"Don't be so sure," said Dex. "If you're right, they'll kill her if they find out you're talking to Meredith."
The traffic light changed. Gus pulled onto the expressway ramp. "If I'm right, she's as good as dead if I don't talk to Meredith."
Chapter Fifty-Seven.
The old farmhouse wasquiet by day, still as death at night. Occasionally a floorboard would creak in the hall outside the bedroom door. Water could sometimes be heard rushing through old pipes in the wall. The furnace would kick on and rattle against the cold. For Beth Wheatley, those were the familiar sounds of the night.
That, and the VCR at midnight.
She lay motionless beneath the blankets. The double bed was in the corner. Her back was to the door, her face to the wall in a windowless room. The television screen provided the only light. It would last just twenty minutes. As it had every night. At the same time. For the past two weeks. This had become a silent nightly ritual--and tonight was no exception.
The lock clicked and the door opened. The room brightened just a bit with light from the hallway. Beth didn't stir. The door closed and the room returned to darkness. Heavy boots pounded the wood floor, then halted. She felt watched, as though someone were standing over her. Her heart raced, but she didn't dare move. After a long minute, she could sense her visitor back slowly away from the bed and rest in the chair facing the television.
As if on cue, it started.
For nearly twenty minutes Beth listened in the darkness, lying on her side, her back to the television and her nightly visitor. After fourteen nights she knew the tape by heart. Not the video. Just the audio. She had forced herself never to steal a glance at the screen. She had tried not to listen either, but that was impossible. It was some kind of taped interview. A man and a very frightened woman. The man talked like a psychiatrist, maintaining an even and professional tone as the woman's story unfolded like a nightmare, a tale of torture and a phallic knife that ended each night with the same horrible crescendo.
"What happened next?"
"He yanked the knife from my mouth. Very fast. Cut like a razor"
"What then?"
"He asked me, 'Do you like the knife?"
"Did you answer?"
"No. So he shouted again: 'Do you like the knife!" "Did you answer this time?"
"I just shook my head. Then he shouted again. Say it loud! Say you don't like the knife! So 1 did. I shouted back. Over and over he made me shout it--I don't like the knife! "
"Then what?"
"He whispered into my ear"
"What did he say?"
"'Next time, be glad it's not the knife."
Beth cringed beneath the blanket. Experience had taught her that the end of the tape only triggered the worst part. The self-indulgent groaning. The climax and release. Tonight, as on past nights, those sounds filled the room, deep and guttural. She didn't have to peer out from beneath the . Sheets to know what was going on. The unmistakable noises sent her imagination racing as to the perverse mind in the chair beside her. One thing, however, her ears were sure of. The intruder was a man.
The television blackened. The chair squeaked. His boots shuffled across the floor. The door opened and closed behind him. The lock clicked from the outside.
Again, she was alone in total darkness.
Andie hardly slept that night. She lay awake troubled by the ease with which Blechman had detected things as personal as her adoption and broken engagement. Was it possible he did have some kind of gift? She had heard of people like that, though it seemed just as likely that he had been toying with her, somehow knowing all along she was an undercover agent. Then again, virtually all of his followers were recovering from failed relationships and family trouble of some kind. An experienced palm reader might have done as well as he had.
At five A. M. there was a knock on the door. Felicia answered it without a word, as though she had been expecting it. A man entered. Andie's eyes slowly focused. It wasn't Blechman. It was Tom, the other lieutenant who had spoken with Felicia at Tuesday night's recruitment meeting--the man whose voice imprint had been identical to hers.
"Let's go, Willow." It took Andie a moment to realize he was talking to her. Andie a. K. A. Kira was now Willow.
"Where are we going?"
"Put your clothes on, and let's go."
She was wearing only a nightshirt and skimpy running shorts. Tom caught an eyeful on her way to the bathroom. It was a lecherous glare, something to be expected from one of those fifty-year-old loners who got kissed once a decade and cruised in a van with a bumper sticker that read, IF IT'S A' ROCKIN' DON'T COME KNOCKIN'.
You could use a little work on losing earthly desires, bucko.
They were out the door in five minutes. Felicia stayed behind.
Sunrise was more than an hour away. The ground was damp from patchy fog. Their boots made a swooshing sound as they walked through the coarse, ankle-high grass. Tom stopped and lit up a cigarette as they reached a safe distance from the house.
"They allow smoking here?" asked Andie.