Fidelity (13 page)

She sat up, turned toward the nightstand to reach for the remote control, and saw him. She gasped, and Hobart saw her change the direction of her movement to reach lower than the remote control.

“If you reach for a gun, you’re dead,” he said.

Her hand stopped moving and her body stiffened with alarm. “I-no.” Her voice was scratchy from sleep. She was terrified, looking up at him with disbelief. After a couple of seconds, she added, “It’s the phone.”

Hobart stepped into the room and stood beside the bed. He could see that what she had been reaching for wasn’t a drawer. It was just a shelf, and it did have a telephone on it. He was relieved because he hadn’t wanted to kill her. “I see,” he said. “That’s not a good idea, either.”

“What … what do you want? My purse is on the dresser.”

“I’m here to talk. If you cooperate, I’ll leave and you’ll be alive. If you don’t, I can kill you in a second. Do you understand?” He was ready for her to begin screaming. He had to remember not to kill her when he silenced her.

“I understand,” she said calmly. “I want to be alive.”

His right hand shot out and slapped her across the face. Her head bounced to the side and hit the headboard, and a line of bright blood began to run from the corner of her lip. He had needed to hit her. She had begun to manipulate him by being agreeable, and it had made her feel less frightened. He needed her fear. It had to be complete, a fear of his unpredictability and craziness. He said, “You’re living from second to second. Don’t plan, don’t think you know what I want until I say it.” Her cheek was already reddened where he had hit her, and she held her hand over it as she stared at him with wide, teary eyes. Hobart decided that was sufficient for now.

“I want to know what got your husband killed.”

“I don’t know.”

Hobart raised his gun with his left hand and aimed it at her head. “Your husband had something, some piece of information that a powerful man thought he shouldn’t have. The man wanted it. Your husband may have handed over a copy and thought that ended things. If he did, I’m positive that he didn’t give up the only copy.”

“I never heard anything like that. He never said anything.”

“And you didn’t look for it? Your husband gets shot, and you don’t even look for what got him killed?”

“No.”

“Take off your clothes.”

“Oh, no. Please.” She looked sick, horrified.

He gave her a quick backhand, then aimed the gun at her again. This time he cocked the hammer with his thumb.

She swung her legs off the bed, stood and undressed quickly, like a woman in a hurry to get into the shower. Then she stood perfectly still, not looking at him, but at the floor.

Hobart stayed on the other side of the bed, waiting for a sign that her feelings of humiliation and vulnerability and fear had become unbearable. As he watched, her knees began to lose their stiffness. One of them began to tremble. She began to cry, and her hands moved to cover herself.

He said quietly, “Can’t you see the difference between us? If you could keep the information away from me, what would you even do with it? Nothing. The man who wants the information your husband had is powerful. You’re not strong enough to talk to him and make him leave you alive. I can use it. I can make the man who had your husband killed pay a price. You can’t do anything.”

“I don’t have anything.”

“Don’t say that. I can do anything I want to you-make you hurt, destroy your face, kill you-whatever occurs to me. If you don’t have anything, you have nothing to trade that will make me leave you alone.”

She mumbled something, too low to understand.

“What?”

“My husband was cheating on me.”

Hobart was surprised that he understood. “You mean he wouldn’t tell you if he had something going because you were breaking up?”

“I mean he was fooling me, keeping things from me-big things, lots of them-and what you want might have been one of them. I only found out about the cheating today. No, that was yesterday, now. I don’t know if we were breaking up or not. All I know is he kept secrets.”

Hobart stared at her. He had thought that by this point she would have given him the paper that would make him rich. He had certainly done enough to scare her, to make her feel frightened and helpless. Now he felt lost, off balance. He needed to go away and think before he did anything irreversible. Above all, he had to regain control. “What the fuck are you thinking? Do you think I care about this? I can tell you that having me come for a visit is about the worst thing that can happen to a woman like you.” He took a step toward the end of the bed.

She half-crouched, shocked and afraid. “Please,” she said. “Don’t. Don’t do this.”

“If you’d given me what I came for, I’d be gone now.”

