Sleep Tight

Chapter 28

The whir of a shutter woke her.

The man in the ski mask loomed above her, a camera in his hand while the lamp beside the bed cast tepid light into the room. As she watched, he adjusted the aperture and took another shot. There was no flash-he must have been using fast film and a slow shutter speed.

Gillian's head throbbed. A rotten taste rilled her mouth. She shifted her weight-and realized she was tied to the bed by her wrists. A second ago she'd been in the bathroom… How had she gotten from there to here?

Confused, she looked down… and the feeling was one of total disconnection-like looking at someone else's body.

She was decked out in a pink shirtwaist dress with a flowered apron-the kind of apron she remembered old ladies wearing when she was little, the kind that crossed and tied in back. On her legs were thick black hose, on her feet a pair of clunky black shoes.

A sound escaped her-a sound she couldn't believe she'd made. It was a whimper, coming from deep in her chest.

He looked over the camera. From behind the ski mask, two cold eyes watched her. He was tall-probably over six feet. He wore a plaid shirt with tails that hung out. On his legs were brown canvas pants. The ski mask was gray with a red stripe-ratty, stretched out, and snagged.

He continued taking pictures, posing her, turning her in different directions.

Finally he untied her. "Put your hands like this." He demonstrated.

Her arms were asleep. She couldn't lift them.

He sighed and placed her hands on her hips, then stepped back and took a shot. Apparently finished for the time being, he put down the camera and asked, "Are you hungry?"

The thought of food made her stomach lurch, but she nodded. Anything to move to another scenario.

"Come into the kitchen." He motioned for her to follow.

She swung her legs over the side of the bed, then sat and waited for the room to stop spinning. When it did, she got to her feet.

The shoes Were too small. Her toes were crushed, but she managed to wobble to the kitchen, dropping into the chair he pulled out.

The table had been intimately set for two. Place mats and cloth napkins had been arrayed, along with a single tapered candle and a red rose. So that no one could see in, the windows had been covered with floral wallpaper.

In front of her was a bowl of tomato soup and a glass of milk. His setting was empty.

Slowly, she pulled her napkin to her lap, unfolding it. She reached for the spoon. Fingers still wooden, she accidentally dropped it on the floor, where it landed with a clatter. She flinched, afraid he would hit her.

So this is how it happens, she thought It's easy.

Without conscious thought, she was already doing all she could to keep from making him angry, all she could to keep from being punished. In a few short hours, the person known as Gillian had vanished, replaced by someone who existed on an instinctual level.

He picked up the spoon and placed it next to her bowl. He reached for her, and she drew away. But he merely caught her arm and began rubbing it. His palms were as rough as sandpaper, those of someone who worked outside. She'd never felt Tate's hands, but she couldn't imagine that he'd done much physical labor in his life. He grabbed her other arm and did the same. "Better?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Good."

He sat down across from her. She picked up the spoon again, and this time didn't drop it.

The salty soup stung her lips and the inside of her mouth. She forced herself to swallow, forced herself to take another bite.

"My name is Mason."

What's that rattling sound? Like dice?

While he talked, he kept one hand buried deep in the pocket of his pants.

Dice. He has dice in his pocket. Dice that he kept nervously fiddling with as he watched her eat.

"What's your name?" he asked.

Was this a test? she wondered. Was she supposed to answer or keep quiet?

"You can speak."

She was at a disadvantage since she couldn't read his face, but he sounded pleased.

"I give you permission."

"Gillian." Her voice came out a rough croak. She cleared her throat and tried once more. "My name is Gillian."

"Gillian."

That rattling again.

"Mason and Gillian. I like that."

Wouldn't he already have known her name? Wouldn't he have heard it on the news? Yes, he was testing her to see if she told the truth.

Blythe must be out of her mind with worry. And Mary. What was Mary doing? She'd be pissed at her for getting herself into such a mess. What would Mary do if she were here? Gillian wondered. If she were sitting across the table from a killer?

"Eat some more," Mason demanded.

It was hard to think of him as someone with a name. The mask over his face made him seem inhuman.

While he watched, she ate a little more soup and drank some of the milk. The numb, thick-lipped feeling started coming over her once more. She was staring into her bowl, watching the tiny bubbles of orange oil gather at the edges, when he said something.

Hmm? She lifted her head. It was heavy. Her whole body was heavy, and she realized she'd been drugged again.

"Are you finished?"

She nodded, her eyelids weighted.

"Would you like to dance?"

She suddenly imagined him doing the twist in the middle of the kitchen. She started to giggle, but at the last moment was able to turn it into a hiccup.

