Blind Pursuit

44

Erin stiffened, hearing the heavy, familiar tramp of footsteps above her head.

Reflexively she looked for the blindfold before remembering that it was gone. Oliver had removed it along with most of the other items in the room. He knew she had seen his face.

But she hadn’t seen it, she realized as the footfalls descended the cellar stairs. Not clearly enough to matter. She still couldn’t identify him in a lineup.

Could she convince him of that? Doubtful, but she had to try.

A key rattled in the lock. She turned away and stood facing the corner like a reprimanded child.

Behind her, the door sighed open, and the short hairs on her nape prickled.

“ ’Evening, Doc.”

The greeting was meant to sound casual, but his tone of voice was all wrong. Strained, tense.

She might be in even greater danger than she’d realized. If he were to slip into a fugue state, she would have no chance.

“Good evening,” she answered slowly.

“What’s so fascinating about that wall?”

“I need my blindfold.”

“No, you don’t.”

“You wouldn’t want me to see your face, would you?”

Footsteps. Crossing the room. Closer. Closer.

His shadow expanded on the unpainted bricks, devouring her own. He stopped directly at her back.

“You’ve already seen me,” he whispered.

From his voice, his tone, she tried to gauge his state of mind. He sounded angry, exhausted, yet still in control. Torn by conflict, fatigued by the effort of holding fast to the better part of himself.

She had no confidence in his ability to hold on indefinitely. At any moment the tension in his voice might bleed away, leaving only an affectless monotone.

“I never got a good look.” Her words were barely audible above the pumping of her heart. “Last night, in the arroyo, there was only starlight; you were a silhouette. And when you brought me here, I was barely conscious. I couldn’t even focus my eyes.”

“That’s probably true.”

She waited, feeling the pressure of a suppressed hope.

“But it doesn’t matter. You already know who I am.”

Her heart twisted.

“How could I possibly know that?” She wished her voice wouldn’t quaver.

He leaned nearer; she felt the tickle of his breath on her right ear. “You saw the ranch.”

She shut her eyes. “It’s just a ranch,” she said desperately, refusing to turn her head, refusing to see his face and seal her fate. “Horse ranch, I guess. Like a thousand others in Arizona. So what?”

“You know this place. Even if Lydia never brought you to see it, you would have come on your own. You and Annie.”

He’d mentioned Lydia. Pointless to continue her denials, but she tried anyway. “I’ve never been here. Really. And I didn’t see your face…”

The touch of his fingers on her chin startled a gasp out of her.

“You’re lying, Doc. That’s bad. Don’t you know that the doctor-patient relationship is built on trust?”

She couldn’t answer, couldn’t speak, not with his hand clinging lightly to her face, weightless as a scorpion.

“Look at me, Doc.”

“Please…”

“Look at me.”

He tightened his grip, snapped her head sideways. Shock opened her eyes, and she saw him. She couldn’t help but see him.

“Say hello to your cousin, Doc,” he said, unsmiling. “Cousin Oliver.”

Swallowing, she nodded.

He stepped back to give her a fuller view. Absently she noted the clothes he was wearing-canvas shoes, denim jeans, blue shirt, and an unbuttoned nylon jacket with a bulge in the side pocket.

Normal, she thought blankly. He looks normal. She could have passed him on the street and not even noticed him, not even suspected what he was.

He was a large man-of course she had known that-with wide shoulders and thick arms and a spreading waistline. She wasn’t surprised that he could carry her without strain, or that his footsteps shook the ceiling when he crossed the ranch’s living room.

She compared him with the boy in the remembered Kodachrome, the snapshot portrait of Oliver and Lincoln side by side on a dock. Time had done its work; there were few obvious similarities anymore.

The loose cascade of long blond hair was gone, in its place a few strawlike wisps on a balding scalp. The nose, sharp and narrow once, had been broken in a fight or fall. He was clean-shaven now, and his receding chin, partially disguised in the photo by a fine stubble of beard, was more obvious, multiplied by folds of fat blurring the transition between his jaw and neck.

For a long moment she went on staring, and he accepted her scrutiny, standing rigid, as if at attention.

“It is you,” she said finally, pointlessly.

“It’s me.”

“I never would have recognized you. Never.”

“I know. Annie sees me every day, and she hasn’t recognized me, either.”

“Annie…?”

“I work for her. I’m her assistant.”

Erin’s knees unlocked, and she stumbled backward against the wall. The chain running from her ankle rasped on the floor.

Annie’s assistant. The new man, the one who’d replaced that teenager who was always late for work. Annie had mentioned him several times in passing. Harold something.

Gund. That was it. Harold Gund.

Erin had visited Annie’s shop several times in the past few months, yet she’d never met the new employee. He always seemed to find an excuse to stay out of sight.

“You avoided me whenever I dropped by,” she said slowly. “You were always in the back room or making a delivery or out to lunch.”

“A reasonable precaution, don’t you think? I didn’t want you remembering my voice later on. I couldn’t let you know your kidnapper’s identity.”

“But now,” she whispered, “I do know it.”

“Sadly, yes.”

“Which means you can’t let me go.”

His eyes closed briefly, registering his first hint of emotion-a flicker of regret. “Afraid not, Doc.”

“Is that why you came here? To end it? To… kill me?”

A tremor rippled through the muscles of his cheek. “No. Not tonight. I won’t-I won’t — do it tonight.”

The violence of his reply was a window on the turmoil churning just below his placid surface. He drew a slow, calming breath.

“Not tonight,” he said again, more softly. “Not for a while. Days, weeks, whatever it takes. We’ll do the work. You’ll treat me. Cure me. Set me free. And then…” His lower lip trembled briefly. “Then it will be goodbye. But not by fire.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a blue-barreled pistol.

“This way.” His voice was very small. “No pain. I promise. Quick and easy. You won’t even know, it’ll be so fast, so… clean. You won’t even know.”

She said nothing.

“Let’s get started,” he added brusquely.

He turned away from her with a jerk of his shoulders and sat in the chair nearest the door. The gun fidgeted in his lap like a small, nervous dog.

Encumbered by the chain, she shuffled over to the facing chair. Her sore muscles protested as she seated herself, and the searing sunburn on her chest cried out at the scrape of her shirt.

For a moment, as they sat watching each other like wary animals, Erin was at a loss for anything to say. She’d had no time or inclination to prepare for a second session.

Then she remembered the list of unanswered questions she’d compiled only a short while earlier.

Risky to probe Oliver’s past when he was clearly on the edge of losing his grip. Even so, she would chance it.

Because she had to know, had to understand.

And because she had so little left to lose.