Progress imposes not only new possibilities for the future but new restrictions.
—Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings
A clicking sound and the metal is gone. Then a grunt. Joey turns, feels the man’s presence there, the man with the soft movements, even softer voice. Today his motions are even more subdued in the otherwise still air. The stale smell of the Cadi’s trunk gives way to fresh air.
In almost total blackness, Joey listens to the sound of leaves, imagining the rhythm of the land.
Raising his head, he strains through a tiny flood of light under his left eye.
From the duct tape’s corner, there is sunlight, just a glimmer of it, and Joey twists slightly to the left, just a millimeter, to get all of it he can. Enough to get a glimpse of a strangely rounded head, the close-cropped scalp.
Shoes scrape on blacktop, a dark, elusive shadow over him. A quick rustling of leaves, cool breeze against his cheek, the babble of a brook. All these things are out of sight, but he knows where they are.
Just as he knows where the man is. Coming headlong at him, he sees a large, wild shadow. It is vague, silent, ominous. Though Joey holds his breath in the open trunk, the odor of the man overwhelms him. The smell of old sweat and whiskey lingers, overtaking the good clean smells of nature.
Another smell too. He tracks the smell to the man, clothes damp and wet, combined with the animal smell of leather, Joey supposes, coming from the car’s seats.
Joey, terrified and dazed, can’t make out any features, only this man’s vague malevolence directed at him, which seems to rise and fall like a cascade of misdirection with each passing second. Unwittingly, Joey realizes the man’s hatred is directed not at his kind—not at boys in general, not that at all. Rather, it is that he is a particular boy, someone’s son. That is the reason he’s been taken.
In this breakthrough second, Joey Powers knows he is just a boy, but this demon sees him as so much more than that. To this man, he is deliverance and meaning, all rolled up in one. At the same time, finding his breathing in cadence with the man’s shallow respiration, Joey knows he is hated for everything this man has never had—love, kindness, innocence.
Joey is dimly aware that his chest is moving to the tempo of the man’s breathing. The sun feels warm on his face, and he turns to soak up what remnants of it he can before the detectable gloom of night forces him back into darkness.
An obscured figure casts darkness before the sun.
Through his meager light shaft, Joey can see the man is coming even nearer, just an inch away, looking closely into his eyes for a long time. He dares not move, watching the knife come up through his tiny portal, the man pressing its sharpness against his throat. Moving the blade down, it touches Joey’s clothes but doesn’t pierce the nylon fabric of his jacket. Lower now, on his chest, between his ribs, down to his stomach. He is sure the man can feel his small chest heaving in quick, short gasps.
He closes his eyes and is oddly aware of the cold pressure of the blade on his abdomen, pressing through blue jeans. It seems to last forever, fear and anticipation beyond anything Joey has ever known.
Joey tries to move away from it, to break from the paralysis the knife has spun over him. Suddenly, it is as if something hard is holding him, the feel of cool metal encircling his wrists, a clinking sound, then a snap.
As he moves his arms painfully, the unnerving clink of chains. Can only go so far before the metal circles restrict him. Handcuffs.
Maybe, maybe, the legs would move further. Stretch out one leg, just a little. He is careful not to move his abdomen against the knife’s pressure. Through the deafening beating of his chest, Joey is aware that the man’s breathing is gone. Where is he? Is he looking? No. He can barely make out the man’s head. He is staring out at the horizon, not this way.
Stretch, oh God, pressure there too on his ankles. Same coldness; that smell.
Hand shackles and leg shackles tight.
Unerringly, the blade hasn’t moved. The air seems to take on a life of its own, seems to throb, constricting in his lungs. Seconds later the blade’s coldness retreats and Joey feels the sharp tip behind him, slipping between his wrists, his ankles, cutting the electrical tape, releasing him from his bindings.
Anger seethes through every muscle in his body. To be released only to be imprisoned in something more restricting. Cold, heartless hatred directed at this indistinct figure. The man’s head is turning now; he is looking this way maybe. Can’t tell. Then Joey can feel the man’s eyes on him, raping him of his dignity with a stare.
It all seems to continue without end.
Joey does not know how long it has been, how many days.
By the time he is aware of the man being gone, pitch blackness surrounds him like a shroud, whiskey stench no longer sickens him, violins are playing, and he is exhausted, empty, and alone. In the darkness.
Fluttering her eyelids open, to the pain from bright lights overhead, Cat wondered how long she’d been here, even where she was. The smell of antiseptic lingered as she stared past the light to the square perforated ceiling tiles. A dull ache all over.
A beep, beep, beep she recognized as a monitor. Turning her head from side to side, she could see her right wrist was wrapped in tape, an IV administered via a Hep-Lock. From the looks of it, they had recently drawn blood.
Momentarily, she searched for fragments of memory, trying to put the pieces together. She could remember only a hint of time, standing in front of a gray Cape Cod house. More vividly, she recalled the Yukon, its interior splattered with blood. Tiny white and blue tennis shoes.
“I’ve got to get out of here.” She threw the sheets back, the IV stand lurching jerkily behind her swinging arm.
