. He leapt up and followed.”
“He didn’t catch you?”
“No. His pants and underpants were down around his ankles as well. It’s funny when you think about it. The two of us teetering along mostly naked, one chasing the other, we must have looked like the clown act in some kind of pornographic circus. Anyway, I got to the kitchen first and grabbed a chef’s knife. I turned and slashed at him. I was going for his neck but only managed to cut his cheek, and not very deeply. He grabbed the knife from my hand and slashed back. He didn’t miss.”
Zoe looked at the long, white scar that ran from Tyler’s left ear all the way down to the bottom of his neck. “He might have killed you.”
“He might have but I don’t think he wanted to. Not that time. Though I’m sure he would have killed me if it happened again.”
“Did it?”
“No. That was the last time he tried raping me. Like I said, Tucker was easier. He wasn’t as dangerous as I was. And the old man knew it.”
Bradshaw picked up the thousand-dollar bottle of wine and emptied what was left into their two glasses, giving himself about twice as much as he gave her.
“This is quite a house,” she said, feeling a need to change the subject, to make meaningless conversation. “Very grand. I feel like I should be ringing for the butler.”
“Sorry. No butler. But the bell for calling one is still here. It’s the buzzer on the floor under one end of the dining room table. The end where the mistress of the house was meant to sit. Still works, though we have no servants to answer when it rings.”
“Have you always lived here?”
“Yes. I was born here. My great-grandfather built this house back in the 1890s. It passed from generation to generation and now it’s mine.”
She sipped again at the wine. Rose from her chair. “May I look at some of the things you have in here?”
“Of course. You’re my guest.”
She went to the wall to her left and began a slow circuit of the room, studying the paintings and some family photographs that hung on the walls. A few of what she guessed were Bradshaw’s mother and father. Some without children. Some with two little boys. Some of a couple dressed in the clothes of the 1930s. Bradshaw’s grandparents? Probably. She moved around toward the fireplace and pretended to study a painting that hung over the mantel. A shepherd herding sheep over the brow of a hill. A brass plate on the bottom of the frame identified the work as Day Is Done by someone named Paul van der Vliet. Well painted. Very traditional. And, in Zoe’s view, very boring.
“Is this a well-known artist?”
“Yes. Quite. Almost famous. If you like nineteenth-century Dutchmen. A lot of his work hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.”
As she stood there pretending to study the work her eyes slid to the set of fireplace tools on the hearth. She imagined herself grabbing the poker, racing toward her captor and swinging it like a bat against his head. She switched the glass of wine from her right hand to her left. Allowed her fingers to brush against the top of the poker. Could she grab it? Could she do it? Turn and bash his head before he could stop her? She tried to calculate her chances of success. Poker versus knife. Six foot three and two hundred and twenty pounds versus five foot eight and one twenty. She knew even with the element of surprise it wasn’t a battle she was likely to win. And it wouldn’t be much of a surprise. His eyes were no doubt following her every move.
Probably watching her hand as it touched the poker. But more than that and in its own way more worrisome, she found part of herself wanting to comfort this wounded creature that had captured her more than she wanted to kill it. That was a dangerous feeling. Possibly even suicidal. She took another, longer sip of the expensive Bordeaux, not certain whether she was capable of committing murder.
In the meantime she supposed the best thing she could do was distract him with conversation and words of love and make sure his glass was always full. Hers as well. She took another sip. The alcohol was calming her nerves. Slowing the beating of her heart. She took another mouthful and told herself to slow down. The idea was to get him drunk. Not herself.
“Does the house have a name? I always thought houses like this had names.”
“It did once. My great-grandfather called it Rose Hill. I’m told he was an enthusiastic horticulturist, and the place had large beds of hybrid roses. The name sort of disappeared with the roses. Both were long gone before I was born.”
“Are your parents still alive? Do they still live here?” And if they do, do you have them locked in one of the bedrooms or maybe even in the hole under the basement floor?
“No. My mother died when I was nineteen. So did my father.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I guess we have that in common. My mom died when I was twelve. Automobile accident. How did yours die?”
Tyler stared into the fireplace. “My father killed her.”
Zoe frowned. “An accident?”
“No. Murder.”
Tyler said this calmly, without any sign of distress or emotion, as if there was nothing unusual about fathers murdering mothers. Or even that there was anything wrong with it.
“How did it happen?”
Tyler shrugged. “I don’t know. He was angry about something that she said. So he punched her.” Tyler made a fist and punched one hand into the other. “Hard like this. Wham!”
“He did that a lot?”
“Yeah. He used to beat her up regularly,” he said. “Usually when he was drunk. But sometimes I think just for the hell of it. You know, just because it made him feel like a tough guy who wouldn’t take any shit from anyone. Anyway, this one time when he hit her she fell awkwardly. Hit her head against the side of the hearth. Right there.” Tyler pointed. “Started bleeding like shit.”
