“I think,” said Ruger, reaching out with the toe of his shoe and nudging Connie’s knee, “that I’ll let the Stepford Wife go. ”
“M…me?”
“Y…yes,” Ruger mocked, “y…you. ”
“Down the cellar?”
“No, I want you to run down to the drugstore and fetch me a bottle of baby aspirin. Yes, the fucking cellar. Don’t you pay any attention?”
“For rope?” Connie said in a five-?year-?old’s voice.
“And tape. You get them and then hustle your white bread ass right back up here. No tricks, no stalling. Just get the stuff and come right back. ”
“By myself?” Connie seemed to be having a hard time grasping the specifics of her mission.
Ruger rolled his eyes. “Jeez, can you really be this fucking dumb?” He looked at Val and Guthrie, who were studying the pattern of the rug on the floor. He sighed. “Okay, so you probably are this fucking dumb. Whatever. Just go and get the stuff and come right back. ”
Connie backed away from him, nodding numbly. She reached the entrance to the hallway, bumped against the door frame, half spun, and then fled down the corridor. Ruger saw her open the door at the far end and listened to her feet clattering on the wooden steps. He leaned against the door frame and called out, “Remember, darlin’, no games. Just find the stuff and hustle back. ” Turning to Guthrie, he said, “She isn’t too bright, is she?”
“She’s just scared. ”
“What about you?” he said to Val. “Are you scared?”
“Of course I am,” she said bitterly.
“Maybe, but you aren’t scared stupid like your sister. ”
“I’m scared enough, mister. ” The image of the EPT test kit upstairs in the medicine cabinet flashed into her brain, unbidden and immediate. Her eyes wavered and fell away, down to her hands twisting in her lap.
Ruger looked at her, measuring her. “Good,” he said after a slow moment.
In the cellar, Connie tramped down the last steps, walked blindly past the gun cabinet, past the workbench with its collections of awls and screwdrivers and utility knives, past the wall phone, and made a hectic beeline for the closet where the clothesline was kept. She snatched up two plastic-?wrapped fifty-?foot lengths, and from a lower shelf she took a huge roll of dark gray duct tape. For some reason she clutched them to her chest as if they were sacred objects, spun on her heel, and fled back upstairs. She turned off the light and bathed all of the actual objects of salvation in useless darkness.
“Good girl, now go sit down. ”
Connie went obediently to the couch, turned, and sat down, smoothing her skirt around her. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, ankles together, eyes downcast. Ruger looked at her as if she were something from another planet, which, in a way, she was, if he was typical of the world that he came from. The bundles of rope lay on the coffee table, but Ruger held the roll of tape, tossing it lightly into the air and catching it one-?handed.
Val glanced at Connie, feeling sorry for her sister-?in-?law. It was apparent to Val that Connie had retreated—fled—into herself. Beyond the last name she’d taken in marriage she shared absolutely nothing in common with Val. Connie had grown up wealthy, soft, and sheltered. She was middling intelligent, good-?hearted, truly loved Mark, aspired to no heights beyond maintaining a household, and apparently spent very little time in her own thoughts. Generally her chatter was borderline inane and Val routinely tuned it out when she could, and for the most part didn’t really like Connie very much. Now, though, she loved her and wanted to hug her and shelter her.
She was also assessing Connie, wondering if maybe she had placed a 911 call downstairs, or had secreted a knife somewhere in her clothes, but as wonderful as that would be, Val doubted if it was true. Connie just wasn’t like that. As far as Val could see, if Connie had strength of any kind—either wit or courage—it was so deeply submerged that she was unaware of it.
“Now,” said Ruger, pouring another finger of bourbon, “anyone want to guess why I had Miss Polly Purebred fetch this stuff?” He took a sip, then knocked it back. “No guesses? Well, I can see it in your eyes. If you think that I’m gonna tie you up, that’s right. That should tell you something, shouldn’t it?”
Val shook her head.
“I think he means,” said her father, “that he wouldn’t bother tying us up if he meant to kill us. ”
Val looked expectantly at Ruger. “You father’s on the ball, and he’s right, too. I didn’t come here to waste your sorry hillbilly asses. If I wanted to do that, I’d have done it already. So, maybe I’m not as much a bad guy as I seem, huh?”
Val almost let loose a derisive snort, but caught herself.
“I can’t have you running around loose, either. So, it’s hog-?tying time on the old farmstead. ”
“What if we have to go to the ladies’ room?” asked Connie, in what appeared to be a reasonable voice. It was such a reasonable and conversational voice that it chilled Val.
“Uh-?oh,” said Ruger, showing mock horror, “I think Donna Reed is no longer with us. Wonder if I could wake her up some. ”
“Leave her alone. ”