“Duct tape?”

“Yeah, duck tape. You got any duck tape?”

Guthrie nodded. “Couple rolls.”

“Where?”

“In the cellar.”

“Rope?”

“Some in the barn. Washing line, bailing twine in the cellar.”

“Good, good.”

Ruger rocked in his rocker for a little while, again pursing his lips, the smile coming and going, and his reptile eyes staring blackly at them. “Okay, then,” he said at length, “here’s the plan. Val, you are going to go fetch me some rope and some of that duck tape. You go fetch it and come right back.”

Val’s heart hammered in her chest as she thought about all the things in the cellar. She stood up quickly and turned to go, but immediately Ruger was on his feet, too. He grabbed her shoulder, spun her around, and looked into her eyes. She didn’t know what he was seeing there, but his face seemed angry at first, and then his smile crawled back. He slowly shook his head. “Uh-​uh, honey. You sit your pretty ass back down. I was born at night, darlin’, but it wasn’t last night. Sit down.”

She let her gaze fall away and slowly crept back to the couch and sat down. Her father handed her the ice pack she had dropped and she pressed it back it place. Connie was staring at her with a total lack of understanding.

“I think,” said Ruger, reaching out with the toe of his shoe and nudging Connie’s knee, “that I’ll let the Stepford Wife go.”

“M…me?”

“Y…yes,” Ruger mocked, “y…you.”

“Down the cellar?”

“No, I want you to run down to the drugstore and fetch me a bottle of baby aspirin. Yes, the fucking cellar. Don’t you pay any attention?”

“For rope?” Connie said in a five-​year-​old’s voice.

“And tape. You get them and then hustle your white bread ass right back up here. No tricks, no stalling. Just get the stuff and come right back.”

“By myself?” Connie seemed to be having a hard time grasping the specifics of her mission.

Ruger rolled his eyes. “Jeez, can you really be this fucking dumb?” He looked at Val and Guthrie, who were studying the pattern of the rug on the floor. He sighed. “Okay, so you probably are this fucking dumb. Whatever. Just go and get the stuff and come right back.”

Connie backed away from him, nodding numbly. She reached the entrance to the hallway, bumped against the door frame, half spun, and then fled down the corridor. Ruger saw her open the door at the far end and listened to her feet clattering on the wooden steps. He leaned against the door frame and called out, “Remember, darlin’, no games. Just find the stuff and hustle back.” Turning to Guthrie, he said, “She isn’t too bright, is she?”

“She’s just scared.”

“What about you?” he said to Val. “Are you scared?”

“Of course I am,” she said bitterly.

“Maybe, but you aren’t scared stupid like your sister.”

“I’m scared enough, mister.” The image of the EPT test kit upstairs in the medicine cabinet flashed into her brain, unbidden and immediate. Her eyes wavered and fell away, down to her hands twisting in her lap.

Ruger looked at her, measuring her. “Good,” he said after a slow moment.

In the cellar, Connie tramped down the last steps, walked blindly past the gun cabinet, past the workbench with its collections of awls and screwdrivers and utility knives, past the wall phone, and made a hectic beeline for the closet where the clothesline was kept. She snatched up two plastic-​wrapped fifty-​foot lengths, and from a lower shelf she took a huge roll of dark gray duct tape. For some reason she clutched them to her chest as if they were sacred objects, spun on her heel, and fled back upstairs. She turned off the light and bathed all of the actual objects of salvation in useless darkness.

“Good girl, now go sit down.”

Connie went obediently to the couch, turned, and sat down, smoothing her skirt around her. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, ankles together, eyes downcast. Ruger looked at her as if she were something from another planet, which, in a way, she was, if he was typical of the world that he came from. The bundles of rope lay on the coffee table, but Ruger held the roll of tape, tossing it lightly into the air and catching it one-​handed.

Val glanced at Connie, feeling sorry for her sister-​in-​law. It was apparent to Val that Connie had retreated—fled—into herself. Beyond the last name she’d taken in marriage she shared absolutely nothing in common with Val. Connie had grown up wealthy, soft, and sheltered. She was middling intelligent, good-​hearted, truly loved Mark, aspired to no heights beyond maintaining a household, and apparently spent very little time in her own thoughts. Generally her chatter was borderline inane and Val routinely tuned it out when she could, and for the most part didn’t really like Connie very much. Now, though, she loved her and wanted to hug her and shelter her.

