Katerine. Tok is looking at her. “Why? Why did she kill herself?”
“Because of what that monster did to her. Almost every night. She only started therapy six months ago, Lore. She was finally facing it. But then I think it just got too much, I think she looked ahead and saw this thing, this black swamp inside her, this cloud that looked like it would stain her life forever, and couldn’t face it. Well, I can face it. I’m going to make that monster pay. Come back home, Lore, wherever you are. I need you. We’ll do this together.”
Lore just looks at him, horrified. What is he talking about?
“I’ll contact you in a day or two, tell you where I am. I’m going to put a stop to it. This has gone on too long.” He reaches to the side and his picture blips out.
Lore stares at the blank screen, unable to move. What is he talking about? Stella is dead. What does he mean? Who is the monster? A quick image of Greta and a locksmith glide through her memory. She shakes her head. Stella is dead. She has a sudden image of Stella and her friends standing around the net screen, drinks in hand, vying to send money to some amateur charity. Stella is dead.
She does not know how long she sits there, but when someone knocks at the door and she gets up, she finds she is stiff. She expects Sarah, and opens the door without checking the peephole.
Two masked figures burst in. One takes her arms and the other points something at her face. There is a funny smell, and the floor comes up to hit her.
TWENTY-ONE
I opened my eyes again at eleven in the morning and thought it was the message tone that had woken me. I was halfway out of bed before I realized it was the door.
Someone was knocking on my door.
This was the first time since I had lived alone that anyone had knocked. It made me think of Uruguay.
“Hold on.” I found a shirt, padded to the door. “Who is it?”
“Why, who’re you expecting?”
Tom. Even so, I made sure both chains were fastened before I opened the door a crack. “I’m not dressed.”
“We don’t mind.” He held up his hand. I saw it was attached to some kind of string. “Brought you a present.” A leash. And a dog. A black, stocky-looking thing with a startlingly pink tongue.
“No. I can’t—”
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist,” he said cheerfully. “He’s not to keep. Just to borrow for an hour or two every day. Can we come in?”
I opened the door and the dog dragged Tom in. “Sit down while I dress.”
“I’ll put the kettle on.”
“Fine.”
I went into the bathroom and showered quickly. I could hear the dog’s claws clicking on the floor as it padded about, sniffing things. When I came out of the bathroom, rubbing my hair, it sat down and panted at me. Its entire hindquarters shuffled back and forth as it wagged its tail.
I patted it cautiously on the head. It wagged harder. “It looks young.”
“He. He’s eight months old. His name’s Gibbon.”
“As in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire?”
Tom smiled. “Knew you had an education. Now, hurry up and comb that hair, tea’s ready.” I did, then checked to see if I had any messages. Just one, a notice from the plant, reiterating what Magyar had already told me: tonight’s shift had been extended. For the next three days, the notice said. No please or thank you, just an assumption that we would all cooperate.
We sat at the table by the window. The dog sat on the carpet, watching me carefully.
“I got him yesterday. From the pound. I thought to myself, ‘Tom, you’re getting old. More to the point, you’re thinking you should feel old and lonely. You need something to look after.’ I decided a dog would be just the thing.”
“But. . .”
“How am I going to walk a young, healthy dog like this every day? That’s where you come in. I saw you dragging yourself in the other night, and I said to myself, ‘That lass needs a bit of fresh air, something to take her mind off things.’ And then I heard about the bit of bother at the plant last night and thought a walk by the river would do nicely.”
I thought Tom thought entirely too much. And then I wondered how he knew I worked at the plant, and realized