"Lots of people." This answer came without hesitation.
He was across the room in a flash. Flash was the word. At one moment he was by the sink, at the next beside her and whacking her face hard enough to make white spots explode in front of her eyes. These shot around the room, drawing bright cometary tails after them. Her head snapped to the side. Her hair flew against her cheek, and she felt blood begin to flow into her mouth as her lower lip burst. The inner lining had been cut by her teeth, and deep. Almost all the way through, it felt like. Outside, the rain rushed down. I'm going to die while it's raining, Em thought. But she didn't believe it. Maybe no one did, when the deal actually came down.
"Who knows?" He was leaning over, bellowing into her face.
"Lots of people," she reiterated, and the words came out losh of people because her lower lip was swelling. And she felt blood spilling down her chin in a small stream. Still, her mind wasn't swelling, in spite of the pain and fear. It knew her one chance at life was making this man believe he'd be caught if he killed her. Of course he would also be caught if he let her go, but she would deal with that later. One nightmare at a time.
"Losh of people!" she said again, defiantly.
He flashed back to the sink and when he returned, he had a knife in his hand. A little one. Very likely the one the dead girl had taken from her sock. He put the tip on Em's lower eyelid and pulled it down. That was when her bladder let go, all at once, in a rush.
An expression of somehow prissy disgust momentarily tightened Pickering's face, yet he also seemed delighted. Some part of Em's mind wondered how any person could hold two such conflicting emotions in his mind at the same time. He took a half step back, but the point of the knife didn't waver. It still dimpled into her skin, simultaneously pulling down her lower eyelid and pushing her eyeball up gently in its socket.
"Nice," he said. "Another mess to clean up. Not unexpected, though. No. And like the man said, there's more room out than there is in. That's what the man said." He actually laughed, one quick yip, and then he leaned forward, his vivid blue eyes staring into her hazel ones. "Tell me one person who knows you're here. Don't hesitate. Do not hesitate. If you hesitate I'll know you're making something up and I'll lift your eye right out of its socket and flip it into the sink. I can do it. So tell me. Now."
"Deke Hollis," she said. It was tattling, bad tattling, but it was also nothing but reflex. She didn't want to lose her eye.
"Who else?"
No name occurred to her-her mind was a roaring blank-and she believed him when he said hesitating would cost her her left eye. "No one, okay?" she cried. And surely Deke would be enough. Surely one person would be enough, unless he was so crazy that-
He drew the knife away, and although her peripheral vision couldn't quite pick it up, she felt a tiny seed pearl of blood blooming there. She didn't care. She was just glad to still have peripheral vision.
"Okay," Pickering said. "Okay, okay, good, okay." He walked back to the sink and tossed the little knife into it. She started to be relieved. Then he opened one of the drawers beside the sink and brought out a bigger one: a long, pointed butcher knife.
"Okay." He came back to her. There was no blood on him that she could see, not even a spot. How was that possible? How long had she been out?
"Okay, okay." He ran the hand not holding the knife through the short, stupidly expensive tailoring of his hair. It sprang right back into place. "Who's Deke Hollis?"
"The drawbridge keeper," she said. Her voice was unsteady, wavering. "We talked about you. That's why I stopped to look in." She had a burst of inspiration. "He saw the girl! Your niece, he called her!"
"Yeah, yeah, the girls always go back by boat, that's all he knows. That's all he knows in the world. Are people ever nosy! Where's your car? Answer me now or you get the new special, a breast amputation. Quick but not painless."
"The Grass Shack!" It was all she could think of to say.
"What's that?"
"The little conch house at the end of the key. It's my dad's." She had another burst of inspiration. "He knows I'm here!"
"Yeah, yeah." This didn't seem to interest Pickering. "Yeah, okay. Right, big-time. Are you saying you live here?"
"Yes..."