Yes, it does, Ryan, she said. It matters a lot.
Ryan locked gazes with her for what seemed like a long time.
Then he said, I guess I do. Want you to quit, I mean. I know youve found it exciting. Its been a great adventure for you. But its time for us both to settle down. Its time for us to get on with our real lives.
Riley suddenly felt as though this had to be a bad dream, but she couldnt wake up.
Our real lives! she thought.
What did that mean?
And what did it say about her that she didnt know what it meant?
She only knew one thing for certain
He doesnt want me to go to Quantico.
Then Ryan said, Look, you can work at all kinds of jobs right here in DC. And youve got lots of time to think about what you want to do in the long run. Meanwhile, it doesnt matter if you make a lot of money. Were not rich on what Im making at the firm, but were getting by, and Ill eventually be doing really well.
Ryan started eating again, looking oddly relieved, as if theyd just settled everything.
But had they settled anything at all? Riley had spent all summer dreaming about the FBI Academy. She couldnt imagine giving it up right here and now.
No, she thought. I just cant do that.
Now she felt anger swelling up inside her.
In a tense voice she said, Im sorry you feel that way. Im not changing my mind. Im going to Quantico tomorrow.
Ryan stared at her like he couldnt believe his ears.
Riley got up from the table and said, Enjoy the rest of your meal. Theres some cheesecake in the refrigerator. Im tired. Im going to take a shower and go to bed.
Before Ryan could reply, Riley hurried into the bathroom. She cried for a few minutes, then took a long, hot shower. When she put on her slippers and bathrobe and came back out of the bathroom, she saw Ryan sitting in the kitchen. Hed cleared the table and was working at his computer. He didnt look up.
Riley went into the bedroom and climbed into bed and started crying again.
As she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, she wondered
Why am so angry?
Is Ryan wrong?
Is any of this his fault?
Her thoughts were such a jumble, she couldnt think things through. And a terrible memory started to creep up on herof waking up in this bed with a sharp pain, then seeing that she was soaked in blood
My miscarriage.
She found herself wonderingwas that one of the reasons Ryan didnt want her to go into the FBI? Shed been badly stressed by the Clown Killer case when it had happened. But the doctor in the hospital had assured her that stress had nothing to do with her miscarriage.
Instead, shed said that it had been caused by chromosomal abnormalities.
Now that Riley thought about it again, that word disturbed her
Abnormalities.
She wonderedwas she somehow abnormal, deep down inside where it really mattered?
Was she incapable of having a lasting relationship, let alone a family?
As she drifted off to sleep, she felt as though she knew only one thing for sure
Im going to Quantico tomorrow.
She was asleep before she could think about what might happen after that.
CHAPTER TWO
The man was pleased to hear the womans soft moan. He knew she must be regaining consciousness. Yes, he could see that her eyes had opened a little.
She was lying on her side on a rough-hewn wooden table in the small room that had a dirt floor, cinderblock walls, and low timbered ceiling. She was bound up tightly in a curled up position, taped fast with duct tape. Her legs were sharply bent and tightly bound to her chest, and her hands were wrapped around her shins. Her head lay sideways on top of her knees.
She reminded him of pictures hed seen of human fetusesand also of embryos he sometimes found when he cracked a fresh egg from one of the chickens he kept. She looked so mild and innocent, it was somehow a rather touching sight.
Mostly, of course, she reminded him of the other womanAlice had been her name, he believed. Hed once thought that Alice would be the only one hed treat this way, but then hed enjoyed it and there were so few pleasures in his life how could he stop?
It hurts, the woman murmured, as if out of a dream. Why does it hurt?
He knew that it was because she lay in a thick tangled bed of barbed wire. Blood was already trickling onto the table top, and it was going add to the stains in the unfinished wood. Not that it mattered. The table was older than he was, and he was the only person who ever saw it anyway.
He was hurting and bleeding some as well. Hed cut himself while getting her into the truck with the barbed wire. It was harder to do than hed expected because shed fought back more forcefully than the other one.
She had writhed and twisted while the homemade chloroform was starting to kick in. But her struggles had weakened and hed finally subdued her completely.
Even so, he wasnt much bothered to be hurt by the sharp barbs. He knew from hard experience that such cuts healed up pretty quickly, even if they did leave ghastly scars.
He stooped down and looked closely into her face.
Her eyes were opened almost impossibly wide now. Her irises twitched around as she looked back at him.
Still trying to avoid looking at me, he realized.
Everybody acted that way toward him, wherever he went. He didnt blame people for trying to pretend he was invisible, or that he didnt exist at all. Sometimes hed look in the mirror and pretend that he could make himself disappear.
Then the woman murmured again
It hurts.
In addition to the cuts, he was sure that her head ached badly from the heavy dose of homemade chloroform. When hed first mixed up the stuff right here, hed almost passed out himself, and hed suffered from a splitting headache for days afterward. But the preparation worked very well, so he would continue using it.
Now he was well prepared for what he was about to do next. He was wearing thick work gloves now and a thickly padded jacket. He wasnt going to hurt himself any more while getting the thing done.
He went to work on the mass of barbed wire with a pair of wire cutters. Then he pulled a length of it tightly around the womans body and twisted the ends into makeshift knots to hold the wire in place.
The woman let out a sharp whimper and tried to twist loose from the duct tape as the barbs tore through her skin and clothing.
As he kept working, he said
You dont have to be quiet. You can scream if you wantif it helps.
He certainly wasnt worried about anybody hearing her.
She whimpered louder, and she seemed to try to scream, but her voice was weak.
He chuckled quietly. He knew that she couldnt get enough air in her lungs to properly screamnot with her legs bound up against her chest like that.
He pulled another length of barbed wire around her and stretched it tight, watching as blood dripped from where each barb pierced her flesh beneath her clothes, soaking through the fabric, spreading and making spots much wider than the wound itself.
He kept right on pulling strand after strand around her until she was all bound up like some kind of enormous wire cocoon, not looking human at all. The bundle was making all kinds strange low soundssighs, gasps, whimpers, and groans. Blood trickled here and spurted a little there until the whole tabletop was bathed in red.