24 Hours (15 page)

SEVEN

Hickey pulled the Expedition into the garage and shut off the engine. In the ticking silence, with the leather seat clammy against her backside, Karen felt dread settle in her limbs like cement.

“Party time,
cher,
” Hickey said. He opened his door and climbed out, then waited in the glow of the dome light. “You’re not doing anybody any good sitting there. You or me.”

She folded her panties into her jeans and got out. As she walked to the laundry room door, she could feel the tail of her blouse covering her behind, and she was thankful for that. At the door she stopped and waited for Hickey to open it, but he walked up and handed her the key ring.

“You do it,” he said. “Your house.”

She tucked her jeans under her arm, then bent and took hold of the doorknob with her left hand. When her palm touched the brass, a mild shock went through her. Before this house existed, she had drawn it on a piece of paper. Every room. Every window. She had chosen the knob in her hand. Worked with the architect on the blueprints. Badgered the subcontractors. Mortared the patio bricks. Painted the interiors. If any place on earth belonged to her, personified her, this house did. And now it was about to be violated. In point of fact, it already had been when Abby was taken. But the violation to come would be more profound. She could read the thoughts in Hickey’s mind as though no border of flesh and bone concealed them. He wanted her body, yes. But his intent was more complex than that. He wanted more to desecrate her marriage.

“Come on,” he said. “Meter’s running.”

A desperate thought flashed through her mind. She could shove open the door just far enough to slip inside, then lock it behind her. Lock it and call the police. But what would that accomplish? Nothing but pain or death for Abby. Hickey had his pocket cell phone, and he could be talking to his giant of a cousin in seconds. No. There was no choice but to obey.

She turned the key and walked inside, right through the laundry room and pantry to the kitchen. Every instinct told her to pull her jeans back on, but that might prompt Hickey to retaliate. She simply stood there, on the oven side of the island, waiting for a command.

He walked up slowly and smiled. “Up the hall. To your bedroom.”

She turned and walked up the hallway, heavy-footed as a zombie. She was walking in Abby’s tracks, in the last footsteps her child had taken in this house. That knowledge infused her with guilt, but also hardened her will to resist. The scent of Abby’s room was strong here, even with her door closed. The comforting smell of toy animal fur and little girls’ makeup kits.

“Stop,” Hickey said.

Karen stopped. He reached around her left side and opened Abby’s door. Faint moonlight shone through the window, falling upon the countless inhabitants of the room.

“Take a good look, Mom. This is why we’re not going to have any trouble being friends tonight.”

Karen looked. Here was the justification for whatever she would have to do to get through the night. To bring Abby back to this sanctuary.

Hickey’s cupped hand flashed up under her shirttail and slapped her flank, hard. He laughed when she jumped, then poked her between the shoulder blades, pushing her until she reached the master bedroom.

Not wanting to enter it in the dark, she reached out and rotated the dimmer switch on the wall. The sight of the bedroom startled her. Everything was in its proper place, yet nothing seemed familiar. Not the antique sleigh bed. Not the overstuffed chair and ottoman. Not the matched Henredon dressers or the cherrywood cabinet that held the television. Not even the Walter Anderson watercolors on the walls. All struck her as furnishings in some nameless hotel, not objects she had chosen with the greatest care.

“The lap of luxury,” Hickey said. “Looks like a nice place to pass an evening.”

He walked past her, fell back into the oversized chair, and kicked his feet up on the ottoman. His Top-Siders were so new that there were no marks on the soles. Only dirt from the trip to the cabin.

“I could use a drink,” he said. “Bourbon. Kentucky bourbon, if you got it.”

The bourbon was kept on a sideboard in Will’s study. Karen laid her jeans on the foot of the bed and went back up the hall, thankful for a chance to postpone what seemed inevitable. Had five other mothers submitted to this?

