The next morning the knock came, as expected, at precisely seven o’clock.
Blair opened the door. The woman was wearing a hijab. With her face covered, he couldn’t tell if he’d seen her before. He could only go by her size and body language. Neither rang any bells. She handed him a tray of food. He accepted it in silence. The woman turned and he closed the door behind her.
There was a bridge table in the center of the room. He placed the tray on it and took a seat in one of two plastic chairs.
The light in the room came from a lone brass fixture. Unattractive, it dangled like a poor man’s chandelier. Blair found its brightness intrusive.
This morning his breakfast was something they’d never served him before. It could have been fish or eggs. It was impossible to tell with the brown sauce that was slathered on top of it.
Blair tentatively dug his plastic fork into the concoction. Ignoring the unpleasant odor, he took a small bite, then practically gagged. He spit out the balance. Then he hurried into the bathroom to rinse his mouth.
Settled in his office, he began to compose e-mail after e-mail. To his secretary, his group of independent sales representatives, Andrew Sciascia, his sister, to Jeremy Samson. No matter how he tried to improvise, to insert a call for help, words failed him. It was truly disheartening to not be able to reveal what was on his mind.
Lunch was a small portion of fresh fruit. It was so much tastier than his breakfast, he savored each morsel as if it would be his last. Then he went back to work. He flailed away on the computer keyboard, but achieved nothing worthwhile.
Dinner resembled chicken but had a foreign texture. White meat on a bone. Blair didn’t know what it was and didn’t care. His taste buds accepted it and that was good enough for him.
In his bedroom that night, he started on the wall again, taking his time.
When the voice came to him, he paused. Until now he’d been able to ignore it. But it forced its way into his subconscious and reminded him of his options: his daughter or the lives of no less than twenty-five thousand strangers.
He shook his head, desperately trying to clear it.