I was drooling. I felt wet at my crotch; I had wet my pants. When I became aware that I was still thinking, that my thoughts could form patterns and make sense, my first clear concept was that I should avoid having that - whatever it was - done to me again, no matter what the cost. My wandering gaze happened to meet Cliff's desperate brown eyes, and I slowly became anchored in the here and now, as unpleasant as that was.
I was still alive. That was the important thing. And I hadn't called Jack, so I figured he'd be coming sooner or later - unless Tamsin had done something while I was mentally out of the room, something to fool Jack, too.
Of course, I felt like the biggest idiot.
Cliff's eyes stared into mine. He was scared shitless. I didn't blame him. But I was just as glad the duct tape across his mouth made talking impossible. I didn't need anyone else's fear. I had plenty of my own.
"What you gonna do?" I asked Tamsin, after tremendous effort. It was the first sentence that managed to make it out of my lips. She was holding something in her right hand, a black narrow shape, and I finally recognized it as a stun gun. I took a deep breath of sheer bitterness. Oh, gosh, who had told her where to buy one? Could it have been me? It would have been hard for me to be more angry with myself than I was at this moment, or more sickened by the human race.
"If you're not outraged by what he's done to me, I'm going to have to do it myself," Tamsin said. "Then, I don't know what I'll do about you."
"Why?" Though that was probably a pointless question.
Oddly, she looked like she was thinking of answering me.
"I just realized the past few days. At first, it just didn't seem possible. That someone living with me, someone sleeping with me, someone who took my dresses to the cleaners, was trying to drive me crazy. The first stuff, the stuff in Cleveland, even that was Cliff." Instead of looking at me, she was staring off into space, and I swear she had the most disillusioned, heartbroken expression. I would have felt sorry for her, if she hadn't just disabled and humiliated me. "I figured out just this week that after I lost our baby, Cliff was out to kill me. He thought I did things to kill the baby. And he knew I had a lot of insurance - one big policy through work and another on my own. He thought, in my profession, getting killed wouldn't be so strange. He was doing my transcripts for me, then. In fact, that's where we met, at that clinic." The narrow black device swung in her hand like a television remote control. "So Cliff transcribed my sessions with a patient who had potential for great violence, one who actually might think of killing me. I think Cliff planned to beat me to death." She got right in my face to confide this. If I'd had the energy, the hair would have been lifting on my neck. "He could count on the investigators going through my patients, finding - this man - and arresting him."
"And?" If I didn't try to say too much, it came out okay. My legs were slowly feeling a little more functional. Cliff was moving a little more. She'd bound his hands in front, which wasn't too competent. He was picking at the duct tape across his mouth.
"We moved once, in the Cleveland area, after I found a snake nailed to the door. Moving didn't help. Then, as I've come to realize these past few days, Cliff stretched his fun out a little too long. Charles, my patient, died in a bar fight. Cliff had to stop. Of course, I didn't put two and two together then." Her face became blank, her eyes opaque. "I really thought Cliff suggested this move to Shakespeare because he was concerned about me. He gave up his business and everything to move south with me, and I believed we would be happy here. I didn't put Charles's death together with the end of the persecution, the end of the horrible messages on the answering machine. But Cliff told me just a few minutes ago that the police up there did make the connection, did mention - to Cliff - the possibility of my stalker being Charles.