She was also assessing Connie, wondering if maybe she had placed a 911 call downstairs, or had secreted a knife somewhere in her clothes, but as wonderful as that would be, Val doubted if it was true. Connie just wasn’t like that. As far as Val could see, if Connie had strength of any kind—either wit or courage—it was so deeply submerged that she was unaware of it.

“Now,” said Ruger, pouring another finger of bourbon, “anyone want to guess why I had Miss Polly Purebred fetch this stuff?” He took a sip, then knocked it back. “No guesses? Well, I can see it in your eyes. If you think that I’m gonna tie you up, that’s right. That should tell you something, shouldn’t it?”

Val shook her head.

“I think he means,” said her father, “that he wouldn’t bother tying us up if he meant to kill us.”

Val looked expectantly at Ruger. “You father’s on the ball, and he’s right, too. I didn’t come here to waste your sorry hillbilly asses. If I wanted to do that, I’d have done it already. So, maybe I’m not as much a bad guy as I seem, huh?”

Val almost let loose a derisive snort, but caught herself.

“I can’t have you running around loose, either. So, it’s hog-​tying time on the old farmstead.”

“What if we have to go to the ladies’ room?” asked Connie, in what appeared to be a reasonable voice. It was such a reasonable and conversational voice that it chilled Val.

“Uh-​oh,” said Ruger, showing mock horror, “I think Donna Reed is no longer with us. Wonder if I could wake her up some.”

“Leave her alone.”

Ruger wheeled on Val, his hand raised, but she quickly added, “Please.”

He considered her for a moment and then lowered his hand. “Yeah, whatever. Too much shit to do anyway.”

Guthrie said, “Is someone hurt?” When Ruger just looked at him, he added, “You wanted a stretcher. Is someone hurt?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. My—how should I put it?—my…‘associate’ is a trifle banged up. He’s out in the cornfield and I think he’d like to come in now.”

Val stared at him. “You left an injured man out in the field?”

“Yes, isn’t it shocking? On the other hand, what the fuck do you care?”

“He’s hurt….”

“So what? If I was hurt, would you give a shit?”

“Of course I would.”

Ruger laughed. “Oh, I’m sure!”

Val’s dark eyes glittered. “I’d help any animal that was hurt. Even a skunk or a rabid dog.”

Ruger shook his head ruefully. “Man oh man, you are something!” For a moment, it seemed as if he were about to say something more, but then the front door opened.

Nobody had even heard the car drive up, which was not surprising with the wind and the soft moist dirt of the road, but they all heard the click as the knob turned and the lock sprang open.

Val turned and screamed: “Crow! No! Run!”

Anything else she might have said was drowned out by the ear-​shattering blast of the pistol as Ruger spun around and fired two shots through the door.

Chapter 12

1

The man in the road had a huge butcher’s knife driven into his chest and his white T-​shirt was a mass of blood that bloomed a bright crimson in the glare of the headlights. Crow slowed to a halt and leaned out of the window.

“How’s tricks, Barney?”

Grinning through bloody teeth, the impaled man leaned his forearms on the open window frame of the Chevy and peered inside. “There’s a game tonight at the college, so it’s been kinda slow. How’s with you? Hey, is that Mike?”

“What’s up, Barney?”

“How’s it hanging, Mike?”

“I’m cool.”

Barney Murphy scratched his chest where the adhesive bound the fake knife to his skin. The handle wobbled. “Whatcha doing out here, man?” he asked Crow.

“Look, Barney, there’s some stuff going on in town, and we have to shut the place down.”

“Shut it down? You mean…for good?”

“No, just for the night. Where’s Coop?”

“He’s out with a bunch of customers in number four.” The hayride had four tractors that pulled stake-​bed trailers full of tourists. Number two was at Shanahan’s for a cracked axle. The other three rotated, each pulling out with a load of kids about every twenty minutes.

“How many and how long?”

Barney considered. “Maybe thirty people. Been gone ’bout twenty minutes.”

“Shit…er, I mean shoot.” He cocked an eye at Mike, who was grinning. “You didn’t hear that, right?”

“Shit no.”

“Good,” Crow said, and in a mock under-​his-​voice tone he added, “Juvenile delinquent.”

“He’ll be done in another twenty, twenty-​five,” said Barney. “Number one just came in five, ten minutes ago. Three’ll be out another ten.”