She smoothed her dress, cleared her throat, and headed to the steps. Then climbed them, one at a time. Then she was there, facing the door.
Then knocking on it, thinking, Yea though I walk, yea though I walk, over and over despite the fact that she drew no encouragement from the thought.
It"s not supposed to feel good, Kathryn. You"re only reaping what you sowed. It"s supposed to feel like death because . . .
The opening door cut her thought short and she found herself face to face with Zeke, in the flesh, wearing dark pants and a white b.u.t.ton-up shirt with a starched collar.
She felt like a schoolgirl caught red-handed, and she hated herself for feeling like that.
"Good morning, Zeke."
In answer he c.o.c.ked his brow-that condescending look that said, What now, Kathryn?
"Nothing," she said, as if answering his unspoken question. "I just . . . Do you mind if I come in?"
"Nothing?"
"No . . . Not really . . . I just . . ."
She stopped herself there, struck by her own words. Nothing? Was her experience with her daughter earlier nothing? Was the well-being of her daughter nothing? Was the privilege to be Eden"s mother nothing?
Was Eden nothing?
Something deep inside of her seemed to flip over, and a surge of anger replaced the fear sucking at her life. Not just anger . . . rage. In fact, for the briefest moment she imagined tearing into the monster before her and ripping his tongue out. Now tell us what to do!
But she immediately recognized the danger of showing any emotion similar to rage. If she failed, Zeke might go to the furthest extremes to protect himself.
"Actually, it is something," she said. "May I come in?"
He gave her a shallow grin and swept his hand into the house. "Be my guest."
"Thank you." She stepped past him and scanned the room. "Is your wife here?"
He closed the door and walked past her without answering. This was his way, always keeping her off balance. She"d known it all these years, but had never thought of his manipulation as anything more than a shepherd"s steady rod.
"Spit it out, Kathryn. I don"t have all day."
"No . . . no, I suppose you don"t."
He slipped his hands into his pockets and faced her. "No need to suppose. Just know. Know that I have little patience left for your inept.i.tude and failures. Know that you"re lucky I didn"t break your leg. Know that I"m still considering it."
She felt her heart pound. Anger felt far better than fear, but she had to let him think it was fear. Easy enough, because at least half of it was.
"Yes, Zeke. Of course. You won"t need to do that. I swear you-"
"Don"t tell me what I won"t need to do. Just tell me why you"re here so early in the day."
"It"s almost ten o"clock."
"Now you think I"m too stupid to read a clock?"
"No, Zeke. I"m sorry."
"For what? Hmmm? Sorry for what? For mocking me? I give you one simple task, easily accomplished by anyone half your strength using a few basic tools and you can"t even do that for me, the one you owe your very life to? Is that it, Kathryn?"
She stared at him, stunned by his coldness.
"Or is there something else you"re sorry about now?"
Had he always been this way and she not able to see it?
"I"m sorry . . . I was just sorry for suggesting that you were too stupid to-"
"Do you know how deeply I hate you every time you use those words, Kathryn? I"m sorry only reminds me of your failure. You come in here and tell me about your sin, and I"m not above G.o.d. I too hate sin. So don"t tell me I"m sorry and, for the love of G.o.d, stop doing whatever it is you"re sorry for. Both he and I could use a break, wouldn"t you agree?"
Her head was spinning.
"Yes."
"Good. So be a good woman and just lay what you have on the table. Trust me."
She had to remember her purpose. She had to distract him and get to the phone in his office. The only way to distract him was to first earn a measure of his trust-he was far too cagey to let his guard down unless she proved herself.
"I"m concerned about Eden."
"Is that so? I broke her leg, didn"t I?"
"Yes."
"She can"t stand on it, much less walk, right?"
"That"s right."
"There"s no telephone, no boat, no way to swim through a lake infested with alligators, no wings to fly out on . . . That about covers all of our bases, don"t you think?"
"Yes. But that"s not my concern. I"m worried about her."
"What"s there to worry about? I told you we"d put a cast on soon enough. So she walks with a limp the rest of her life-every Garden of Eden has its rotten fruit."
His indifference was bone deep.
"What if she dies?" Kathryn said.
That put a dent in his armor, she thought, as he hesitated.
"Well, that depends on when she dies," he said, stepping over to the kitchen center island to his right. He reached for a cup of coffee next to a frying pan. By all appearances, she"d interrupted his breakfast preparation. Which meant that his wife wasn"t around or she likely would"ve made it for him earlier. "If she dies after the money"s transferred we have nothing to worry about."
He took a sip from his cup and set it back down.
"If she dies in the next twenty days, we"d have a problem. The thirty-day cure requires she accept the money when it"s transferred. So, technically anyway, she needs to be alive. What makes you think this is a concern?"
She knew most of what he said, but she hadn"t realized just how little regard he had for Eden"s life. A hum went off somewhere in her head; the room seemed to narrow.
"I think her leg might be getting infected," she heard herself say.
"Oh? What makes you say that?"