In the study, she saw Will’s computer glowing softly. For a moment she considered trying to send a message to his pager via the SkyTel, but she had never used it before. And besides, what could she say? I’m about to be raped? If she did, Will would probably do something heroic and stupid, and get Abby killed. As she poured a shot of Wild Turkey, she realized that bourbon might accomplish what defiance could not. If Hickey drank enough whiskey fast enough, he might not be able to perform. It was probably a long shot, though. Karen thought the old saying about alcohol increasing desire but decreasing ability was exaggerated. Some of the best sex she and Will ever had was consummated when they were drunk. Of course, that had been a while back, when Will was in his mid-thirties. This thought disturbed the deep well of guilt inside her, but mixed with it was enough resentment to force the guilt down.

She picked up the Wild Turkey bottle and walked back toward her bedroom. Unexpected images flashed in her mind, scenes from a film she had seen long ago and forgotten until now. It starred Nicole Kidman. She couldn’t remember its name, but Nicole and her husband had been blue-water sailing and had rescued a man in a life raft. The man turned out to be psychotic, and sailed off from Nicole’s husband with her aboard. To go back and save her husband, Nicole had to get control of the boat again. But the psychopath had the gun. Before long, he decided to rape her, and what Karen remembered about the film—what had stayed with her long after—was that Nicole had let it happen. She had known it was the wrong moment to resist, and she had endured the rape in the hope of surviving until the right moment came. And it had arrived, finally, proving her sacrifice worthwhile.

As Karen neared the bedroom, words from her dead mother rose in her mind. A genteel woman speaking of rape in the language of older generations of southern women. The “fate worse than death,” they called it. But they were wrong. Pride had bred a lot of wrong notions, and that was one. Karen had lived long enough to know that. Rape could scar forever, but it was not death.
Where there’s life, there’s hope,
her father had always said. And whatever it cost, she and Abby were going to live through this night.

Hickey was smiling when she stepped through the door. “Wild Turkey!” he cried. “I’ll be damned. Bring that here!”

She crossed the room and gave him the bottle, then took three steps back.

“Scared I’ll bite?” He unscrewed the cap and drank liberally from the wide glass mouth, then set the bottle between his legs. “I’ll tell you a little secret. I
do.
”

She looked away.

“Put your pants back on,” he said.

What should have been a welcome command only made her more anxious. She went to the bed and slipped her panties on, then slid her jeans up and snapped them.

“Look at me,” Hickey said.

She looked.

His black eyes seethed. “You know what a lap dance is?”

Lurid images from HBO movies went through her mind. Scantily clad women hunching over bar patrons in chairs, wiggling their silicone-enhanced breasts in the faces of bachelor party boys and rheumy-eyed older men.

“No,” she replied.

“You’re lying. You know what one is. What you don’t know is, my wife had to do them for a living for a while. That bugged me, Karen. That she had to do that.”

So why didn’t you get a decent job?
she thought. But what she said was, “I’m sorry she had to do that.”

His face went sullen. “All those bastards feeling her up, slobbering all over her. Your husband was probably one of them. She danced right here in Jackson.”

“Will doesn’t go to those places.”

Hickey’s eyes glinted. “Who you think you’re kidding? You think hubby never had a lap dance?”

“No. At least I don’t think so.”

“You’re living in a dream world. Ten to one, he’d have gotten one tonight on the coast, if this thing hadn’t come up. Hell, a weekend away from the old lady? Even one who looks like you do . . . a man needs a little variety.”

“That’s your wife with Will right now?”

“That’s right.”

Every time Hickey confided another detail, Karen became more convinced that he didn’t intend to let her live through this ordeal.

“What’s going on in that little head of yours?” he asked. “Trying to think your way out of the box?”

“Your wife doesn’t see anything wrong with kidnapping?”

“She doesn’t see anything wrong with anything I do. And if she does, she keeps quiet about it. Get the picture?”

“I think so.”

He took another slug of Wild Turkey. “We need some music. You got a stereo in that TV cabinet?”

Karen walked over and switched on the CD player. “What do you want to hear?”

“Something with a steady beat. You need a good beat for a lap dance. Not too fast, but not too slow either.”

With a growing sense of unreality, she scanned the CD rack. Will collected everything from classic rock to country and New Age. There was music here that made her feel sexy, but she didn’t want to taint it by being raped to its accompaniment. At a loss, she finally chose a
Best of the 80s
compilation. The first song was “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. The bass and drums began to pulse sinuously from speakers Will had mounted in the ceiling. When she turned, Hickey was nodding to the beat.

