Chelsea Cain - Heartsick

He feels that kiss even as she peels back the bandage covering the surgical incision that stretches from his xiphoid process to his navel. Even as he catches a glimpse of the black sutures that hold his flesh together. She looks pleased. “The swelling’s gone down as well as the redness,” she comments.

He stares unblinking at the ceiling. There is no escaping. It is all a sick joke. She could keep him alive down there for years. He is at her mercy.

But he has to know. “What are you going to do with me?”

“Keep you.”

“For how long?” he asks.

Gretchen leans over him again, this time eye-to-eye, so he can’t help but look at her, her blue eyes wide, one eyebrow slightly arched, skin glowing. She smiles and is radiant. “Until you like it,” she says.

He closes his eyes. “I’d like to sleep.”

When he wakes up, she has the X-Acto knife out again and she is cutting into his chest. It hurts, but he doesn’t care. It’s a minor nuisance, a mosquito bite. But it reminds him that he is alive.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asks, not looking up.

“No,” he says. “I’m hoping you’ll nick an artery.” His voice is frail, his throat still aflame with pain.

She puts her palm on his cheek and leans in close to his ear, as if they are about to share a secret. “What about your children? Don’t you want to live for them?”

Ben’s and Sara’s sweet faces flash before him and he wipes the image clean from his mind, until there is nothing. He turns his head toward the wall. “I don’t have any children.”

“How long hasit been?” he asks her. His slide in and out of consciousness has allowed time to slip away altogether. How long have they been there? Weeks? Months now? He has no idea. He has been spitting up blood again. He knows that it worries her. Her exquisite face has become taut and she is always there, always at his side. It is the one thing he can count on. He wants to stop spitting up the blood, to please her, but he can’t help himself.

She is seated beside him. She puts a piece of blond hair behind her ear and presses her fingers against his wrist to take his pulse. She’s been doing this a lot, and he realizes that it is because he is dying. He knows that she will touch his wrist for fifteen seconds, and it is the only thing he looks forward to. There is something about her touch that consoles him absolutely. He savors those fifteen seconds, memorizing the feel of her skin against his so that he can imagine her fingers there when she lifts her hand.

“Untie me,” he says. He has to take several breaths to get enough oxygen to speak, and even then his voice is a faint rasp.

She doesn’t even think about it. She reaches down and unfastens the leather bindings that trap one wrist, and then undoes the other. He’s too weak to raise his arms even a few inches, but she lifts his hand to her mouth and kisses his palm. He feels the warm tears on her face before he sees them. She is crying. And it breaks his heart. The tears rise in his own eyes even as hers cool on his hand.

“It’s all right,” he says, comforting her.

He smiles. Because he believes it. Everything is all right. He is right where he is supposed to be. She is so beautiful and he is so tired. And it is almost over.

A rchie called theprison from the cab, so by the time he paid his $138 fare and made his way through security, Gretchen had been rousted and placed in the interview room to wait for him. She was sitting at the table when he came into the room, hair loose, no makeup, yet still somehow put together. Like an actress made up to look unkempt.

“It’s four in the morning,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sitting across from her. “Were you in the middle of something?”

She glanced warily over her shoulder at the panel of two-way glass. “Is Henry here?”

“I’m alone. There’s no one behind the glass. I told the guards to wait on the other side of the door. So it’s just you and me. I took a cab.”

“From Portland?” Gretchen asked skeptically.

“I’m a hero cop,” Archie said wearily. “I have an expense account.”

She gave him a slow, sleepy smile. “You must have caught him.”

Archie could feel himself finally relaxing. It was more of a surrender, really. He used up so much energy keeping up appearances, and with her it didn’t matter. She knew exactly how damaged he was. So he could let his muscles loosen, his eyelids fall heavy, his voice thicken. He could scratch his face if it itched. He could say what came into his head without worrying if it shed too much light on what he was really thinking. “A sharpshooter plugged him in the head about three hours ago. You would have enjoyed it.” He raised an eyebrow in reconsideration. “Except that he died instantly.”

“Well, aren’t you the serial killer bloodhound? Did you come to brag?”

“I can’t drop by and say hi without an ulterior motive?”

“It’s not Sunday.” She cocked her head and examined him, and a tiny little line formed between her eyebrows. “Are you okay?”

He laughed at the ridiculousness of the question. He was definitely not okay. He has an exhausting, stressful, rewarding day at work, and where does he go? The state pen. Because what could be more calming than spending quality time with a woman who repeatedly drove a nail into your chest? “I just wanted to see you.” He rubbed his eyes with his hand. “How fucked up is that?”

“Do you know the origin of the term Stockholm syndrome ?” Gretchen asked sweetly. She reached out her manacled hands and laid her palms flat on the tabletop so that the tips of her fingers were inches from where Archie’s right hand lay on the table. “In 1973, a petty criminal named Janne Olsson walked into the Kreditbanken bank in Stockholm with a machine gun. He demanded three million crowns and that a friend of his be freed from prison. The police released the friend and sent him into the bank, and he and Olsson held four bank employees hostage in a vault for six days. The police finally drilled a hole into the vault and pumped in gas, and Olsson and his friend surrendered.” She slid her hands across the table, closer to Archie. Her hands were smooth, the nails cut short. “All the hostages were freed, unharmed. Their lives had been threatened, they had been forced to wear nooses around their necks, and yet to a person they defended Olsson. One of the women said that she had wanted to run off with him. Olsson served eight years in prison. You know where he is now?” Gently, slowly, she brushed Archie’s thumb with her fingertips. “He runs a grocery store in Bangkok.”

Archie looked down at where their hands touched, but he didn’t move a muscle. “They should consider stiffer sentencing in Sweden.”

“ Stockholm is lovely. The Bergianska botanical garden has a greenhouse that has plants from every climate zone in the world. I’ll take you there one day.”

“You’re never getting out of prison.”

She raised her eyebrows noncommittally and drew a tiny circle on the crook of his thumb with her finger.

“It’s funny,” Archie said, watching her finger on his thumb. “How Reston waited ten years to start killing. Anne says there must have been a trigger.”

“Oh?”

Archie looked up. “How did you meet him?”

Gretchen smiled. “Meet him?”

“ Reston,” Archie said. He threaded his hand in hers. It was the first time he had ever made an effort to touch her, and he thought he saw a flicker of surprise in her eyes. “He was one of your accomplices. Maybe one you were training,” he said, letting himself enjoy the heat of her hand in his. “He was there that day. He was the second man who lifted me into the van. And then you went to prison. And he festered. And it set him off. How did you meet him?”