"She woke with a fever. Her leg"s swollen pretty bad."
"So you"re saying that you don"t trust me."
"No."
Zeke approached her and stopped within arm"s reach. She dared not avert her eyes from his.
"If you trusted me, you wouldn"t be here to tell me what I already know, now would you? But the truth is, you think I"m too stupid to have thought about infection. You probably think the penicillin shot I gave her when I broke her leg was just for grins?"
The revelation surprised her. She had no idea he"d given her a shot.
"I just thought-"
"Don"t. Think," he snapped.
"Yes, Zeke. I"m sorry, I just-"
He slapped her face with an open hand, hard enough to make her stagger. She gave up a soft grunt, knowing better than to cry out in his presence.
"I told you not to speak that word," he said, turning his back on her. "You both sicken me."
For two hours, Kathryn had contemplated a dozen scenarios as to how she might accomplish the simple task of getting to the phone, knowing that only in doing so could she undo what she"d done before Zeke learned more than he knew and made any undoing impossible.
She"d left no option unconsidered. She"d thought about using seduction and quickly abandoned the notion. She"d toyed with the idea of using force and turned her attention elsewhere with even more haste. She"d considered wit, lies, speed, stealth, screams, blackmail, explosions, poison, and even more seduction, and in the end landed on using any and all means, depending on what presented itself, because walking into the valley of death didn"t come with a plan any more than walking on water did.
But none of her scenarios had antic.i.p.ated the blind rage that darkened her world when Zeke said those four words.
You. Both. Sicken. Me.
She was moving before any conscious thought told her to move. Pushed by indignation so deep that her very cells forgot their need for survival, she lunged for the counter, scooped up the frying pan, and blindly swung the cast iron weapon with all of her strength as she turned his direction.
To her surprise, the back of his head was there, in the skillet"s pathway. His skull stopped the pan"s momentum with a loud, hollow thunk.
He didn"t cry out. He didn"t have time to mount a defense. He didn"t even try to turn.
He simply dropped to his knees, swayed there for a second, then toppled over, face down, unmoving.
Kathryn stood over him, breathing hard, at a complete loss. She"d hit him. She"d hit Zeke. She"d knocked him out.
This simple realization was quickly followed by another one.
He"s going to punish me for this. He"s going to kill me.
Her hands were trembling and she dropped the skillet without meaning to. It landed on his leg and clattered to the wooden floor.
Oh my G.o.d, oh my G.o.d, what have I done? He"s going to kill us all!
But Zeke wasn"t getting up to kill them all. He was just lying there. He was still alive-she could see his lungs expanding with each breath-but he wasn"t moving his legs or arms, and as long as he couldn"t move those, he couldn"t punish or kill anyone.
All of these thoughts trained by so many years under Zeke"s guidance flew through her mind before a far more obvious one took root.
He"s unconscious. Which means I can call 911 without him knowing.
Kathryn spun and took two steps toward his office before another thought pulled her up short.
What if he woke up? He"d come after her! She had to tie him up!
She spun back and stared at his large frame on the floor, expecting movement even as she looked. She had to hurry before he did wake, but for that she needed rope, and there was no rope here that she could see. Maybe outside or in the shed, but what if he woke while she was out looking for something to tie him up with?
No, she couldn"t risk it. She had to tie him up right now, while he was still unconscious, and she had to tie him up good because he was a bull. There was only one way to do that.
Kathryn grabbed the hem of her skirt with both hands and ripped as hard as she could. The cotton fabric resisted at the hem, but then tore past, leaving a long split up her thigh.
Working in frenzy, begging that form on the floor to remain still, she shredded the bottom of her dress, tearing off four strips before deciding she could wait no longer.
Dropping to her knees, Kathryn straddled Zeke"s thighs and reached for his right arm to pull it back. It was then that he groaned and tried to lift his head off the floor.
The change came so unexpectedly that Kathryn cried out, jumped back, tripped on her heels, and went sprawling to her seat beyond his feet.
Zeke grunted and shook his head. Started to push himself up.
No! No, no, no . . .
Blinded once again by panic, Kathryn dove for the fallen frying pan, grabbed its handle, scrambled to her knees, and, with all her might, brought the skillet back down on his head from behind.
Zeke dropped to his face like a bull that had just received a million-volt surge of electric current.
Thump.
She sat back on her heels, panting. There. There, he was down. Still breathing but down.
She had to hurry.
Straddling him, Kathryn started with his hands once again, pulling them behind his back. This time he stayed out.
She wound a strip of cloth around both wrists and tugged the tie tight. Then wound a second strip overlapping the first, this time using her heels for leverage as she cinched the knot as snug as she could.
She quickly did the same at his ankles. And then, to be absolutely sure, she tore off another two strips and bound one around his arms at his elbows, and the second around his knees.
That made six bindings, but that wasn"t good enough either, was it? She tore off a seventh strip of cloth and bound it around his mouth so he couldn"t yell out and alert Claude or anyone else posted outside.