“That’s it,” he said. “Yeah. Come over here.”

She took a step closer to the ottoman.

“Dance.”

She would have laughed, were the situation not so desperate. It was like the old Westerns her father had loved so much, where the black-hatted gunfighter said the same line to the frightened homesteader.

“I said
dance,
” Hickey repeated.

Karen began to sway to the music, but she felt awkward. She had never been a good dancer. Will claimed she was, but she knew she lacked the effortless grace of some girls she had known growing up. Longlimbed creatures who, through some physical alchemy, absorbed sound waves and transformed that energy into purely sensual motion.

“Closer,” Hickey said.

Karen danced nearer the chair, but jerked back as Hickey’s hand reached toward her.

“It’s just money,” he said.

He was telling the truth. In his hand was a folded one-dollar bill.

“Come over here.”

She danced closer, and he stuffed the bill into the front pocket of her jeans.

“That means you gotta take something off,” he said, as though explaining the rules of a game.

She hesitated, then slowly unbuttoned her blouse until it hung from her shoulders.

“Shake it off.”

She did. Goose bumps raced across her back and shoulders.

“Those aren’t half bad,” Hickey said, staring at her bra.

Karen focused on the wall and kept swaying to the music, but her mind was spinning. How fast could the Wild Turkey dull his senses? How long could she distract him from what he really wanted?

“Lean over,” he ordered.

She bent slightly at the waist, and he rose up and stuffed a dollar bill into her bra.

“You know what that means, babe.”

She unsnapped her jeans, but Hickey shook his head. “The bra. The bra next.”

She almost stopped dancing. Part of her—the part that took no nonsense from anyone, man or woman—wanted to scream,
If you’re going to rape me, just get it over with!
But a wiser part of her knew that would be a mistake. Anything could happen between now and the moment he actually forced himself on her. Miracles could happen. Her bra hooked in front. Dancing a little more enthusiastically, she reached up and undid the catch, then threaded her fingers under the shoulder straps and slid off the cups with exaggerated sensuality.

“That’s better,” Hickey intoned. “Jesus, you look good. For a mother, I mean. You ought to get some implants, though.”

I don’t want any damn implants!
she screamed silently. But she let the music penetrate further into her, and gave more of herself to it.

“Yeah,” he encouraged, holding up another bill. A five this time. She danced closer, close enough for him to slide the five into her pocket, but he shook his head.

“Lean over. And don’t use your hands.”

It took her a moment to figure out what he wanted, but it was simple enough. She bent over and used her upper arms to bring her breasts together, creating a soft niche for Hickey to stuff his five-dollar bill into. He immediately made use of it.

“Now the jeans.”

She unzipped the jeans but left them on. As she spun slowly, he took another slug of Wild Turkey and stared mesmerized at her chest. The effect was almost comical, one that Karen had never really understood. Men stared at naked breasts the way LSD trippers stared at the sun, as though mammary glands held the secret of the universe. As Hickey stared, she saw that his dazed fascination gave her a certain amount of control. Instead of removing her jeans, she licked her forefinger and brought it down to her right nipple, then traced a small circle around it. When it responded, Hickey’s nostrils flared and his eyes widened. He took another long pull from the bottle.

She raised both arms and began swaying to “Hold Me Now” by the Thompson Twins. She thought she must look like a go-go girl in one of those hanging cages from the sixties. Hickey was nodding in time to the beat, gripping the bottle by its neck and drinking from it every few seconds. His eyes looked darker than before, if that was possible. No longer bottomless pools, but flat disks of slate. Shark’s eyes. No knowledge in them, only hunger. A vast, insatiable appetite.

“Come on,” he rasped. “Let’s see the goods.”

She didn’t want to take off her jeans. The vulnerability she had felt without them was dehumanizing. But she couldn’t afford to make him truly angry. Then she would lose any semblance of control. She had to keep him drinking, convince him that she was going along. She let the jeans ride down her hips, then lifted her knees one at a time and kicked her feet out of them. That she managed this without falling on her butt was a miracle in itself—she hoped not the only one of the night.