Act V (31 page)

Her eyes were focusing a
little better now though the headache was still fierce. Her mouth
tasted like cotton, and she realized that she had been gagged. She
searched the room for evidence of her whereabouts. There were no
pictures on the walls, nothing decorative at all. There was a
rolling metal table on one side of the room pushed up against a
stainless steel sink. Beside the table sat a rolling office chair.
She seemed to occupy the only other piece of furniture in the room.
A bed? It was too big and too high for a couch. At the expense of
great pain, she rotated her head to look above and behind her.
There was an iron headboard with rungs every few inches. Her wrists
had been tied to those rungs with scarves.
What kind of place was this?

She began to twist her
hands frantically trying to loosen the knots. This seemed to make
it worse and her wrists were sore and abraded now. She looked down
at the rest of the bed and at herself. She was wearing a pale,
linen gown of some kind, a chemise. It was hard to tell, because
her body felt a little numb, but she didn’t seem to have on any
underwear.
Great, whoever has tied me up
also stripped me naked and put me into somebody’s idea of a
medieval fantasy gown.

Dorsey, where was
Dorsey?
Okay, slow down Glynn, back up to
the café. He was in his car, passed out. That’s right. I bent down
to wake him. He reached for me. Did Dorsey do this? Did he fake the
drunk and attack me to bring me here?
Glynn struggled against the scarves tied to her wrist, trying
to slip through, but she exhausted herself quickly. Brice had
suspected Dorsey all along. Could he have been the killer? No, not
Dorsey. How could she have been this wrong about anybody? She’d
been intimate with him, had planned to marry him. But by his own
admission, he’d been fooling around on her even then. She’d thought
he loved her, but he’d abandoned her when she needed his support
the most. Yes, she could have been wrong about him.

Footsteps rang out from another room.
Glynnis closed her eyes. She would pretend to be asleep. Maybe if
he thought she wasn’t watching, he would do something or show her
something that would give her an advantage over him.

She listened for clues not daring to
open her eyes yet. His gait wasn’t distinctive in any way. He could
have been Dorsey. He moved from the doorway into the room, turning
on the overhead light and walked purposefully toward Glynnis. She
forced herself to breathe slowly and deeply, as if sleeping. She
felt a hand drift over her cheek in an almost gentle caress. It
took all of her will power to avoid cringing or jerking away. He
must have believed her to be asleep because he began to touch her
softly, her neck, her breasts, her stomach, her legs. She fought to
remain in her false sleep though she wanted to kick out and plaster
the lunatic up against the wall. The only reason she didn’t was
that it would have given her a temporary respite at best. She
wouldn’t be able to get away, and then he would have been angry.
She waited, breathing slowly, evenly; feigning sleep.

Satisfied that she was still under, her
captor made his way quietly to the curtained windows. She could
hear him shifting the curtains to look out so she dared a glance
through lowered lids. It was hard to tell much from the view of his
back. He had the same color hair as Dorsey, and was about the same
height, but that was about all she could make out. He turned back
around and she closed her eyes, hoping to keep her wakefulness a
secret a little bit longer. Maybe a plan would come to her. She
heard the rolling chair squeak. He was sitting now, no doubt
watching her. Her skin prickled.

Finally he spoke in a soft, chilling
voice, “Time to wake up Desdemona.”

*****

Brice and Addy pulled into the drive at
Timmon’s home. Brice had been praying the entire time that it was
as simple as Glynnis giving the man a ride. But there were no cars
in the driveway or garage as far as he could see. “If he got her,
I’ll kill him myself and save the state a trial,” Brice
grunted.

Addy walked ahead of him. “Let me check
it out first,” he told his partner. Brice didn’t like it but he
knew Addy was right. He had more sense about him than Brice at the
moment and would reason out his next move instead of jumping in
blindly. Addison peered through the windows, and seeing nothing,
went to the other side. Finally, he rang the bell. No answer.
“Well, looks like we have two options, he told Brice. We can walk
away and try to figure out where they went, or we can go
in.”

Brice didn’t wait for further
encouragement. He went to the first window. Finding it locked, he
picked up a large rock and broke through, unlocking it from the
outside. Once they were in, they canvassed the place but it was
empty. There were no signs that either Dorsey or Glynnis had been
there. Brice pounded his fist on the table. “Where has he taken
her? If he hurts her…” His cell phone rang. He answered without
even checking the caller ID. “Gearhart.”

“
Brice,” Hawkins’ voice rang
out. Brice felt his breath release and realized he’d been holding
it hoping that it would be Glynnis on the other end. “Brice, my
sources finally came through. I know who your collector is…and you
aren’t going to believe it.”

*****

Was it Dorsey? Had her premonition of
some horrible event associated with him been this? Was Dorsey the
murderer? Dorsey, who was often foolish and selfish but had loved
her once. Of that, she was certain. Her premonition had been vague
and only showed her that Dorsey would be part of something
seriously evil. Would he be the cause, the perpetrator, or perhaps
the victim? She hated all the scenarios. She no longer loved
Dorsey, not as she once had, but she didn’t hate him, didn’t want
to see him hurt or to know that he was a killer. But if he was,
indeed the Bard, then she would use every personal tie she had to
influence him. Above all, she needed to live. If she had to use the
relationship they’d once had to survive, whatever that entailed,
then she would.

“
Des de mon a…” His
sing-song voice made her cringe. There would be no more waiting.
The intensity of his tone made that clear.