“It didn’t occur to me that there was any such thing until you asked for it. I haven’t had time to think.”

“I’ll give you lots of time to think about what it is and where it might be. Turn around, very slowly and carefully. You’re going to make very slow, deliberate moves. You’re going to describe to me what you’re doing. If you make a mistake, or move too quickly, I’m going to have to assume you’re reaching for a gun. I know your husband had lots of them around. If I think for even a second that you’re doing that, I’ll shoot you dead. Do you hear?”

“Yes.”

“Then I want you to get dressed, right now.”

She was wary. “What do you want me to wear?”

He could hear in her voice a kind of surprise, mixed with the terror he had been trying to instill in her.

She desperately wanted to be dressed, hated the vulnerability and humiliation of being naked in front of a stranger, and hoped that getting dressed meant the danger of rape was passing. But she also had wildly contradictory theories-that this was the worst sign possible, because it meant he was going to kill her, or that he merely had some fantasy about taking a partially dressed woman, or that he was a sadist who got his victims to hope, and took pleasure in taking away the hope.

“A pair of jeans, a pullover shirt of some kind, a pair of sandals.”

She bent to the floor and picked up the underwear and bra she had just taken off, and put them on. “I’m going to the closet for the jeans.” She stepped to the closet, took a pair of jeans from a hanger, set the hanger on the bed, and stepped into the jeans. “I’m going to the dresser for a top.”

Hobart knew she must be thinking about the places where the guns were kept, trying to judge the angles to tell whether she could pick up a gun, turn, and fire before he could pull a trigger. She had to be thinking about that. He stepped to the side quickly to change his view and test her, and she simply stopped. She stood perfectly still with both hands held out in front of her with the fingers spread so he could see she wasn’t holding anything. She remained there, her eyes staring at the dresser in front of her.

“All right,” he said. “Keep going.”

She reached into the drawer and took out a thin red pullover top with long sleeves. She slipped it on over her head. “I’m going back to the closet for the sandals.” She walked to the closet, stepped into a pair of sandals, and waited.

“Okay,” he said. “Come with me.”

“With you? You’re taking me away?” She looked shocked.

“I could kill you right now, or I can give you time to remember something that will help me find what I want. For the moment, that sounds better than killing you.”

She was terrified. He could tell that until now she had been keeping herself from collapsing by reminding herself that she was in her house. No matter what he did, at some point it would be over, and he would leave. She would still be here, alive in this house. “You’re kidnapping me?”

He glared at her, and she stepped around the bed toward him meekly, her shoulders hunched a little to ward off the blow that she expected to feel when she passed near him. He stepped aside and she walked out of the room to the upstairs hallway.

Hobart was still in the room. He pulled up the blinds to look out the window, and the sight confirmed his feeling that too much time had passed. Light was beginning to illuminate the sky in the east, and every second the outlines of objects outside were becoming almost imperceptibly clearer and sharper. If he waited any longer, he would find himself trying to abduct a woman at the start of the morning rush, stuck in traffic with commuters all around him.

He stepped quickly to the staircase and took her arm. “Hurry.”

The silence was broken by a sound outside the house. It was a car engine, and Hobart could tell it was slowing down for a turn. Then he saw headlights sweep across the front windows near the bottom of the stairs, brighten, and then go out.

Hobart dragged her back up the stairs, then along the hall to the bedroom at the front of the house. It was a guest bedroom, furnished with a bed, dresser, nightstand and lamp, a comfortable chair. Hobart held her wrist as he went to the front window. He peered between the blinds to look down at the front steps, then jerked her arm, grasped the back of her neck, and forced her to look. “Who is that?”

“It’s just one of the guys from the agency.”

“What’s his name?”

“Dewey Burns.”

“What’s he doing here at this hour?”

“I don’t know. I know he gets up early every day, and he knows I do, too.”