“Now, there will be none of that,” a heavyset nurse, half her age, said, trying to get her back into bed.
The tiles were cold on Cat’s feet, but she just wanted to get her clothes. “You don’t understand,” came her automatic response. “I’m a doctor.”
The nurse looked exasperated, apparently unimpressed. “I don’t care who you are, now get your ass back in the bed. You’re being released soon anyway.” Her voice had a smoker’s throatiness to it.
“Soon’s not good enough.”
“Look, missy, I don’t give a damn what you think. I’m calling a doctor, getting you a sedative.” She hacked a cough, then intercommed the nurse’s station to have Dr. Barker paged.
“Dr. Barker, he admitted me?”
The nurse nodded.
“You’ve got to get him in here, he’ll understand. He knows what I do for a living. He’ll see what’s going on.” Cat waited for some of this to register on the expressionless face, but nothing did. Not even a shrug of her shoulders; it was as if she were a robot going about her business.
She held Cat’s arm still, pulled out the IV, covering the spot with clear tape and a white gauze wad. Cat noticed for the first time that her right arm and shoulder were black-and-blue.
“Now you get up on this bed till the doctor gets here.” Dark pupils flashed at her. Cat did as she was told.
McGregor entered the room, wearing a sports coat that looked as beat as he did. When he saw her eyes open, he smiled widely. “Hey there. We missed you.”
“How long have I been out?” Cat’s words conveyed urgency, directness. She managed to prop her body up. Instinctively, McGregor reached behind, drawing two flat pillows to the arch of her back. With the movement, she felt soreness permeate each fiber…her right arm and shoulder hurt the most.
“What the hell did I do?” She gave McGregor a quizzical look.
He chuckled in spite of himself. “You fainted, went down pretty hard, knocked your head.”
She said nothing, rubbing her shoulder. “How long?”
“They’ve had you here overnight, just for observation. Barker said you look like hell, haven’t been taking care of yourself.”
“Anything broke?”
“Nope, you didn’t bust nothin’ up, just bruised a few spots. You got some fluid in your lungs. They think it might be a bronchial virus or something.”
“Then why won’t they let me out of here?”
“You needed the rest, Cat. You’ve been working on this case night and day for weeks. You haven’t been sleeping at night. You’re a wreck. You need rest.”
She considered his statement, the lines around his eyes, mouth, more prominent than before, etched with worry for her. “How can you ask me to rest at a time like this?”
“I can’t ask it, or expect it. I’m just telling you what the doctors say.”
“Screw the doctors.”
Just then Dr. Barker walked into the room. By all appearances, he was a man given to excess, just as Cat remembered. A forty-five inch waist, large hands, six foot three, he was the kind of man who made an entrance. One couldn’t mistake, or ignore, his huge girth or charming smile. His eyes danced over her. “Well, Catherine. Finally awake are we?” He smiled halfheartedly at McGregor. “Let’s have a listen, shall we?”
Dr. Barker stepped around McGregor, leaning Cat forward with one massive hand so he could place the stethoscope to her mid-back. It felt cold on her skin; she felt gooseflesh rise across her neck. He commanded her to exhale and inhale normally a few times as he moved the device, listening. Then he leaned her back on the pillows, doing the same in front just below her collarbone.
Cat felt embarrassed having McGregor there; she didn’t want him to see her like this.
“Now, I understand there’s been some talk of you walking out of here. Impetuous, aren’t we?”
He let his words stand in the air for a moment, a broad smirk painted on his lips.
Cat would have none of it. She was dead serious. “Doctor to doctor, okay? I’m taking up a bed. Prescribe me some antibiotics. Amoxicillin or a Z-Pak will kick this. You don’t need me to be here, and I don’t want to be here. I’ve got things to take care of.”
McGregor offered no support, staring out a window that looked onto the street below.
Cat gave him an angry sideways glance.
Dr. Barker cleared his throat. “You ever heard the saying…”
She wouldn’t let him finish the line. “I know, a doctor makes the worst patient.” Each voice mocked the other, words mirroring so well it made McGregor take his eyes off the road.
“Come on, I’ll slow down if I’m not feeling good.”
Dr. Barker looked unconvinced.
“Okay, here’s the deal. McGregor here’s with me most of the time, like a regular watchdog.” Cat studied him to see if he was paying attention. True to form, McGregor looked like an obedient puppy. “He’ll take care of me. I place my care in his hands. If I’m feeling lousy, he can bring me right back here, I won’t protest.” She looked at Dr. Barker matter-of-factly.
He knew she was playing a game, but he couldn’t make her stay. This was the next best thing. Dr. Barker turned to McGregor. “You’ll kick her ass if she doesn’t take care of herself?”
McGregor’s face brightened. “It would be a pleasure to kick her ass.” He flashed a mischievous grin.
“Good, all right then. We have a deal.” Dr. Barker placed a corpulent palm in the detective’s. They shook.
Cat looked up to the heavens. “Thank God for small miracles.”
“I’ll have you released within the hour. Your clothes are in the closet,” Dr. Barker said, walking out to the hallway. Before he said it, Cat was out of bed, already gathering her things.