Chapter 11

"She does love you. Perhaps too much."

Simon's voice still carried the same self-confidence that Steven remembered from the only other time he had heard it. His thumb hovered over the "End" button, an instant away from silencing him. Instead, he pulled the car to the side of the road, unable to look away from Elyse's name staring back at him from the tiny glowing screen.

"How did you get her cell?" Steven asked, after a moment's pause. He was determined not to let the defeat show in his own voice, but doubted that Simon would be fooled.

"There's no shame in fleeing from a blow to your very heart, a blow that may keep one from returning to fight another day."

"Arrogant fuck!" Steven shouted into the tiny phone. His hand closed around it, now so tightly it dug into his palm like a weapon sent not to kill, but to merely torture him.

"Arrogant, Steven? Do you see this as arrogance? Is asking a husband to rescue his loving wife arrogance? Is warning her husband that her very life depend on his actions arrogant?"

"What have you done to her?" Steven shouted again, now shaking violently with both anger and fear.

"Have you've ever taken her for granted, ever disappointed her, Steven? Think about those times, every one, however frivolous or short-lived. No doubt at least a few of those times were taken to heart more deeply than you imagined. But you know that, don't you, Steven? Inside, you're afraid to own them, afraid to count them, afraid they might justify her surrender to another man. Don't disappoint her this time, Steven. It may be your last chance."

The phone went silent. Elyse's name vanished from the screen, the connection severed. At that instant, Steven felt the delicate thread connecting them stretched to near breaking. Would he hold tight while Elyse dangled from the opposite end, or release her, letting her fall helplessly, even perhaps willingly, into Simon's hands?

A light rain pelted the windshield, and the darkened streets became slick, black mirrors, each abstract reflection suggesting the existence of some unseen world beneath the black asphalt. A sudden gust of wind heaved an overhanging branch toward him, then away, it's leaves waving the way to his new destination. Steven turned the car around and drove back into the night.

Steven retraced the route to Simon's estate not by effort of memory as before, but by sheer determination, as if guided by the programmed instructions of a hidden subroutine triggered by something he chose not to understand or question. The mist on his windshield turned to a wall of water bursting from the night sky. Flickers of lightning in the distance now found him, the stabbing electric explosions of light and thunder following him as he drove. There was a time when he might have thought of the weather as a horrific monster, some bizarre extension of Simon, intentionally impeding his way to save his wife. But Steven drove on, unaffected, untouched by demons he had feared for so long.

He found the entrance easily, turning sharply into the wide space in the dark hedges that hid the property from sight. The drive swept to the left, still lined by ten-foot hedges, concealing any trace of the inner grounds from the street. Steven stopped the car before the huge iron gate, the headlights suddenly revealing his worst fears.

Elyse hung from the gate, her arms outspread, her wrists tied to the heavy bars. She was naked, her alabaster skin glowing against the black night. Her head hung forward, her dark hair a solid, drenched curtain that hid her face from him. Steven stared, fixed to the steering wheel,

searching desperately for a hint of life, one breath that might give him the strength to escape the suffocating fear that had again become an unwelcome passenger within the car. A sudden blue-white burst of light turned the night to day for a split second, accompanied by an immediate deafening crash of thunder. Steven's hand rose to shield his eyes to the blinding light, shuddering as the thunder rocked the car. Then, focusing once more on Elyse's glistening ivory body, he noticed an almost imperceptible rise and fall of her breasts, a shallow breath that became a ray of hope as the raindrops fell, one by one, from her small red nipples.