Michael Prescott: Blind Pursuit

She let her vision adjust to the light as she rose from the chair and slowly surveyed her surroundings.

Not a torture chamber, not a crypt. Merely a dusty cellar room, ten feet square, with walls of unpainted brick, lightly mildewed, and a floor and ceiling of concrete.

A sillcock sprouted from one wall at knee level. When she turned the handle, water drooled out in a thin, warm stream, puddling on the floor.

The only furnishings were the chair he’d put her in, a similar chair facing it, and a five-foot foam pad partly covered by a cotton blanket.

Her bed, apparently. For how many nights? Better not think about it.

The room had no ornament or decoration of any kind. No windows, and only one door, of wood. Not a hollow door, she was certain; it had to be solid mahogany. It looked disturbingly impregnable, though a small peephole fitted with a fish-eye lens had been cut in it at a height of six feet.

He must be staring through that lens right now, studying her as she explored her surroundings. She felt like a gerbil in a cage.

Near her chair was a medium-size suitcase. One of her own. Resting on top of it, her purse. Those items must be what he’d been carrying in his left hand.

Apparently he had raided her apartment after zapping her. She wondered why.

The cash was gone from her wallet, but otherwise the contents of her purse were untouched. She spent a long moment looking at the bottle of pills.

Unzipping the suitcase, she found some of her clothes and toiletries haphazardly stuffed inside. She made a show of sorting out the items while considering what she knew or guessed about her abductor.

It was clear that he had carefully planned both her kidnapping and her confinement. Detailed preparation was inconsistent with schizophrenia or other acute psychosis. The person whose thoughts were a tissue of illogical associative leaps was largely incapable of orderly, methodical reasoning.

From their brief dialogue she gathered that he was relatively calm, not manic, not desperate, in control of the situation and of himself. That was good. He was less likely to do something impulsive if he was somewhat relaxed.

His speaking voice, in fact, was reassuringly normal in most respects. She had detected no hint of the pure sociopath’s affectless monotone or the would-be suicide’s listlessness and despair.

She didn’t want him to be suicidal. The line between suicide and murder was easily crossed.

He seemed intelligent, articulate, fairly knowledgeable; not only had he noticed that her pulse was fast, he’d estimated the rate. And the kidnapping had been skillfully executed, by no means the work of an incompetent.

She wondered just how smart he was. Smart enough to outthink her? To counter any strategy she could devise?

Hope not, she thought grimly. If so, I’m in major trouble.

As if she wasn’t, anyway.

She finished examining the things he’d brought from her home. The oddest items were a bundle of envelopes and a sheaf of writing paper, both from her desk drawer. She had no idea what he would want with those.

The only other object in the room was a large, lidless cardboard box. She inventoried its contents also.

Canned goods, bananas and apples, dried fruit, loaf of bread, jar of peanut butter.

Picnic plates, paper cups, plastic utensils. Paper napkins and towels. Manual can opener. Pail, sponge, washcloth.

Roll of toilet paper, sealed in plastic shrink-wrap. Empty milk jugs and coffee cans-for bathroom purposes, she realized.

Two last things. A ballpoint pen and a manila folder stuffed with what appeared to be yellowed newspaper clippings.

Frowning, she reached for the folder.

“Not yet, Doc.”

His voice again, from the other side of the door. She caught her breath, startled.

“You can look at that stuff later,” he added. “You’ll have plenty of opportunity. You’ll be spending a good deal of time in this room. All your time from now on, in fact.”

She turned toward the lens in the door. It glinted at her like a single, unblinking eye.

“How long can I expect my stay to last?” she asked, trying to keep the question safely neutral.

“As long as required.”

“I’m not sure I understand.” Keep it light, not challenging, not defiant.

“Everything will be explained shortly. First, you’ve got a job to do. You see the pen I’ve provided, the writing paper and envelopes in your suitcase?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to write a letter-a very brief letter-to your sister.”

Annie. She must be okay, then. He wouldn’t want a message sent to her if she’d been kidnapped, too.

“All right,” Erin said casually. “What should the letter say?”

In the momentary silence that preceded his reply, she considered the most probable scenarios.

Ransom demand. That would almost be a relief, an indication of a comprehensible motive.

General complaint against the psychological profession. Perhaps he’d been hospitalized against his will sometime earlier in his life and had developed a hatred of all mental-health practitioners.

Personal complaint against her. It was possible she’d treated him briefly at some early point in her internship, perhaps for only one or two sessions, and he held some kind of grudge.

The last would be the most dangerous development, and perhaps the most likely. It was not uncommon for a disgruntled patient to set out to destroy his therapist’s reputation and career. Many frivolous malpractice suits were prompted by nothing more than personal animus.

Of course, shocking your shrink into unconsciousness and carting her off to a secret hideaway showed considerably more determination than filing a lawsuit.

She waited.

“The letter,” he said finally, “will state your decision to go away for a while, on your own. You need some time to yourself. Your sister shouldn’t worry-everything is fine-but she may not hear from you for an indefinite period. Got it?”

Bad. Very bad.

He didn’t want money for her, and he wasn’t interested in making a statement, general or personal.

He simply wanted her to disappear. Indefinitely.

“Got it?” he said again.

She managed a weak smile. “No problem.”

“A word of warning, Doc. I’ll peruse that letter extremely carefully. Any deviation from the content I outlined-any clues, any hints-will not pass unnoticed. Or unpunished.”

Peruse, he’d said. Hell, his vocabulary was better than her own.

“I won’t drop any hints.” She hoped her shrug looked sincere. “I know when it pays to be cooperative, and this is one of those times. Anyway, it’s fairly obvious you’ve been one step ahead of me all along.”

“You’re working so hard to establish a rapport with me, lull me into a false sense of complacency. See how well you’ve succeeded?”

Oh, sure, she thought bleakly. I’ve got you right where I want you.

Seated in the chair, a sheaf of embossed paper balanced on her knee, she composed the letter in a few sparse lines. There was no suggestion of her own personality in the message. A robot could have written it.

Annie would never believe any of this garbage, of course. Each of them knew the other far too well to fall for such an obvious trick.

Possibly, however, the letter was intended not to deceive Annie, but to defuse any police investigation that might be under way. Tucson P.D. could hardly pursue a missing-person case when the person in question had expressly stated that she’d left town voluntarily.

And if no one was looking for her, she would never be found.

“Make out the envelope, too,” he ordered as she put down the pen.

Writing the address, she had an idea. A sizable risk for a minimal gain, but she would dare it.