Zoe McCabe was lying on her left side on the cot, facing the wall and snoozing on and off, when she was stirred from her sleep by a large body lying down next to her on the small mattress. She stiffened and lay perfectly still as Tyler Bradshaw began gently stroking her back and kissing her neck.
“What do you want?” She spoke without moving. “To rape me again? Is that why you’re here? Or have you decided to just get on with it and simply kill me here in this pre-dug grave?”
“No. I don’t want to kill you. I don’t ever want to kill you. I want to love you. I want to make love to you. I want you to love me back.”
“Make love? Love you back? Dear God, you must be joking. I have a battered eye, a face that’s swollen up like a football and possibly a broken wrist. Not in great shape for making love. Or for loving the man who did this to me. Or is it just another round of rape that you really want?”
“I am sorry that happened. But then you attacked me with that damned corkscrew. I truly do want to make love. But before we do I want to give you this.” Bradshaw pressed a freezing cold ice pack against the right side of Zoe’s face. “It will help bring down the swelling.”
The ice stung, but after a minute the stinging receded and the cold felt good. She lay silent for a moment, thinking about the madman whose body she could feel pressing against hers, and wondered why she felt more pity than hatred.
“After what happened last night, do you actually think I could ever have sex with you voluntarily?”
“Yes. That’s what I want you to do.”
“Go to hell.”
Bradshaw laughed bitterly. “I probably will someday. In fact, I imagine my journey there will begin fairly soon. But while I’m still here, I do want you. And I want you to want me back.”
“What about last night?”
“Please forgive me for that.”
“No.”
“I’m ready to forgive you for what you did to me. To my ear.”
“Really? And why is that? I would have killed you if I could.”
“The fact is you could have. Once you had the knife you could have killed me easily. You held that blade against my throat for exactly seven seconds. All you had to do was push. But you didn’t. Even though I pleaded with you to kill me and be done with it you didn’t. Why?”
Zoe replayed the scene in her mind. Jamming the corkscrew into his ear. His almost inhuman howls of pain. The blood flowing from the wound. Then grabbing the knife. Holding it against his throat. Yes, she could have killed him. “I wanted to kill you. I don’t know why but I couldn’t.”
“I know why. And the funny thing is I couldn’t kill you either. I still can’t.”
“Even though you’ve killed other people?”
“Yes. My father for one, and I’m not sorry about that.”
“Then why not me?” Zoe managed to turn over and face Bradshaw. His ear was covered with a thick bandage that had been wrapped around his head to keep it in place.
“I don’t know. I guess because I wasn’t lying when I said I loved you. I have been in love with you since the first time I saw you. It was on stage in a play you were in in Hartford. Do you remember? It was called Waves.”
“Of course, I remember,” Zoe said softly. Waves was a play in which Zoe had played a young bipolar woman named Nora Beatty, who was desperately trying to hold back the onset of mania. Only four performances at the Hartford Playhouse. She wondered if he’d been there for every one. Sitting in the dark. Watching. Listening. Falling in love with a character who existed only in the playwright’s—and Tyler Bradshaw’s—minds. Were there other twisted creatures out there like Tyler? Fantasizing about characters created by playwrights and brought to life by actresses. Zoe wondered, if she was somehow lucky enough to survive this, if she’d ever be able to get on a stage again, not knowing who might be out there. Hiding in the dark. Waiting to strike.
“I loved your strength in that play. I loved who you were. I loved everything about you.”
“You fell in love with Nora Beatty, Tyler. Nora Beatty isn’t me. Neither is Desdemona. They’re just characters I played. Characters I pretend to be. I’m not remotely like either one. I’m Zoe McCabe, and Zoe McCabe is someone you don’t know at all.”
“I know. But I haven’t been able to get you out of my mind since the first moment I saw you standing on that stage in Hartford. Once I found out where you lived, I even rented an apartment I found on Airbnb on Stanton Street. Close enough so I could occasionally see you walking on the street. I saw you once in the grocery store. And then of course in Othello.”
Zoe suppressed a shiver. “So you were stalking me?”
“Yes. But only because I loved you.”
“The same way you loved Sarah Jacobs? Did you fall in love with her after watching how gracefully she danced on stage? Did you fall in love again after watching one of Ronda Wingfield’s performances? How about Marzena Wolski? Did you stalk all of them too? Before you kidnapped and murdered them? Is that what you do, Tyler? Kidnap women you think you love and then kill them? Or do you only kill them after you discover they’re not the women you thought they were when you watched them on stage? Or peered through the windows of their apartments?”
“I’ve never met or killed any of them. You’re the only one I love.”
“Yesterday . . . good God, it’s hard to believe it was only yesterday . . . But yesterday you told me that you had kidnapped them. Just like you kidnapped me. And that after you kidnapped them and raped them you murdered them.”
“I was lying.”
“Really? Were you lying then? Or are you lying now?”
