Thankless in Death (In Death 37)

That should do it for now, he thought, and strolled back into the office.

He smiled brilliantly when he saw her eyes open, terrified, confused. Bumped up the smile when those eyes landed on him, when he watched recognition—and then horror—bloom in them.

“Hi, Ms. Farnsworth! Remember me? You flunked me out of Comp Science—screwed up my life. We’re going to have ourselves a teacher-student conference.” For effect, he thwacked the meat cleaver into the desk. “Starting now.”

9

HE PULLED A CHAIR OVER SO THEY FACED each other, braced an ankle on his knee. “I had to take your stinking class over because you had it in for me. I got in-home detention for a month, stuck in there with my bitching, carping parents. You fed them lies when they came in for your student crisis meeting. You told them I was lazy and careless, how all I wanted to do was play comp games instead of learning the lame, stupid, worthless science. You cost me my fucking summer, all those weeks taking that class over when my friends were hanging. I couldn’t go to the shore.”

He lifted the nippers, studied them, smelled her fear sweat. “It was the worse summer of my life. My friends ragged on me every damn day, and I was stuck in class with losers just because you wanted to screw with me.”

He leaned forward, and though she tried to curl her fingers, keep them balled in a fist, he pried one out, fit the nippers over it. Smiled at her.

“I’m going to take the tape off so you can explain all this to me. Give me your side of it. If you scream, I’m going to snip this finger off at the knuckle. You got that?”

She nodded, her eyes glued to his as he pulled at one corner of the tape.

“One scream, one finger,” he warned and yanked the tape free.

She hissed in a breath at the rip on her skin, let it out in a tremble. “I won’t scream, Jerry.”

“Nobody’s going to hear you anyway, the way you’ve got this place closed up, but I don’t want to hear it.” He really wanted to tighten his hold on those nippers, feel the snip, watch her face when he did. But it occurred to him she might need her fingers to make the ID he wanted.

Still, she wouldn’t need her toes if it came to that. Slowly, he drew the nippers away, set them down.

“So, what’s your side of it, Ms. Farnsworth?” He put on an attentive face, and still couldn’t conceal the ugly glee in his eyes. “I’m really interested.”

“I wanted to help you. I did,” she insisted, when he picked up the nippers again. “I went about it the wrong way. I made a mistake.” She had to fight back tears of relief when he took his hand off the nippers, gave herself a moment, just a moment to gather herself. “I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.”

“You were on my case from day one.”

“You had such potential.” She wasn’t entirely sure that was a lie. She had seen potential. And utter laziness. But she’d tried so hard with him, had given him so many chances. For God’s sake, she’d worked with him one-on-one, assigned one of her best students as his lab partner.

“I couldn’t figure out how to mine that potential, how to reach you.” That was a lie, she thought. She’d been a good teacher, and she’d tried everything in her arsenal with Jerald Reinhold. He’d been one of her few failures because he hadn’t cared, he’d been consistently lazy, obviously ungrateful. “That was my failure. My fault.”

“You marked down my work.”

Part of her wanted to rise up, to take him down to size with her outraged teacher’s voice because she’d done no such thing. If anything she’d given him slightly higher marks initially in hopes to build his confidence, inspire him to try harder.

So she used that. “I sensed great things in you, Jerry, so I pushed you hard. Too hard. I didn’t see that until it was too late. I regret that. I’m sorry for that. I wish I could go back and do it all over.”

“Do-over.” He snorted the term, but she’d confused him. He’d never expected her to admit all of it. Never expected her to see she’d been the one at fault.

Didn’t matter, he thought. The plan was the plan.

“Give me the combination to your safe.”

He snapped it out so fast, she jolted, and though her stomach clenched, she told him, slowly and clearly.

“If that’s not it, you lose a finger.”

He slapped the tape back in place, walked out.

Alone, she tried to shift, to turn and twist. She couldn’t see the cords around her wrists, her ankles, but she could feel them cutting into her. He’d taped over the cords, taped around and around her and the chair so she was all but glued in it.

But maybe with repetitive motion she could loosen it all, just enough. Or maybe she could find a way to coax him into freeing her hands.

Where was Snuffy? What had he done to the poor little thing? Harmless as a lamb, she thought, and fought tears again.