fun. I want to keep this mask on, and I want you two to keep playing my game. Is that understood?”
What other choice did I have but to nod?
“Now then,” Uretsky continued. “Have you figured out what you’re to do next?”
“Qetesh,” I said.
“Yes, Qetesh, a luscious Sumerian goddess. Her name means ‘holy woman,’ ” Uretsky said. “A goddess of sacred ecstasy and sexual pleasures. So, do you get it yet?”
“No,” I said.
“Well, it’s going to be a dandy good time,” Uretsky said. “But I decided that you’ll need a bit more incentive than Dr. Adams’s life to pull this one off.”
Uretsky stepped away from the camera, giving us a clear view of the woman strapped to the chair, still struggling mightily, albeit futilely, to break free. Uretsky, mask on, materialized behind the woman, as though conjured from the ether. In a sweeping motion, he ripped off the hood covering the head of his prisoner. Ruby gripped the back of my chair in response.
“Mom?” Ruby’s shaky, uncertain voice caught in her throat. Eventually, after recognition set in, once the brain had time to process the inconceivable, Ruby shouted, “Mom!”
It took me a moment longer to register what I was seeing, but there she was, Winifred Dawes, Ruby’s mom, tied to that chair and somehow Uretsky’s prisoner.
Ruby began to scream. Her anguished cries, so visceral, so instinctual, went far beyond any sound I had ever heard from my wife. “Mom!” Ruby shouted again and again before the sobs took over.
Ruby, hyperventilating, couldn’t speak for a minute or so. She lost her footing, and I gave her my chair, while I leaned in close to get level with the camera. Ruby’s eyes stayed fixed on her mother. I didn’t know if Winnie could see her daughter, but the pain etched on her face whenever Ruby spoke told me that, at a minimum, she could hear her voice.
“Please . . . please, Elliot,” Ruby managed to say. “You could just let her go . . . let her go, now. Okay? You could do that.”
Winnie, with her short and spiky hair, bleached blond in some spots, left brown in others, and her skin pruned by the persistent Caribbean sun, should have seemed a familiar sight, but here, in this dark prison, she was barely recognizable. Her bright blue eyes were as wide as two quarters, but I couldn’t get a good look at her face. She kept shaking her head, as though her hair were on fire. The ball gag in her mouth, I suspected, had once been in poor Dr. Adams’s mouth, too.
“I’d make the introductions, but I know you’re already well acquainted,” Uretsky said from behind Winnie. “And you’re going to have to push the limits to save this sweet lady’s life . . . or not.”
“Let her go,” I said. We still had a chance to save Winnie’s life if we did whatever Uretsky had in mind. Perhaps that was why my voice came out sounding oddly calm. “She’s done nothing to you. Come get me instead, dammit!”
Winnie nodded a vigorous yes. Son-in-law or not, she’d switch places with me in a heartbeat. I couldn’t blame her. That was just the survival instinct kicking in.
“Doesn’t work like that,” Uretsky said. “You’ve got more crimes to commit, John . . .” Here Uretsky paused . . . waiting . . . waiting . . . and then he said two words that truly chilled my bones. “And Ruby.”
I hated that he’d even spoken my wife’s name. The privilege wasn’t his. Besides, this wasn’t about her; it was about me, and what I’d done to him, or so I thought.
But in that very next instant, I knew. Qetesh. Sacred ecstasy. Sexual pleasure. Uretsky wanted Ruby to commit the next crime, not me. And I knew what the crime was, too.
“Please,” I said. “Don’t do this. There’s got to be another way.”
“No,” Uretsky said. “The show must go on.” The mask made Uretsky’s low voice sound hollow and breathy, more terrifying. “Now, Ruby, aren’t you at all curious how I managed to get your mom to be my guest here?”
Each ragged breath Ruby took sounded like a record skipping. She managed only to say, “Please let her go. Mommy, I love you. Don’t worry. We’re going to save you. I’ll do anything.”
Uretsky put the bag over Winnie’s head again. He came around in front of her chair to face the camera.
“I called your mom and pretended to be one of John’s climbing buddies, told