G retchen,” Archie said. “This is Susan Ward. Susan, Gretchen Lowell.”
It suddenly seemed, to Susan, that there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. She stood stupidly for a moment, wondering if she was supposed to offer to shake Gretchen’s hand, then remembered the manacles and thought better of it. Just be calm, Susan told herself for the tenth time in thirty seconds. She pulled a chair out so she could sit down across from Gretchen. The chair scraped against the floor, making Susan feel clumsy and awkward. Her heart was racing. She avoided eye contact with Gretchen as she sat down, conscious of her silly thrashed jeans, wishing that she had asked for a minute back in the hall to brush her hair. Archie sat down next to Susan. Susan forced herself to look across the table. Gretchen smiled at her. She was even more lovely up close.
“Well, aren’t you cute,” Gretchen said sweetly. “Like a little cartoon character.” Susan had never been more self-conscious of her stupid pink hair. Of her childish clothes. Of her flat chest. “I’ve enjoyed your stories,” Gretchen continued, with just enough lilt in her voice that Susan couldn’t tell for sure if she was being genuine or sarcastic.
Susan plunked her digital recorder on the table and willed her heart to slow. “Do you mind if I record this?” she asked, trying to seem professional. The room smelled antiseptic, like industrial-power cleanser. Toxic.
Gretchen tilted her head toward the window, where Susan knew the others were watching. “It’s all being recorded,” she said.
Susan met Gretchen’s stare. “Humor me.”
Gretchen raised her eyebrows gamely.
Susan pressed RECORD. She could sense Gretchen absorbing her. She felt like a mistress suddenly confronted with her lover’s glamorous wife. It was a role to which Susan was well suited, an irony that did not escape her. She glanced at Archie for some indication of what to do next, how to behave. He sat leaning back in his chair, hands threaded on his lap, not taking his eyes off Gretchen. There was a level of comfort between them. As if they had known each other their whole lives. Debbie was right: It was creepy.
“She likes you,” Gretchen said teasingly to Archie.
Archie pulled a brass pillbox out of his pocket and set it on the table in front of him. “She’s a reporter,” he said, rotating the small box in a clockwise motion on the tabletop. “She’s friendly with her subjects so they tell her things. It’s her job.”
“Do you tell her things?”
“Yes,” he said, looking at the box.
“But not everything.”
He glanced up at Gretchen meaningfully. “Of course not.”
Gretchen seemed satisfied by this, and she settled her attention on Susan. “What are your questions?”
Susan was startled. “My questions?”
Gretchen gestured to the digital recorder. She wore the manacles like they were bracelets, lovely and expensive baubles to be admired and envied. “That’s why you’ve come here, right? With your little gadget and furrowed brow? To interview me? You can’t write a story about Archie Sheridan without talking to me. I made him who he is today. Without me, he wouldn’t have had a career.”
“I like to think I would have found some other megalomaniacal homicidal psychopath,” Archie said with a sigh.
Gretchen ignored him. “Go ahead,” she said to Susan. “Ask me anything.”
Susan’s mind went blank. She had gone over this in her head dozens of times, what she would ask Gretchen Lowell if she had a chance. But she had never believed that she would have the opportunity. Get a grip, she chided herself. Come up with a question. Anything. Ask the first thing that comes into your head. “Why did you kidnap Archie Sheridan?” she said.
Gretchen’s skin glowed. Susan wondered if they allowed exfoliants in prisons. Maybe she was hoarding strawberries from the cafeteria and making her own masks. Gretchen leaned forward over the small table. “I wanted to kill him,” she said with glee. “I wanted to torture him in the most interesting, painful manner imaginable until he begged me to slit his throat.”
Susan had to swallow before she could speak. “Did he?”
Gretchen looked adoringly at Archie. “Do you want to take that one, darling?”
“I did,” Archie said without missing a beat. He placed the pillbox in his open palm on the table and looked at it.
“But you didn’t kill him,” Susan said to Gretchen.
Gretchen shrugged and widened her eyes. “Change of plans.”
“Why him?”
“I was bored. And he seemed to take such a genuine interest in my work. I thought it would be nice for him to get to see it up close. Now can I ask you a question?”
Susan shifted in her seat, struggling for an adequate response. Gretchen didn’t wait for one. The question was directed at Susan, but Gretchen’s attention was fixed on Archie. Archie was looking at the pillbox.