Glynnis slowly opened her
eyes. Her already aching head pounded in protest to the bright
light in the room. He was standing with his back to her as he
spoke, leaning on the back of the office chair and then turning to
stand upright. “Did you know that women in Shakespeare’s day wore a
chemise as underwear, and no underpants? They often added those
lovely tie-up stays to help push everything into the right places
and to make the waist tiny, but no underpants. Strange, isn’t it.”
He was truly the same height and weight as Dorsey, and he had the
same hair. But this wasn’t Dorsey. Dorsey had the self-confident
stance of the ladies man he was. This man stood with stooped
shoulders, the stance of someone who had been told for much of his
life either overtly or covertly that he wasn’t quite good enough.
He turned to face her. She had seen him before but couldn’t place
him. His countenance was ruddy with freckles, but his hands were
manicured and his auburn hair had been cut in an expensive salon.
This was a wealthy man. “You would think that in a time and place
as puritanical as Elizabethan England, they’d want as much
protection as possible for a woman’s virginity.” He shrugged.
“Maybe they were all lifting their skirts behind Liz’s back and she
just
thought
they
were being virginal. That would seem to be a more likely scenario,
don’t you think?”

He looked to her as if expecting a real
answer, so she nodded but couldn’t force any sound from between her
lips because of the gag.

“
I’ve been watching you for
years you know,” he began, walking slowly toward her, making her
mentally file through all the possibilities of how he could have
known her. Was he an acquaintance of the family? Had he gone to
school with her? It just wasn’t coming. Her head still felt a
little muddled from whatever he’d used to put her under, and it
hurt. “For years I’ve watched you on the stage welcoming audiences
to your plays. I’ve always thought you should be acting, not just
directing. You would make such an enticing leading
lady.”

Oh Lord! That was it. He was one of her
regular play-goers, one of the many who called her by her first
name every summer as if they were old friends. Why, he had spoken
to her only a week ago, on opening night. She had shaken his
hand.

He reached down and tugged the gag down
from her mouth to around her neck. “Now, remember the rules.” He
put a finger to his lips. “No screaming. We’re a long way from
anywhere, and it’s not likely that anybody could hear you, but I
just hate screaming. Understand?”

“
Yes.” The word felt like
paper leaving her mouth. She couldn’t have screamed if she’d
tried.

“
You would have made such a
lovely Rosalind, or perhaps Titania.” He reached the bed. “Why
didn’t you act?”

She didn’t know what to
say. She thought about spitting at him, but it didn’t seem wise to
tick this guy off. She swallowed dryly. “I was never a very good
actor.” Then it occurred to her to keep him talking…appeal to his
vanity. “I remember you. You were at opening night for
Macbeth
. You’ve come to
almost every play, haven’t you?”

“
Since you
did your first direction, years ago. It was
As You Like It,
wasn’t
it?

“
Yes.”

“
I didn’t know until just a
few days ago that you had other talents.”

He was caressing her arm now with the
back of his hand and she wanted to recoil, but it was important to
get into his good graces, make him feel that she liked him. If she
was going to get out of here, then she had to be smart and put
aside her personal feelings. “What other talents?”

“
Now, now…you know very well
what I was referring to.”

“
I’m sorry, no.”

“
Alright then, we have time.
I’ll play along. I’m talking about your ability to see into the
future. How do you manage it? Do you use a scrying bowl, or tea
leaves, what?”

He obviously knew what had been on the
news, but it was doubtful that he knew much more than that. She
decided to minimize her explanation of her abilities. “I don’t
really see the future,” she told him. “I have dreams sometimes that
come true. But not usually.”

“
But you saw me.” His voice
had taken on a grating edge.

“
No, I saw the murders, but
I never saw you…until now.” Her throat was still quite dry and she
began to cough.

He walked over to the sink, picked up a
cup and filled it with water. Then, using the sheet, lifted her
head and held the cup to her lips. “Drink.”

She was so thirsty that she didn’t
argue. It never crossed her mind until after she swallowed that he
had used poison in the past. Her thoughts must have shown on her
face because he lowered her head to the pillow and said, “Don’t
worry. I plan for your death to be like Desdemona’s, the sweet
innocent strangled by a jealous husband, or in your case, a jealous
fiancé.”

Dorsey! He was going to pin this on
Dorsey! “What do you mean? Dorsey wouldn’t hurt me.”

“
He’s already written a note
on the computer saying that he couldn’t handle your affair with
Detective Gearhart anymore. He’s going to assault you, then
strangle you, then kill himself. Poor jealous guy.”

“
Have you hurt
him?”

“
Do you care?”

Of course she cared, but her real
thought was that if Dorsey was still alive and somewhere in this
house, then they might be able to overpower this crazy man. She had
to keep him talking. “Is he alive?”

“
He’s sleeping off a
powerful drunk in the next room. Of course I helped him along with
that a bit. With the little extra help I gave him he’ll be out long
enough for me to handle you and get back to him.”

She needed to use the bathroom. That
was the truth. But she didn’t see why she couldn’t use that to her
advantage. This guy liked to brag. She was going to let him. “Why
did you kill the others? Is it really like your letters implied?
Did you do it because of their…their sins?”

He laughed at that. “Their sins were
numerous…but no. That’s what I wanted the police to think. I had my
own reasons for killing them.”

“
Why?” She started squirming
intentionally, conveying her discomfort. “Why did you kill them and
use the death scenes from Shakespeare? Why write those letters? I…I
don’t understand.”

“
Do you need to use the
bathroom dear?”

“
Yes.”

“
Why didn’t you say so? I
wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable, especially since I have such
a wonderful evening planned.”

That made her cold all over. He pulled
a knife from his belt and held it to her throat. “You do understand
that it would be a very bad idea for you to try to get away,
right?”

“
I understand.”

He untied her bonds and she began to
rub the circulation back into her arms and legs, knowing that it
would take her longer than the average person to stand and walk
after being in one position for so long. He backed away only enough
to allow her to swing her legs over the side. She stood and waited
for a moment in order to establish her balance. Her legs were stiff
but they’d loosen up if she could only walk around for a minute or
two.