Heartsick

CHAPTER 17

On what Archie thinks is the third day, when Gretchen slams the funnel down his throat and drops the pills in, he swallows them without fighting it. She puts the funnel aside, and quickly tapes his mouth shut again with a precut piece of duct tape she has ready. She has said nothing today. She uses a white hand towel to wipe off the saliva that has run down his face, and then she leaves. He waits for the pills to kick in, every cell alert to change. It is another way to measure time. He doesn’t know what the pills are, but suspects speed, a painkiller, some sort of hallucinogen. The tingling starts at his nose and creeps its way up to the top of his head. He forces himself to give in to it.

His mind is starting to go. He thinks he sees a dark-haired man in the basement with them. He is just a shadow. He flits behind Gretchen and then is gone. Archie wonders if the corpse has come to life, a walking man of rotting, bloated flesh and bone. But he tells himself that it is just a hallucination. Nothing is real.

He imagines the crime scene. Henry and Claire. They would have traced him to the big yellow house that Gretchen had leased on Vista. Crime tape. Media. Forensics. Evidence markers. He moves through the scene, directing the task force as if he were just another Beauty Killer victim. “It’s been too long already,” he tells Claire. “I’m dead.” They are all so grim and desperate-looking. “Lighten up! It’s all good! At least we know who the fuck the killer is! Right? Right?” They stare at him blankly. Claire cries. “You have to see this is connected to the case,” Archie tells them, his voice anxious. “It’s not a coincidence.”

They comb the entire property for clues. “Piece it together,” Archie pleads. They would have Gretchen’s name, her ID badge photograph. He replays his visit, mining his memory for any surface he had touched, fibers he had left, some trace that he had been there. The coffee. He had spilled it on the rug. Archie points to the darkened stain. “See it?” he cries to Henry. Henry stops. Squats. Waves a technician over. The lab would find traces of whatever she’d slipped him. It would confirm their suspicions. Had anyone seen him going in? What had happened to his car? Archie squats next to Henry. “When the results come back, you have to do everything you can to connect her to the other murders. Release her photograph everywhere. When I’m dead, she’ll leave the house. And when she leaves the house, you can catch her.”

“You’re hallucinating,” Gretchen says.

He is wrenched from his dream back to the basement. She is there again, pressing a cool cloth against his forehead. He doesn’t feel hot, but he realizes that he’s sweating.

“You’re mumbling,” Gretchen says.

Archie is grateful for the duct tape. Grateful that she can’t hear his half-cracked ramblings.

“I don’t know how you stand the stench down here,” Gretchen says, sliding her eyes to where the corpse still lies on the floor.

She starts to say something else, but he is tired of her, so he turns back into his mind.

And he goes to see Debbie.

She is sitting on the couch wrapped in a fleece blanket, eyes red from crying. “Have you found him?” she asks quickly when Archie walks in.

“No,” he says. Archie gets a beer from the fridge and sits down beside her. Debbie’s face is smooth and empty and her hands shake where she holds the blanket under her chin.

“He’s still alive,” Debbie says adamantly. The steely optimism in her voice breaks his heart. “I know it.”

Archie considers this. He wants to be kind to her. But he can’t lie. “Actually, chances are I’m dead,” he tells her. “You have to prepare yourself.”

Debbie looks at him in horror, her posture hardening.

Flummoxed, he tries again to comfort her. “It’s for the best,” he says. “The sooner she kills me, the better. Believe me.”

Debbie’s eyes fill with tears and her mouth gets small. “I think you’d better go now,” she says.

“Look at me.” It’s Gretchen. He is back in the basement again. Reality folds and skitters on the periphery of his vision. He doesn’t want to give in to her, but he has learned his lesson, so he turns his head and gives her his attention.

There is nothing in her face. No anger. No pleasure. No pity. Nothing. “Are you scared?” Gretchen asks. She dabs his forehead with the cloth, his cheek, the back of his neck, his collarbone. He thinks he sees a flash of emotion in her eyes. Sympathy?

Then it’s gone. “Whatever you think this is going to be like,” she whispers. “It’s going to be worse.”