Sleep Tight

Chapter 30

The light above Gillian's head came on. She squinted against the blinding glare.

She'd spent the first three hours of solitary confinement standing with her back to the door. When her legs couldn't hold her up any longer, she'd felt around in the darkness to gingerly settle on the edge of the mattress, where she'd been ever since. She heard the rattle of metal; then the wooden door opened, shimmying against the cement threshold. She got to her feet in preparation for Mason's arrival.

In the short time she'd been with him, her old life had taken on a hazy, unreal quality. She remembered Blythe and Mary and Gavin, but they didn't seem as solid and substantial as Mason and this house.

In the back of her mind, she reasoned that the distance was brought about by drugs, lack of food, and fear, but that knowledge didn't make her other life seem any more real.

She searched Mason's face, looking for signs of his earlier impatience and lack of interest. His expression was blank, unreadable.

"I'm glad you're back," she said cautiously.

"Have you been good?"

"Very good."

"You didn't eat?" He picked up the sandwich from the mattress. "You didn't drink the water?"

"I forgot."

His lips curled. "Don't lie to me. I hate lies."

"Okay, I didn't forget," she said, quickly changing her story. Why had she said something that was so obviously untrue? She had to be more careful. "I was afraid you may have put something in it that would make me go to sleep, and I didn't want to lie down on the mattress. I was afraid to go to sleep here in the dark."

He tossed the sandwich to the floor. Then he took her by the arm and pulled her behind him, out of the room, through the winding basement, and up the stairs to the kitchen. He told her she could use the bathroom, and she hurried down the hall, shutting the door behind her.

In the bathroom by herself, she tried to gauge what his mood had been. Not much better than this morning. She was going to have to do something, come up with something that might impress him. Be somebody he wanted to keep. Because if he didn't want to keep her…

She splashed water on her face and was shocked by her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looiced like a junkie.

He was waiting for her outside the door. "Come on."

He led her into the kitchen, where he began frying pork chops in a skillet on the stove. "Can I help with something?" she asked, forcing herself to become a part of the surreal domestic scene. She had to act as if nothing odd was going on.

"Cut the potatoes for potato salad." He motioned toward the sink, where she found a pan of boiled potatoes along with a knife.

She picked up a peeled potato. By allowing her to use the knife he demonstrated the control he felt he had over her. It would be foolish to try to stab him. Odds were against her, and an attack would infuriate him-possibly enough to kill her.

"I love potato salad." She began cutting the potato into small squares, trying desperately to come up with harmless conversation. "Potato salad and baked beans. They just go together, don't you think?" Nothing intellectual, but it was all she could produce at the moment.

"I guess so."

Engage him. Make him answer questions. "What about apple pie? Do you like apple pie?"

"Yeah."

"Made with Jonathan apples. Maybe a few Golden Delicious thrown in, but mostly Jonathans."

"My sister used to bake pies." Upon mention of his sister, his voice suddenly became infused with life.

Small talk. Small talk was good. "Really? What kind?"

"Cherry. We have a cherry tree in the backyard. She was always baking cherry pies. And blackberry, when they were in season. She made a lot of apple pies too."

"I'd like to bake an apple pie for you," she ventured. "Would you let me do that?"

"No." The flash of elevated mood drained from him. "It wouldn't be right."

That had been careless of her. He apparently revered his sister. He wouldn't want Gillian trying to take her place. "How about a cake? Is your birthday anytime soon? I could bake you a cake."

He turned and stared. He had the strange eyes that murderers sometimes had-flat, dark, opaque.

Had she said something wrong?

"My sister is coming home soon."

Home? Does home mean what I think it means? Her heart began to hammer. "She's coming here?" Stay calm, she told herself. Don't let him see your interest.

"Tomorrow."

Tomorrow! She could hold out one more day. Of course she could hold out one more day. His sister would make him release her, maybe even make him go to the police. "We should have a party," Gillian said. "With cake and ice cream."

He smiled. He actually smiled.

Relief washed through her, and her muscles relaxed.

"You could put her name on the cake." Before her eyes, he transformed again, suddenly turning timid and shy.

"Yes! Welcome home… What's your sister's name?"

"Jo."

"Welcome home, Jo."

They ate their meal of pork chops and potato salad. Gillian's stomach had shrunk, and she couldn't eat much, but Mason didn't seem to notice. Nor did he seem to notice that she didn't drink any of the wine, only water from the same pitcher he used.