Her feet were bound in the crippling shoes, and she stumbled as he led her to the adjoining living room. He left her standing in the middle of a round, floral, latch-hook rug. Beam me up, Scotty.

He fiddled around in the corner, then came back and put one hand at her lower spine, her right around his waist. With the other, he grasped her free hand, poised in what she guessed was going to become a waltz.

The music started.

It was Britney Spears singing, "Oops!… I Did It Again."

Maybe the drugs were a good thing. She might have laughed for real if she weren't so fucked up. And it certainly took the edge off her fear.

He dragged her around in the cramped shoes, her head lolling from side to side.

Oops, I did it again.

She wasn't a very good dancer, he thought, looking down at her through the annoying edge of the ski mask. And at the moment, she wasn't very pretty. Her eyes were half-closed, and her mouth was hanging open. But he liked her. At least he thought so. It was hard to tell because she hadn't really said much, but at least she hadn't lied to him. She hadn't tried to tell him she was somebody else.

He knew who she was: Gillian Cantrell. He knew she was a cop assigned to the case-a BCA agent. The media had let that slip last night. The police department and the FBI had been hoping to keep her occupation a secret. They must have been afraid he'd panic and kill her if he found out who she was. On one channel, a Minneapolis detective named John Wakefield had been interviewed, and he'd berated the news people for not being able to keep their mouths shut. He'd waved his arm at the camera, saying, "All for a story. You're nothing but a bunch of sharks."

The song ended, and he stopped.

"Mason?"

The s was slurred. Her eyes were closed. He'd given her too much dope. It was hard to know how much to give a person. She ate more of the soup than he'd thought she would, and the drugs seemed to hit her harder than they had the other girls.

"I gotta sit down."

He dragged her to the couch and propped her in the corner. He should have carried her into the bedroom, but he wanted her to sit with him awhile. He pulled up a chair so he was close to her.

"Do you have a boyfriend?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"That's good."

"Would you like a boyfriend?"

"Not… r-really."

He laughed at her honesty.

"What do you do for a living?"

She frowned. "Huh?"

Playing for time, he noted. "What do you do?"

She pretended to be sleeping. That made him mad. He grabbed her arm and squeezed. "Do you want me to hit you again?"

"N… no."

"I have a place where I take girls who are bad. It's a special place I've made. Do you want me to take you there?"

"No."

"Then tell me what you do."

Her eyes opened. Beyond the drug-laden haze was lucidity and the core of who she was. "W-why are you… askin' me somethin'… you already know?"

He was caught off guard. Was she talking back? Was this something she should be punished for? She hadn't lied to him. He decided it was funny, and he laughed. "I like you!" he said, delighted. She was fading again. He shook her arm, not wanting their conversation to end. "Don't go to sleep. Let's talk some more."

She was lolling in the corner of the couch. Her posture was bad, but he felt this wasn't the time to scold her for it. "I want to talk," he repeated. "Those other girls were stupid. They weren't interesting to talk to at all. But I think you might be. Do you like to read?"

Gillian struggled to stay awake. She'd been a reader her entire life. There had even been a time when she'd tried her hand at writing. "Blake," she said, not expecting to produce the right answer, but hoping it would open up the conversation.

"Blake? You read Blake? He's overrated."

"Joyce," was her next offer. This was like playing the child's game of hotter and colder.

"Well…" Warmer.

Then "Proust."

She heard him inhale and knew she was hot.

"You've read Proust?"

"Not everything. I read Swann's Way and In a Budding Grove."

"Really? I've never met anybody who's read Proust."

He'd apparently been hanging around with the wrong people. She used to belong to a Proust group that met every other Thursday at a coffee shop on the U campus.

"I've read the entire seven volumes," he announced proudly.

A diehard. Even in her exalted group, she didn't know of many who'd read all seven. "That's… amazing."

"More than once. Maybe five or six times."

Five or six times? She felt a black wave of sorrow wash over her. Once was admirable; five or six times was impossible to fathom. It was an obsession beyond obsession and a total lack of social interaction rolled into one. It spoke of delusion and a life that existed completely within the boundaries of fiction.

"This is fantastic! We were meant for each other!"

Mason was ecstatic. "I must do something. Share something of myself with you."

He was already sharing enough, she thought, shoving herself up a little higher, her hand sinking into the plush couch.

All at once, he pulled off the ski mask.

There was nothing monstrous about him. Nor was he handsome in the way the witness from Canary Falls had stated. Something she would later notice was that he had a face that, when you really examined it, seemed unfinished. There was a haziness to his features, an undefined quality, as if he'd been erased a little. He was the last copy before the printer decided too much quality was being lost. He was one of her mother's pots before the detail and glaze were added.