“Then. I’m telling you the truth now. I didn’t kill them. I only read about their deaths in the newspapers. How they were kidnapped and then tortured and killed. I even think I know who did it. Someone I used to work with. Guy named Ziegler. We got drunk one night and he started talking about his sexual fantasies. When I read about Wingfield and Jacobs being murdered, I was pretty sure it was Ziegler who did it.”
“Why did you tell me it was you?”
“To scare you. To make you think I was an insane monster. Like Ziegler.”
Zoe resisted the temptation to tell him that that was exactly what he was. Instead she simply asked, “Why? Why would you want to do that?”
“To make sure you would do what I told you to do. When I read about what happened to those three, how they’d been kidnapped and hidden away, well, I started fantasizing about bringing you here. I wanted so desperately to have you close to me. And I knew I could never make it happen any other way. I was never going to kill you. I couldn’t kill you. I really do love you.”
Zoe turned her back on Bradshaw and again faced the wall. Tears began falling from both eyes, stinging the injured one. She didn’t know why she was weeping. Maybe it was because the whole human race suddenly seemed like a totally fucked-up, seething mass of insanity.
“Rhymes with humanity,” he said.
Yes, it does, she thought. Insanity rhymes with humanity. But how on earth did he know what she was thinking? Had she spoken aloud? Or could he somehow read her mind? Was he somehow her intended other on this earth? Her alter ego? No. Not Tyler Bradshaw. No way. That was ridiculous. She must have been whispering her thoughts without being aware of it.
“I just wanted to meet you,” he said. “In person. I just wanted to get to know Nora, Desdemona, Zoe, better.”
It sounded so innocuous. The innocence with which he said it. I just wanted to meet you. I just wanted to get to know Nora better.
“For the last time, I’m not Nora. And I’m not Desdemona.”
“But you are Zoe. I wanted to get to know Zoe better.”
Zoe heaved a deep sigh. Yes, insanity rhymes with humanity. “You might have tried asking me out on a date.”
“I did. Sunday night. By your front door. You turned me down.”
“You could have tried again.”
“It seemed more direct action was required.”
“Were you telling me the truth about killing your father or was that a lie as well?”
“Not a lie. I did kill him. Payback for killing my mother. And for nearly killing me half a dozen times. He would have succeeded in the end. Killing me. Killing Tucker. He hated both of us. He would rape us. Beat us. Lock us in this dungeon.”
“Why?”
“Tucker for being different. Me for hating him. For fighting back.”
“Have you ever killed anyone else?”
Bradshaw looked into her eyes and said nothing for a minute. “No.”
“Are you lying now?”
“Yes. I have killed someone else, but I’m not going to tell you who.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
“No. I could never kill you.”
“What if I attack you with another corkscrew?”
“I’d rather you used something more lethal. And less painful.”
“What did you do about your ear?”
“I went to the emergency room. I told them I fell in my workshop. Told them a nail was sticking up from the floor and went into my ear.”
“And they believed that?”
“Probably not. I have a perforated eardrum. And a possible infection from the dirty corkscrew. They don’t know yet whether there will be any hearing loss. But the doctor thought there probably would be. Maybe total deafness in that ear.”
“I’m sorry.” Zoe paused. “No. Actually, I’m not sorry. I’m glad I did it.”
“I deserved it. I raped you.”
Zoe felt bile rise in her throat. She swallowed it down “Why did you do that? Rape me? I need to know that. I’d already made love to you voluntarily and I would have again.”
“I had to find out if I could get you to hate me. I felt you were pretending to like me. Playing me by telling me that someday you might even love me. I knew someone like you could never really love someone like me. So to stop your lies I did something you could never forgive me for. Unless you really did love me.”
“And in return I drove a corkscrew into your ear.”
“I forgive you for that.”
“Does it still hurt?”
“Yes.”
“A lot?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You deserved it.”
“Yes, I did. But I forgive you.”
“Really? You’re forgiving me for driving a corkscrew into your ear? I was trying to kill you, you know. It thrilled me seeing you roll around on the floor, bleeding out of the ear and screaming in pain.” As she said it Zoe wondered if she’d ever be rescued from this house of horrors. Wouldn’t a quick death be preferable to living a long life as Tyler Bradshaw’s sex slave? “I wouldn’t ever forgive me,” she said, “if I were you. I’d want to kill me. In fact, I thought you were going to last night.”
“I almost did. I hit you hard and I’m very strong. And I almost broke your wrist.”
“Will you let ever let me out of this cell?”
“Will you promise to love, honor and obey me?”
“Till death do us part? Just like Nora promised Jeb? Just like Desdemona promised Othello.”
“Yes. Like that. Only I don’t want to kill you. I want you to stay alive. I really do love you.”
Zoe thought about what Bradshaw was saying. She didn’t really want to die. She wanted to stay alive. But not as Tyler Bradshaw’s prisoner. Of course, sooner or later someone might find her. Rescue her. Please God it wouldn’t take too long. “Fine,” she finally said. “I promise.”