Tomorrow. She would be good. She would be good. She would be so good.

When they were done eating, he led her to the bedroom and dressed her in a low-cut, tight red dress.

I'm like his Barbie doll.

In the living room, he sat her down on the ottoman. He knelt behind her and began touching her hair, brushing it until she closed her eyes and exhaustion washed over her. She felt him putting makeup on her face, her cheeks, her lips. When he was done, he lit candles, turned off the lamp, and pulled out a book, settling on the floor at her feet.

"Shall I read to you?" he asked. "Would you like that?"

"Yes. Very much."

He chose the last paragraph in the overture of Swann's Way. It was perhaps Proust's most beautifully written passage about memory and the madeleine.

The paragraph was long and mesmerizing, wrapping the reader in bittersweet poignancy. Mason made it halfway through before he began to sob. The book dropped to his lap, and he buried his face in his hands.

"Here-" Gillian picked up the heavy volume. It automatically fell open to the page he'd been reading. In a soft voice she finished the paragraph for him, reading about the Japanese paper, the flower gardens, the whole of Combray springing up from a single cup of tea. When she was finished, she quietly closed the book and sat in silence. Out of seven volumes, he'd picked her favorite passage.

His sobs subsided, and he pressed his lips to her bare knee, hesitated, and then kissed her flesh again. "You're so beautiful. I want to take pictures of you," he whispered, looking up at her from his position on the floor. The flatness had left his eyes, as if his tears had momentarily cleansed them. "Would you mind?"

She didn't think she'd been drugged, but she felt strange and floaty and exceedingly calm.

He posed her, taking photo after photo. Some demure, some provocative.

"I have a lot of pictures," he said when he was finished. "Would you like to see them?"

"Yes."

He pulled her to her feet and led her from the room.

"I don't want to go back there," she said when she saw where they were heading. She tried to twist away, but he was too strong.

"Only for a little while."

Her feet were bare, and the steps were rough. The dirt floor, when they reached the basement, was damp and cold as they wound through the catacomb-like structure.

"Entrez," he said with a flourish, pushing her into a room she'd never seen before.

In front of her was a wall of photos. Several were of Holly lying on the ground, half-nude-all variations of the cut-up negative they'd found in the trash.

Gillian moved to the next wall. April Ellison. Wearing a red dress, posed provocatively. A breast showing here, a thigh there. Various parts of her body were also enlarged. In several photos, she had no eyes. Just bloody raw pits where the eyes had been.

She turned to an unfinished wall. Photos of her. Oh, God. It was disturbing to see herself lying in bed, unconscious and in various stages of undress. There were several of her breast with its rose tattoo.

"Here are my favorites."

He led her in the next display.

In front of her was a collage, eight-by-tens of body parts that went from ceiling to floor. At first they seemed random, but when he pulled her back, she was able to see that the enlargements made up an entire picture-of a girl lying in a bathtub. She was naked, and she was posed, her eyes open, flat, and dead. Very, very dead.

Gillian had always imagined that Charlotte Henning's death had been an accident, and that when Mason found her dead he'd quickly taken her body and dumped it in the river. Instead, he'd played with it. He'd made her pose for him even in death. And then he created this eight-feet-tall monument to the murder, a shrine to himself.

The sight of the photos made her insides curdle, made her feel sick to her stomach.

He was watching her. He'd jammed his hand into his pocket and was rattling the dice as he waited nervously in anticipation.

She quickly tried to pull on a blank mask, but it was too late. Nothing she now did or said could erase the horror and revulsion he'd seen in her face.

"Bitch!"

He grabbed her and dragged her through the passageway to the room where she'd spent the day. Adrenaline shot through her and she fought him, trying to wrench free, but her lessons in self-defense evaporated before his rage.

She gripped the doorjamb, her bare feet planted on the floor. She couldn't go back in there. He shoved. She stumbled forward.

He followed. He wrapped his hands around her throat and began to squeeze. Her breath was cut off. In survival mode, forgetting every technique she'd learned, she grabbed his wrists and tried to free herself. Suddenly he let her go, and she dropped to her knees, coughing.

"Close your eyes and hold out your hand," he commanded.

Wheezing, tears running down her cheeks, she did as he said.

He placed two small objects in her palm and closed her fingers over them. "A little gift for you, since you liked my photos so well."

She heard the door slam. The lock slid home.

On her knees, she opened her hand.

Lying in her palm were two shriveled blue eyeballs.