“Was he drunk at the time?”
“No more than usual.”
Zoe realized that what Tyler was telling her wasn’t so different from the stories she’d heard about her own great-grandparents. “Why didn’t she just leave him before that happened?”
“Who knows? When I used to ask her that, she told me she loved him, and maybe she did. In spite of having the shit knocked out of her on a fairly regular basis. More to the point, I think she was afraid of losing Tucker and me. You know the old song? ‘You Always Hurt the One You Love.’ Well, that was sure true of the old man. I guess everybody screws you over in the end.”
“Did he beat up you and your brother as well? Or was raping the two of you his only entertainment?”
“No. The rape was intermittent. Beating us up was all the time. He was always angry at one of us. At my mother. At me. At Tucker. Specially at Tucker. He couldn’t deal with the fact that Tucker is . . . whatever Tucker is . . . a little slow at ordinary things. But brilliant at others. He’s what they call a savant. Mention any date in history and he can tell you what day of the week it was. Ask him to multiply any two numbers or tell you what the square root is of anything and he knows it instantly.”
“Like Rainman?”
“Like that. Only this isn’t a movie. This is real. My father used to beat all of us up. Once when I was fourteen he got so pissed off at me he picked me up and tossed me, headfirst, into the shallow end of the swimming pool.”
Zoe wondered if the tendency toward violence might be hereditary. “Couldn’t you swim?”
“I was a great swimmer. Problem was the water in the shallow end was only about eighteen inches deep. My head hit the concrete. Concussion put me in the hospital for three weeks. I actually think he enjoyed it. Guy was a fucking psychopath.”
The phrase The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree flashed through Zoe’s mind. “Didn’t anybody ask how it happened?”
Tyler laughed at that. “Oh yeah. The story my loving parents told the doctors was that I dove in myself trying to make a leaping catch of a Frisbee. That was bullshit but since he was this rich lawyer . . . with lots of big deal friends . . . they believed him. Same way they believed him when he swore my mother’s death was an accident, which he tried to blame on me. He told everybody that she tripped over some sports equipment I supposedly left on the floor, fell and hit her head.”
“How do you know her death wasn’t an accident?”
“’Cause I was there. I saw what happened.”
“And you didn’t tell anyone?”
“You’ve got to be kidding. If I’d said a word he would have killed me as well.”
Zoe found herself again feeling sympathy for this man who had kidnapped her, kicked and punched her and then walked in on her in the shower. She wondered if he induced a feeling of pity in all his victims before he killed them. The idea of the Stockholm syndrome went through her mind again. Prisoners who side with their captors. Victims loving their tormentors. Could she ever love this man? It didn’t seem possible. Whether she felt sympathy for him or not, she told herself she couldn’t give in to feelings like that. She had to be ready to seize the first realistic opportunity to take Tyler Bradshaw’s life and perhaps his brother’s as well if she was going to have any chance of survival.
“You said your father died as well. The same year as your mother. What happened to him?”
He turned and looked at Zoe with a self-satisfied smile. “What do you think?”
“You killed him?”
“Nope. He committed suicide when I was nineteen.”
“Really? And how did you pull that off?”
Tyler’s smile broadened. He was, no doubt, pleased at the praise he thought was implied by the question. “Nothing fancy. I waited till he was out cold from knocking back most of a bottle of bourbon. Which he did most nights. In fact he was sitting in the same chair you’re sitting in now. Anyway, I put on a pair of surgical gloves and one of those plastic raincoats like they sell at Disney World. Then I stuck his own revolver in his mouth. Wrapped his hand around the grip. Pushed his index finger through the trigger guard and helped him pull the trigger. Then I wrapped the gloves and the raincoat in a plastic garbage bag. Drove them down to New York. Tossed them in a Dumpster on the way. I went to our apartment in the city. Took a shower just in case to get rid of any gun residue that might still be on me. And waited for the cops to notify me of the bastard’s demise.”
“Where was Tucker?”
“He was here. Cops questioned him for a couple of hours. But he didn’t know anything about it. He can’t tell a lie and I wouldn’t have put him through that.”
“And that was that?”
“And that was that. My uncle, another big-shot lawyer, took care of the legal stuff. Tucker and I inherited this house plus the Park Avenue apartment, plus about ten million dollars in stocks and bonds. A million or so in cash. And another five million from a term life policy he had. Which was a total surprise to me. I didn’t think he cared enough for us to make us his beneficiaries.” Tyler smiled in obvious satisfaction. At his own cleverness? Zoe couldn’t be sure.
