Cody McFadyen - Shadow Man

I see James think about this. His face goes grim. "He made it with the knife."

We can't be sure, of course. But it feels right.

The stranger takes the point of his knife and pricks the hollow of Bonnie's throat. Nothing major, just enough to draw a single bead of blood, a single gasp. Enough to show that he means business, to make Annie's heart jump and thud and quiver.

"Do what I say," he says, "or your daughter dies slow."

And right then, it was over. Bonnie was his leverage, and Annie belonged to him.

"I'll do whatever you want. Just don't hurt her."

He smells Annie's fear, and it excites him. An erection stirs in his trousers.

"I think Bonnie was there while he raped and tortured Annie. I think he made her watch it all," I say.

James cocks his head. "Why?"

"A few reasons. The main one is that he kept Bonnie alive. Why? It gave him an extra person he had to control. It would have been easier if he'd just killed her. But Annie was the prey. He's into torture, he likes fear. Anguish. Having Bonnie there, having Annie know she was there and seeing what was happening . . . it would have driven her insane. He would have liked that."

James mulls this over. "I agree. For another reason too."

"What?"

He looks me in the eye. "You. He's hunting you too, Smoky. And hurting Bonnie makes the cut that much deeper."

I stare at him in surprise.

He's right.

Chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug-a, the dark train is picking up speed . . .

"Do what I tell you, or I'll hurt your mommy," he says to Bonnie. He uses their love of each other like a cattle prod, driving them toward the bedroom.

"He moves them into the bedroom." I walk down the hall. James follows. We step inside. "He closes it." I reach over and shut the door. I imagine Annie, watching it close and not realizing that she would never see it open again.

James stares at the bed, thinking. Envisioning. "He still has two of them to control," he says. "He wouldn't have been afraid of Bonnie, but he can't relax yet, not until Annie's secured."

"Annie was handcuffed in the video."

"Right. So he made her handcuff herself. Just one wrist is all he'd need."

"Take these," he'd said to Annie, removing a pair of handcuffs from a bag, tossing them at her--

No, that wasn't right. Rewind.

He has the knife to Bonnie's throat. He looks at Annie. Looks her up and down, owning her with his eyes. Making sure she understands this.

"Strip," he says. "Strip for me."

She hesitates, and he wiggles the blade against Bonnie's throat. "Strip."

Annie does, weeping, as Bonnie watches. She leaves her bra and panties on, one last resistance.

"All of it!" he growls at her. Wiggles the knife. Annie complies, weeping harder now--

No. Rewind.

Annie complies and forces herself not to weep. To be strong for her daughter. She removes her bra and panties and holds Bonnie's eyes with her own. Look at my face, she's thinking, willing. Look at my face. Not this. Not him. Now he removes the handcuffs from the bag he'd brought in.

"Handcuff your wrist to the bed," he tells Annie. "Do it now."

She does. Once he hears the click of the ratchet, he reaches into the bag and pulls out two other pairs of handcuffs. These go around Bonnie's tiny wrists and ankles. She is trembling. He ignores her sobs as he gags her. Bonnie looks at her mother, a pleading look. A look that says: "Make it stop!" This makes Annie cry harder.

He's still cautious, careful. He's not letting himself relax yet. He moves over to Annie and handcuffs her other wrist to the bed. Followed by her ankles. Then he gags her.

Now. Now he can relax. His prey is secure. She can't escape, won't escape. Didn't escape, I think.

Now he can savor the moment.

He takes his time setting up the room. Positioning the bed, getting the video camera just right. There is a way that things are done, a symmetry that is impor- tant, vital. You don't rush this. To miss a step is to take away from the beauty of the act, and the act is everything. It's his air and his water.

"The bed," James says.

"What?" I look at it, puzzled.

He stands up and walks over to the baseboard. Annie's bed is queen-size, formed of smooth, rounded wooden pieces. Sturdy.

"How did he move it?" He walks to the headboard and looks down at the carpet. "Drag marks. So he pulled it toward him." He moves back to the base of the bed. "He would have gripped it somewhere here and pulled it by walking backward. He'd need leverage . . ." James kneels down. "He'd have grabbed it at the bottom and lifted it." He stands up, walks to the side of the bed, drops onto his back, and squirms under the bed up to his shoulders. I see the light of his flashlight go on, then back off. When he comes back out, he is smiling. "No print powder there."

We look at each other. I can almost feel each of us crossing our fingers. People make the mistake of thinking that latex gloves prevent the transfer of fingerprints. In most cases, this is true. But not always. These types of gloves were originally developed for surgeons so they could maintain a sterile buffer during operations. The flip side of this is that the gloves have to fit like a second skin for the surgeons to use their instruments with no loss of precision or sensitivity. This tightness and thinness can cause the gloves to form-fit into the ridges and bifurcations of the prints on the hand and fingertips. If--and this is a big if, but still possible--someone wearing the gloves then touches a surface that can take an impression, they can leave a usable print. Annie's bed is made of wood. It's possible that cleaning solutions used on it could have left a residue that would retain a fingerprint impression, even through the killer's gloves.

A long shot. But possible.

"Good one," I say.

"Thanks."

Oil and ball bearings, I think. On the killing ground, this is the only place that James plays nice.

The stage is set. He's moved the bed . . . just so. The camera is positioned . . . just so. He does one last check to make sure that everything is perfect. It is. Now he gives Annie his full attention, gazing down at her. This is the first time she truly sees. He's been distracted, setting up his theater. She still had hope. Now his gaze is fixed on her, and she understands. She sees eyes that have no horizon. They are bottomless, black, and filled with an unending hunger.

He knows when she knows. When she understands. It enflames him, like it al- ways does. He has extinguished hope in another human being. It makes him feel like a god.

James and I have arrived at the same place on this timeline. We are there. We see him, we see Annie, and out of the corner of our eyes, we see Bonnie. We smell the despair. The dark train is picking up speed, and we are along for the ride, tickets punched.

"Now let's watch the video again," he says.

I double-click the file, and we watch as the montage rolls by. He dances, he slices, he rapes.

The sheer violence of what he is doing sprays blood everywhere, and he can smell it, taste it, feel the slick of it through his clothes. At one point, he turns to look at the child. Her face is white, and her body shakes as though she's having a seizure. This creates an almost unbearable, near-orgasmic symphony of delicious extremes for him. He shivers, every muscle shaking with emotion and sensation. He isn't just being bad. He is raping good. Fucking it to death. Music and blood and guts and screams and terror. The world is shaking, and he is its epicenter. He is climbing toward the pinnacle, and he lets it come to him--that point where all of it explodes in a searing, blinding light, where all reason and anything human dis- appears.