He was no one she knew. None of the suspects on the police department's list. No one they were watching or looking for.

"This is something rare."

Mary, Anthony, and Elliot stood in the lab of Dr. Henry Joseph ling, Professor of Horticulture at the University of Minnesota. He was a leading authority on roses, and held patents on many varieties that were currently being tested at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. "This rose petal, the one found with the raped college student, is a garden-variety rose. But this one-" He pointed to the microscope. "This is something unique."

Anthony bent and looked through the lens.

"Unique? How?" Mary asked.

"The coloring. The veining. The ruffled edge. It's a hybrid that I've never seen before, and I thought I was familiar with all the work being done by hybridizers in the Midwest."

"Are you saying it can't be purchased at a floral shop?"

"I'm not sure it can be purchased anywhere, period."

"Would you care to speculate as to where this may have come from?" Anthony asked.

"A private collection, perhaps. But even at that, I've seen most of the roses in private collections. People who are grafting on their own aren't usually doing it for their exclusive enjoyment. They do it for competition. They love the challenge, and they want people to know when they've developed something earth shattering. That's what it's all about. One-upmanship, not to mention money and fame."

"Thank you, Professor."

"Delighted."

Once they were outside, Elliot called the research department. "I need you to get the names of anybody and everybody in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Iowa, who grows-that's not the right word-produces roses. I don't know. They graft them or something. They create completely new varieties. They're horticulturists, but the technique they use has some certain name. Propagating. Yeah, that's it. And the people who do it are called hybridizers. Yeah, that's a real word. The guy we're looking for might not belong to any organizations, but he'd be buying supplies and whatever it takes to do that kind of thing. He'd have a greenhouse and all that rose kind of stuff. This is connected to the Gillian Cantrell case, so put a priority on it." He ended the call and looked from Anthony to Mary, his hands on his hips. "So we got a guy who grows roses and owns a navy blue blanket."

"There aren't that many people who would fall into the rose-growing category, plus fit our profile," Anthony said. "I suggest we get this information to the media with a tip line people can call."

"Done." Elliot was pulling out his phone when it rang. "Senatra." He listened intently. "Send it to the crime lab. We'll be there in half an hour." He disconnected and looked from Anthony to Mary. "A manila envelope just arrived at the FBI office addressed to Special Agent Mary Cantrell. No return address."

The crime lab technician balanced the manila envelope between a gloved forefinger and thumb.

"Get any prints?" Anthony asked.

"We managed to lift a couple of blurry whorls, but nothing good enough to try to match." The technician was a perky middle-aged woman with straight dark hair and a knee-length lab coat. She ran her fingers along the edges. "I don't feel anything that makes me concerned about a detonation device." She took several flash photos of the envelope. "Now we'll open it."

She put on goggles. Everybody else stepped back several feet. Using a small, scalpel-like tool, she carefully sliced open one end. Then, very slowly, she slid out the protective cardboard, lifting the top piece away to reveal an eight-by-ten black-and-white of a woman in an old-fashioned dress and apron.

Gillian.

Her eyes were half-closed, the pupils large and glassy.

Nobody moved. Nobody said anything. Mary forced herself to say the words no one else would voice. "Is she alive?"

Her question was followed by a long silence. Finally Anthony said, "It's impossible to say." He looked at her, and she could read the compassion in his eyes. "Let's get a copy and take it to a medical examiner," he said.

"Do you know her?" the technician asked.

Mary pulled her gaze away from Anthony. "She's my sister."

"Oh. I'm so sorry."

The technician made a copy; then all three of them piled into Elliot's car and headed for the ME's office.

Elliot had called ahead, and their buddy Dr. Phillips was waiting when they arrived at the morgue.

"Can't say," he announced after he'd examined the picture. If he recognized Gillian from the Charlotte Henning autopsy, he didn't mention it.

"Care to make a guess?"

"Everything about the body looks alive."

With a magnifying glass, he went over the photo as he talked. "No lividity, no discoloration. Eyes look wet. Not a gnat, not a fly. Not a single sign of an insect. No outward signs of postmortem. But that's speculation. I deal in absolutes. I can't responsibly tell you the subject in the photo is alive. She may have been killed seconds before this picture was taken."

"What about the body itself?" Mary asked. "Can you determine anything from the way she's posed?"

"I've seen people as limp as rags that I thought were dead but weren't. And I once saw a dead guy who seemed so animated I would have sworn he was alive. You can't always be sure. Especially from a photo. Bring me the body-then I'll let you know." He handed the photo back to Anthony.

"Dipshit," Elliot said as they stepped from the building into the weak sunlight.