The Killing Hour

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

The smell makes Jo think of ground-up moths. It’s an earthy smell, certainly nothing like life, and it reminds her of the time her grandmother died and they found a box of her clothes that had been hidden in her attic for twenty years. Tied up and gagged, locked down here in this basement, it’s easy to think of people who have died, and easy to think she’ll be seeing them soon. Her mother died the same year she met Charlie. In fact she met Charlie about two weeks before her mom passed away from one of the many random ailments of life-this one taking the form of a brain tumor. Charlie had been a patient of Jo’s-or, more accurately, his cat had been. Charlie had brought the cat in. Its name was The Wolf, and though Jo hadn’t dealt with pets before whose names had been prefixed by The, in this case she could see where the cat got its name-it was one of the biggest domestic cats she’d ever seen. It wasn’t well, and there wasn’t a lot Jo could do for it, and Charlie had been forced to make the decision to have The Wolf put down.

It’s weird to think that a relationship can evolve from the euthanization of a cat, especially in a time of her life when her own mother was slipping away, but these things happen. She’d been single for over a year, her last boyfriend choosing a drinking habit over her, and she was happy to see the back of him and his drinking and the way it turned him from a pretty good guy into a complete asshole whenever they were at a bar. Charlie was opening a new chapter to her life-and back then, though he doesn’t know it, she used to call him Charlie Chapter to her friends. The chapter started when Charlie came into her work with flowers to thank her for her efforts to try and save The Wolf. It was her day off. She called him the next day at home to thank him. She asked if he would get another cat. He said he wasn’t sure. He asked if she had pets. She said she did-a cat named Bing Bong. He laughed. He asked if she wanted to grab coffee sometime. She said yes. Three months later they were living together. In that time she lost her mother, and then Bing Bong got hit by a car, but she had Charlie Chapter.

Then six months ago that chapter closed, and she was an idiot for letting that happen.

Now a new chapter is opening. If she was out with her friends or coworkers having a few glasses of wine, maybe she would refer to Cyris as Cyris Chapter. Though that doesn’t have the same ring to it. Plus she’s kidding herself-she’s never going to see her friends again. Or Charlie, for that matter. Why the hell couldn’t she have believed him?

If she had, would things have turned out different?

She fights uselessly with the ropes. They rub into her skin, rubbing it raw, and if she keeps fighting then soon she’ll start bleeding. She stops struggling. The rag in her mouth tastes of vanilla and she wonders what it was last used on. Or who. Cyris said little on the ride here. In the end, either he had forgotten the way to his house or he had enjoyed driving in large, out-of-the-way circles for over an hour. She had considered speeding into a lamppost because surely death was better than letting Cyris do what he wanted to her, but she was too pissed off with Cyris to let herself die because of him. Pissed off with Charlie too.

Sometimes Cyris makes sense, but it’s the random comments that frighten her most. When he asked if she knew how his hedgehog was feeling she had sat silently, confident that any reply would be the wrong one. Occasionally he would clutch at his stomach, and she wondered if there was a chance of grabbing the gun off him, but if she tried and failed then failure around a guy like this was certainly going to be unpleasant. He is sick, wounded-Charlie was sure he’d stabbed him, and the way Cyris has been clutching himself is evidence of that. Is he doped up? His eyes are bloodshot and his hands have been shaking a lot. If he’s on medication it might mean he’s ready to snap at any moment, but it might also mean he could forget he has her locked up in his basement.

The house she’s tied up in, the house she could die in, isn’t the run-down hellhole she’d thought it would be. She’d conjured up images of a Unabomber shack, a dilapidated slum property with flaking paint, holes in the plaster, and the windows boarded up-a more domestic, suburban version of the cabin in the woods. There would be the smell of death and decay and of countless others who had breathed hard from fear near the end. That’s what the house would be like-and she’s frightened that it isn’t. Frightened to find normality in a home that’s five years old at the most. Coming through the house looking at the carpets and the walls and the general décor she could see it had a woman’s touch. A few nice paintings. Small knickknacks. And everything was tidy, like a show home. There was a TV going in one of the bedrooms, she could see the light coming into the hall, but couldn’t hear anything. Is it possible Cyris doesn’t live alone? It would explain why he wanted her to be so quiet. Or maybe he has women tied up in all of the rooms. Or perhaps this isn’t even his house.

The basement is cold-the concrete floor is uncarpeted. She’s resting in the corner with her hands tied behind her and her feet tied ahead of her. There’s a coil of rope wrapped around her body. It holds her against a large drum that she prays isn’t full of human body parts or the acid to dissolve them. Maybe that’s the smell she can’t identify. Tossed over her is a blanket from which she can draw no warmth.

She starts struggling again, twisting her hands and wrists, the rope biting into them. She can feel blood. Are there any rats down here with her? The scent of her blood will have them creeping along, creeping along, their noses twitching and their tiny paws scratching at the concrete. Any second now whiskers are going to brush against her hands, little claws will dig into her legs, small teeth will chew at her fingers, gnawing away skin, tearing through flesh. .

No. There are no rats down here. The house is too modern. The garage too tidy. The only messy thing down here is her. She’s still wearing Landry’s jacket and Landry’s pants, and her underwear is still a little damp, but it did dry out a bit in the car. She squeezes her eyes shut, she forces herself to think of Charlie, to forget about the rats, to forget about Cyris.

She focuses on the ropes. She tries not to focus on what may happen over the next few hours. She keeps twisting her wrists and tries not to think about the blood and the pain as the tiredness and exhaustion start to creep in.