He mutters something and shifts his body, projecting wet snores in my direction. For a moment, I think he might be fake-sleeping and watching me instead.
I start to cry. I don’t want to. I don’t want him to win. But everything hurts—my head, my wrists, my arms, even the mere act of blinking in this stupid mask. I tell myself, don’t give up, you can’t give up, you will get out of this nightmare.
*
“You messed yourself.”
His voice shatters my blissful void of sleep.
“My bad,” he continues. “Next time let me know and we’ll work something out.”
It’s the first time he’s spoken a full sentence since he took me. The way he talks, he could be your next door neighbor or the guy on the bus.
We are driving again. And it’s light. The morning kind. The quality of the air has changed, too. There are shadows of buildings, small-town noises, a lawn mower, a jackhammer, cars, the sluggish forge of a train. I wonder how many miles I am from Del Norte.
“We got to make a stop, fighter. So I’m going to ask you to behave for a bit, if that’s okay with you.”
Keeping the engine idling, he pulls over, reaches into the backseat, pushes a rag in my mouth, and covers me with that blanket again. He drives a few more feet, takes a sharp right. A disembodied voice crackles through a drive-thru speaker.
“Welcome to Wicked Joe’s Burgers, what can I get you?”
Moonboot gives his order and collects his food. He drives for ten minutes and parks up somewhere quiet.
He dislodges my gag, removes the blanket, and settles down to eat. I can see him through the gauze of my mask, staring out the windshield as he chews and sucks on his straw. I watch his jaw rotate and begin to salivate from the smell of bacon and sausage and cheese and ketchup.
Abruptly, he leans and pokes the straw into my mouth. “Wet your whistle with that.”
I nearly vomit at the thought this straw has also touched his lips but I drink and the tepid orange juice is wonderful and the glucose floods my bloodstream and I feel instantly giddy. Next he pushes an egg-soaked corner of a bun into my mouth, followed by a wedge of sausage patty and more juice.
He smashes the trash into a ball and lobs it in the garbage bin outside. I listen to the metal flap swing back and forth and think DNA. Our DNA. Mixed together on that straw and how no one will ever know this important piece of evidence is there.
I’m expecting the chloroform again, but it doesn’t come. Instead, he says—
“Settle in, fighter. There’s a long drive ahead.”
6
Matthew and I never actually talked about when we would go. I was content enough to live off the fantasy, the two of us out there in the windswept wilderness, sharing aluminum pouches of freeze-dried food, making love under the stars. It was like oxygen to me.
The dream kept me going through the long days and nights at the firm when I would sit in those torturous marathon meetings and imagine the sun on my shoulders. I started buying items for him from my little supply shop on Lafayette Street. Soon I had two of everything. Pocket lights and compasses and mini binoculars and waterproof ponchos. I splurged and bought a double sleeping bag for couples.
One day I suggested we set a date and work toward it and he didn’t object. I chose late August. The tail end of summer. The days would be bright but not too hot. Ideal conditions for daytime trekking and nighttime snuggles.
Then “The Deal” happened. It was all he could talk about. The Cooper Deal. It was worth eighty million dollars and a huge bonus for him. He and the partners and sycophants would disappear into the war room for days. Matthew slept under his suit jacket at the office, lived on coffee and bagels. He started to tent his fingers and stroke his tie and slap backs and use expressions like “synergy” and “value-add” and “sea change.”
“It’s such a rush, Amelia, to be part of something this big. These guys, man, I can smell the money coming out their pores.”
I told myself it was the lack of sleep, the adrenaline, the poor nutritional choices talking, not my free-spirited, anti-capitalist Matthew.
But it only got worse. He was always wired, talking a million miles an hour, tense like a coiled spring. Sometimes he looked right through me. Even the way he made love changed. It was like he was engaging in some sort of sport, grunting and grinding. Ejaculating was scoring a touchdown. Everything had become a game.
The Cooper Deal was followed by the Sampson Deal and the Carter Deal and the Heller Van Asch Deal and Matthew seemed to slip further and further out of my reach until one day I walked in on him screwing Melissa, the shiny new intern, on the sofa in the breakout room on a Friday night. I stood there, momentarily transfixed by the two glinting nipple piercings on Melissa’s swinging breasts, then simply walked away.
I didn’t wish Matthew any malice or bear him any grudge. I knew it was the machine, chewing him up, spitting him out, affecting his brain, the way he thought. It was like a disease.
I only hoped he would survive it. Because one day there would be a crash, whether it was him or the corporate scheming, and he would face the ledge of despair, or the noose, or the taste of a gun, because that’s what happens to good men. Good men fall while bad men thrive.
7
On the floorboard I can make out a dog collar with tags, the green leather tip worn and split. I wonder what the dog’s name is, whether it’s friendly or vicious, where it is now. I like dogs and have always thought highly of the people who owned them. Clearly I would need to change that assessment.
The effects of the stupefying solvent were lessening and my thinking was getting clearer. I tell myself that I must log details, for later, for when I escape. Ten things. Just focus on ten things.
First my surroundings. The car. Mint-colored Capri. Wood-beaded driver’s seat cover. Kermit the Frog on the rearview. In the center dash, reusable coffee cup encased in a purple rubber rim with a Hawkins oil refinery logo on it. Squeaky spring under my left hip. Striped mocha-colored upholstery. Everything shiny and pungent from Armor All. No trash, apart from a single fluttering receipt on the floorboard next to the dog collar.
I wonder if Moonboot is one of those guys who vacuums and waxes his car every Sunday, if he has a house without a thing out of place, if he likes everything just so and flies into a rage at the slightest sign of dust. Strangely, it’s more worrying that he isn’t a slob. You’d expect someone who abducts a woman from a parking lot in broad daylight to be a rambling, disorganized nut job. Moonboot is none of these things. He is different. Confident. Together. Maybe even smart.
I glance at the receipt and I’m thinking it would be a big help down the road to show what he bought, the time he bought it, the store he bought it from. Maybe it would lead to a name on a credit card or a face on a camera. But if I reach for it now he will undoubtedly see, so I bide my time and decide to wait until later when I get a chance.
Then there’s him. I tilt my head and squint through the mask to study his profile. He has a good nose, not too large or small, but perfectly proportioned. Strong jaw line, brown hair graying at the temples, so he is probably older than I initially thought. Early fifties, skin the color of nutmeg. Muscular, as if he works the land, healthy, except for his mind, there’s nothing healthy about that. His movements convey a casual self-assurance, like he is in control, like he knows he will not get caught, like he’s done this before.