It seemed so long ago that she had dropped Morgan off at the youth center, driven to meet Carla for a Sunday lunch, and parked her car in the garage. It had all happened so suddenly. A few quick footsteps behind her, a strong arm around her neck, a rag to her face that smelled of chemicals. Some time later--she couldn't say how long--she'd awakened in this very room.
The lock clicked, and the door suddenly opened. Beth backed against the far wall. The man in the doorway was just a silhouette in the shadows.
"Who's there?" she asked in the darkness.
"It's Tom."
She knew a Tom from the early meetings, the ones she had attended voluntarily, before she realized it was a cult. Back then he had seemed like a nice man. She was less frightened but still cautious. "What do you want?"
He raised the lights from the outside, then closed the door. "Steve wants the tape."
So it was him. She had never been face to face with her nightly visitor, but she had suspected it was Blechman.
"You watched it," he said with surprise. He was holding the tape, which she had neglected to rewind.
"I--" she said nervously. "I thought he wanted me to." "He did. He's always wanted you to know."
"Know what? That I looked just like that poor woman?" "That you were destined to join his inner circle."
"I don't want to join anything. That's why I stopped coming to the monthly meetings."
"You stopped coming because your husband made you stop."
"My husband didn't know anything about this."
"He is exactly the kind of domineering spouse that Steve warned us about. He controls you even when you don't realize you're being controlled."
"And I suppose this is a better way to live? Boxed up like an animal?"
"You have the power to free yourself, Flora."
"My name is not Flora. And I'm tired of hearing how Flora has the power to free herself. The power to stop innocent women from being killed. What power? All I want is to go home. Is anyone ever going to let me go home?"
He glared at her and said, "I've never liked you, Beth."
She blinked hard, shocked at the way he had spat out her real name. "What?"
"I knew you would never do what it takes to join the inner circle."
The madder he got, the more inclined he seemed to talk. It was risky, but she dug deep for courage and tweaked him good. "As if a dope like you would know what it takes to join the inner circle."
"I am the inner circle."
"Oh? And what did you do to get there? Promise to wash Steve's car for life?"
His face reddened. For a second she thought he would come after her, but he just clenched his teeth and said, "I killed for him. That's what it takes to make the inner circle."
She withdrew timidly. She'd seen the pictures of those murdered women.
He said, "Steve and I did, together. We cut the cord between my old and new family. I killed my old self."
"So, you didn't really kill anyone," she said, hoping that the photos had been phonies. "It's all symbolic?"
"The process is symbolic. But the murders are real." "You . . . you actually killed someone?"
"And the real beauty is that the cops will never figure it out. I have no apparent motive. Never even met the victim. Chance resemblance is the only connection. He was fifty-one, so was I. He was divorced and lived alone, same with me. He represents my old self. The part that must die before you can reach a higher level of vibration."
"You just picked out some poor guy and killed him?"
"Steve picks.. He picked both victims."
"Both?"
"Of course. Steve would never ask his most devoted followers to do something he hadn't already done himself. He kills the first one and shows you the way. And you duplicate it."
"Like an echo," said Beth, recalling the allusions to Blechman's manuscript in the speeches she'd attended. "Now you're catching on."
She was almost too frightened to speak. "Is that why he killed those women, the ones in the photographs he showed me? He was showing me the way?"
"Yeah. Only he's tired of trying to lead you by example. He gave you three chances. Each time he told you the power to stop the killing was in your hands. All you had to do was follow his example. Kill your old self. And the echoes would stop."
"Why in the world would he think I was capable of murder?"
"You did steal for him."
She was suddenly queasy. The shoplifting from Nordstrom's. "Steve made it sound as innocent as those antisocial things you do for research in a college psychology class, like singing on a bus just to see the reaction of strangers."
"It was your first step toward breaking with your old self."
"And it obviously failed."
"Yes. Your failure is now obvious to everyone. Including Steve." He took the videotape and started for the door. "Wait. What are you going to do with me?"
His eyes narrowed as he clutched the videotape of that tortured woman who looked eerily like Beth. "That's entirely up to Steve," he said, then shut the door and locked it.
The light switched off from the outside, and she was again alone in the darkness.