Zoe took a good-sized slug from her glass. “Have you ever killed anyone else?”
“Oh, sure.”
“Like who?”
“Like your friend Sarah Jacobs. Though I don’t think you really knew her, did you?”
“No. You told me you didn’t know who Sarah Jacobs was either.”
“I was lying. I killed Ronda Wingfield as well.”
“And Marzena Wolski?”
“That’s an interesting story. I gave Marzena to Tucker. He’d never had a beautiful woman before, or, well . . . to be truthful about it . . . any woman. Sadly he couldn’t manage it. He remains a virgin to this day. And I suppose he will till the day he dies.”
“Where did you do it?” she asked.
“Where did I do what?”
“Where did you kill them? Sarah, Ronda, Marzena.”
“It all happened in the room you’re sleeping in. Sarah died in the shower right after we made rough love.”
“So you killed Jacobs after you raped her? That’s what you mean by rough love, isn’t it?”
“I already told you I don’t care for that word.”
“What word?”
“Rape. I’d rather you didn’t use it again. It’s crude.”
“The newspaper said you strangled her.”
“That’s right. We made love one more time but I could tell she wasn’t happy. I could tell she was faking it. So I put her out of her misery.”
Zoe studied his face as he made these admissions. He seemed totally calm. Emotionless. As if he were telling her the plot of the movie he watched last night. Or discussing what they would have for dinner. Or chatting about the weather. She almost wished he’d act more like a ghoul or a madman. The ordinariness of the way he spoke about rape and murder was far creepier.
“I take it you like the wine,” Tyler said.
Okay. So he wanted to change the subject. As for the wine, the truth of the matter was that she barely noticed what it tasted like anymore. She was just hoping the alcohol could help keep her calm for a little while longer. Otherwise she was sure she’d leap up from her chair and run screaming for the door, run screaming from this house of horrors as fast as she could. But since there was no way she could get out without Tyler Bradshaw’s thumb to press against the lock, she’d probably end up like the three he’d killed before her.
Now she truly knew what Tyler meant when he called this place the Hotel California. You can check out any time you like. But you can never ever leave. She wasn’t sure if checking out meant giving up and dying? Or maybe fighting back and being murdered? She knew now she’d never ever be able to leave unless she could find a way of separating Tyler Bradshaw from his left thumb.
“Cat got your tongue?”
“What?”
“I asked you twice if you liked the wine and you didn’t answer. I hope you do, because I think it’s excellent.”
“Yes,” she said, coming back to the moment and managing to sound interested in what he was asking about. “It’s really very special. Quite delicious.” She raised her glass, offered him a smile and drank what was left in her glass. She looked over to where Tucker had put the second bottle on a silver tray set on a walnut cabinet against the far wall. Noticed for the first time the small steel corkscrew he’d left on the tray next to it. The kind she used to use back when she was working as a waitress. The kind with the little folding knife on one end and the corkscrew that folds out from the middle and sticks straight out.
“Shall I open the other bottle?” she asked. “Let it breathe?”
Tyler didn’t respond. It seemed like he was somewhere else. Maybe lost in a happy reverie of murders already committed. Reliving the act of pushing the gun into his father’s mouth and blowing his head off. Or maybe he was remembering murdering Sarah Jacobs in the shower. Or giving Marzena Wolski, the beautiful TV star, to poor, helpless Tucker.
Zoe got up and wandered across to the cabinet. She looked down. And saw a way out. There wasn’t one but two corkscrews on the tray. She glanced back at Tyler, who still seemed to be staring straight ahead, seemingly lost in his memories of murder and mayhem. Did he know there were two? Or had he finally made a mistake? She decided to take a chance. She used one of the corkscrews to open the second bottle of wine, lifted it to her nose and made a show of sniffing the wine. As she did she turned so her left side was facing him while she slipped the second corkscrew into her right side jeans pocket. Then she unwound the cork from corkscrew number one and put it back down on the silver tray.
She poured two glasses of wine and walked them over to him. Her heart was beating so fast she could barely hold them steady. She now had a weapon. One that could do some serious damage, though she wasn’t sure if it’d be enough to actually kill him. Death by Corkscrew. Definitely not as catchy a title as Murder on the Orient Express. But who knew? It was worth a try. She pictured herself lying naked in bed with him, perhaps after making long, languorous love. Perhaps distracting him by softly and sensually exploring his mouth with her tongue. And then? Then slamming the open corkscrew into his ear or maybe his eye or maybe against his temple and turning and pushing the spiral of steel hard and driving it home. Could she push it as far as his brain? Killing Tyler’s twisted brain by twisting in a piece of steel? Even if it didn’t kill him, it seemed to have a reasonable chance of working. So long as he didn’t kill her first.