Darkness is closing in. The security light comes on with a loud humming sound. The voice, the same mechanically altered voice from the phone calls, comes over the loudspeakers.
THE VOICE
Leave the bags on the ground.
BRUCE
Where's the girl?
THE VOICE
Leave the bags on the ground.
BRUCE
I want to see Erin!
THE VOICE
In the box. Ring one. In the box. Ring one.
BRUCE
What box? Which ring?
He is agitated, doesn't know which way to turn. He doesn't like not having control. He doesn't want to leave the money. He looks at the two rings nearest the building and chooses the one to his right. He takes the bags with him and goes to stand at the corner of the ring.
BRUCE
What box? I don't see any box!
He stands there, impatient. It's getting darker by the second. He stares for a moment at the judge's booth-a small wooden shelter-at the end of the ring, then goes toward it.
BRUCE
Erin? Erin!
He circles the booth cautiously. Someone might jump out and shoot him or stab him. Erin's body might fall out onto the ground.
Nothing happens.
He inches toward the door, pulls it open, jumps back.
Nothing happens.
BRUCE
Erin? Are you in there?
No answer.
Slowly, he sets the bags on the ground and inches toward the booth again, eventually stepping inside. There is no one in the booth. A videotape cassette has been left on the floor. Written in black block letters on a white label on the tape: PUNISHMENT.
THE VOICE
You broke the rules. The girl has paid the price.
Cops come out of the woodwork. Several charge up the stairs of the building. They pry the lock off the door, kick the door in, burst into the room shouting with guns drawn. The beams of their flashlights bob and sweep around the room. There is no one there.
As they approach the console of audio equipment situated under the bank of windows that allow full view of the grounds, they spot the simple timer that turned the machines on at precisely 6:05 P.M.
The tape is still playing.
THE VOICE
You broke the rules. The girl has paid the price. You broke the rules. The girl has paid the price.
The voice echoes across the emptiness of the night.
FADE OUT
ACT THREE
SCENE ONE
FADE IN:
EXTERIOR: LATE NIGHT-EDGE OF SHOPPING CENTER PARKING LOT
The parking lot is mostly empty. A few cars in the rows near the supermarket, which is open twenty-four hours. The rest of the businesses are dark.
The girl runs toward the store. Her legs are weak and tired. She's crying. Her hair is a tangled mess. Her face is bruised. Her arms are striped with red welts.
She spots a pair of Palm Beach County cruisers parked together and veers toward them. She tries to cry out for help, but her throat is dry and parched, and hardly any sound comes out.
A few feet from the car, she stumbles and falls on her hands and knees.
GIRL
Help. Help me. Please.
She knows the deputy can't hear her whispered pleas. She is only a few yards from the car, but she doesn't have the strength to get up. She lies sobbing on the concrete. The deputy spots her and gets out of his car.
DEPUTY
Miss? Miss? Are you all right?
The girl looks up at him, sobbing in relief.
The deputy kneels down beside her. He calls to the other deputy.
DEPUTY
Reeger! Call for an ambulance! (Then, to the girl) Miss? Can you talk to me? Can you tell me your name?
GIRL
Erin. Erin Seabright.
FADE OUT
1
Life can change in a heartbeat.
I've always known that. I've lived the truth of that statement literally from the day I was born. I sometimes see those moments coming, sense them, anticipate them, as if they have an aura that precedes their arrival. I see one coming now. Adrenaline runs through my bloodstream like rocket fuel. My heart pounds like a piston. I'm ready to launch.
I've been told to stay put, to wait, but I know that's not the right decision. If I go in first, if I go in now, I've got the Golam brothers dead-bang. They think they know me. Their guard will be down. I've worked this case three months. I know what I'm doing. I know that I'm right. I know the Golam brothers are already twitching. I know I want this bust and deserve it. I know Lieutenant Sikes is here for the show, to put a feather in his cap when the news vans arrive and to make the public think they should vote for him in the next election for sheriff.
He stuck me on the side of the trailer and told me to wait. He doesn't know his ass. He doesn't even know the side door is the door the brothers use most. While Sikes and Ramirez are watching the front, the brothers are dumping their money into duffel bags and getting ready to bolt out the side. Billy Golam's four-by-four is parked ten feet away, covered in mud. If they run, they'll take the truck, not the Corvette parked in front. The truck can go off-road.
Sikes is wasting precious time. The Golam brothers have two girls in the trailer with them. This could easily turn into a hostage situation. But if I go in now, while their guard is down…
Screw Sikes. I'm going in before these twitches freak.
It's my case. I know what I'm doing.
I key my radio. "This is stupid. They're going to break for the truck. I'm going in."
"Goddammit, Estes-" Sikes.
I click the radio off and drop it into the weeds growing beside the trailer. It's my case. It's my bust. I know what I'm doing.
I go to the side door and knock the way all the Golam brothers' customers knock: two knocks, one knock, two knocks. "Hey, Billy, it's Elle. I need some."
Billy Golam jerks open the door, wild-eyed, high on his own home cooking-crystal meth. He's breathing hard. He's got a gun in his hand.
Shit.
The front door explodes inward.
One of the girls screams.
Buddy Golam shouts: "Cops!"
Billy Golam swings the.357 up in my face. I suck in my last breath.
And then I opened my eyes and felt sick at the knowledge that I was still alive.
This was the way I had greeted every day for the past two years. I had relived that memory so many times, it was like replaying a movie over and over and over. No part of it changed, not a word, not an image. I wouldn't allow it.
I lay in the bed and thought about slitting my wrists. Not in an abstract way. Specifically. I looked at my wrists in the soft lamplight-delicate, as fine-boned as the wing of a bird, skin as thin as tissue, blue-lined with veins-and thought about how I would do it. I looked at those thin blue lines and thought of them as lines of demarcation. Guidelines. Cut here.
I pictured the needle-nose point of a boning knife. The lamplight would catch on the blade. Blood would rise to the surface in its wake as the blade skated along the vein. Red. My favorite color.
The image didn't frighten me. That truth frightened me most of all.
I looked at the clock: 4:38 A.M. I'd had my usual fitful four and a half hours of sleep. Trying for more was an exercise in futility.
Trembling, I forced my legs over the edge of the bed and got up, pulling a deep blue chenille throw around my shoulders. The fabric was soft, luxurious, warm. I made special note of the sensations. You're always more intensely alive the closer you come to looking death in the face.
I wondered if Hector Ramirez had realized that the split second before he died.
I wondered that every day.
I dropped the throw and went into the bathroom.
"Good morning, Elena. You look like shit."
Too thin. Hair a wild black tangle. Eyes too large, too dark, as if there was nothing within to shine outward. The crux of my problem: lack of substance. There was-is-a vague asymmetry to my face, like a porcelain vase that has been broken, then painstakingly restored. The same vase it was before, yet not the same. The same face I was born with, yet not the same. Slightly skewed and strangely expressionless.