Hobart said, “All right.” He took out a big lockblade knife, opened it, and cut the ropes from the blinds. He pushed her down on the bed, dragged her wrists behind her and tied them, then tied the wrists to her ankles. It felt terribly tight, but she didn’t dare speak. He slashed two strips of cloth from a pillowcase, stuffed one in her mouth and tied the other behind her head for a gag to keep it there. He put his face right behind her ear and said, “If he comes after me, I’ll kill him. If he comes in before I’m gone, I’ll kill you both.”

She lay still on the bed, and heard his footsteps receding, then the door to the hallway closing.

The man was gone. Emily lay on the bed with the cords from the blinds cutting into her wrists and ankles. She bent her knees to bring her ankles closer to relieve the pressure, but the effort quickly tired her legs.

She heard the doorbell again, so loud in the empty house. She tried wriggling her wrists out of the cord, but the man had tied them too tightly. She fought against the cord, but it seemed to tighten the knots. She knew that the next part was not going to feel good, but she began to rock. She rocked until she was sitting on one haunch with her knees bent and her feet beside her.

In this awkward position, the weight of her body kept her knees bent as far as they could be, and let some of the rope go slack. She could reach the knot around her ankles with her fingertips.

The doorbell chimed a third time, and she tried to shout, but the gag was tight, and the scream she had intended was muted to a small squeal through her nose. She worked harder on the knot.

And then she had it. Her legs straightened, the cord lashing out from around the ankles quickly as she pulled.

Emily swung her legs off the bed, ran to the door, then sidestepped quickly down the stairs to the front door. She kicked it to let Dewey know she was in here. She turned away from the door and tried to turn the knob. She was barely able to reach it with her hands tied behind her. She strained to turn it and, after a couple of tries, succeeded.

Dewey pushed the door inward.

“Emily!” He pulled the gag down so it was like a scarf around her neck, and she leaned to spit the cloth out on the floor. He was behind her, untying her wrists. “What happened? Who did this?”

“A man. I didn’t know him. I woke up and he was there in my bedroom. He had a gun, and a ski mask. He was trying to kidnap me, but you got here.” As she spoke, she felt as though she were conjuring the man, and her words might bring him back. She pushed herself away from Dewey and stepped cautiously to the entrance to the living room, looking for a place where the man might still be hiding.

Dewey had his cell phone out, and he was dialing. “My name is Dewey Burns. I’m going to put Mrs. Emily Kramer on. She’s been assaulted by a man with a gun and ski mask at 9553 Sunnyland Avenue in Van Nuys. The man just left. I’ll let her describe him.” He put the phone in Emily’s hand, pulled a gun out of a holster under his coat, and slipped past her to the big sliding door in the living room. He slid it open and moved outside, the gun held ready in his hand.

Emily said, “Hello?”

“Yes, ma’am.” The woman’s voice was distant, as though she were talking into a speakerphone. “Officers are on their way, but right now you need to give me a description.”

“He was about six feet tall, maybe one eighty or so. He was muscular, but not really big. He wore a ski mask, but I could see he was white, with blue eyes.”

“Hair color?”

“I couldn’t see it.”

“What else was he wearing?”

“A jacket that was blue, like a windbreaker, nylon. It made a sound like a whisper when he moved fast. Black jeans. Not blue, black. And a dark blue shirt.”

“Did he wear glasses?”

“No.”

“Did you notice his shoes?”

“They were black leather, with rubber soles.”

“Was there anything else that was distinctive about him?”

“He had a gun. It was big, an automatic. Kind of a dull gray color.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“He hit me a couple of times with his hand, but I think I’m okay.”

“Was there a sexual assault?”

“Not exactly.” Emily looked for Dewey Burns, feeling embarrassed to talk in front of him, then realizing she was being ridiculous. “He made me take my clothes off, but he didn’t do anything to me. I think he was just trying to make me scared and keep me from making trouble. He didn’t-you know-touch me that way.”

She saw Dewey Burns slip in through the sliding door again. Something began to work in her mind; an idea began to form. Dewey Burns met her gaze, shrugged, and shook his head to tell her that the man was gone.

The woman said, “Can you give me your full name, please?”

“Emily Jean Kramer, with a K.”

“That’s K-R-A-M-E-R.”

“Yes.”