But her breathing seemed regular. Her heartbeat seemed solid and steady. She touched her rib cage with her fingers, prodding it. Nothing.
And her face remained flat, without affect. Like a poker player, she thought. Then she slowly lowered the pan back to the drying rack. No. Okay. It was nothing. A little bit of indigestion. Your heart isn’t going to stop today.
She reminded herself to go to work-and to hurry, maybe even speed, to make up for the minutes lost to dying fears. “I’m leaving now,” she shouted. There was a small silence, then a muffled reply from inside the locked office.
“I might be out a bit doing some research, dear. Maybe late for dinner.”
She smiled. The word research encouraged her. She believed he was really making progress, and she knew enough to make sure that nothing she did would upset that fragile state.
“Okay, honey. Whatever you say. I’ll leave a plate for you in the microwave if you need to get home late.”
Mrs. Big Bad Wolf didn’t wait for a response, but she was happy. This sounded like the most mundane conversation any couple could have. It was so ordinary, it reassured her. The writer was working; and like the worker bee she considered herself, she was heading out to her job. Nothing as different as a heart attack could ever enter into a world so determinedly normal.
She drove through the faculty-and-staff parking lot twice before she found a spot near the back, which added fifty yards of rain and chill to her exposed travel. There was nothing she could do about this, so Mrs. Big Bad Wolf slid her car into the space, gathered her satchel, and maneuvered out of her door, trying to get a small umbrella raised before she got soaked.
She immediately stepped into a puddle, and cursed. Then she hurried across the lot, head down, making for the school administration building.
She hung her damp coat on a hook by the door and slid behind her desk, hoping that the dean wouldn’t notice she was a little late.
He emerged from his office-her desk guarded the entry-and shook his head, but not at her tardiness or at the lousy weather that was turning the school into a dark and dreary place. He had a file in his hand and he seemed dismayed.
“Can you send a message to Miss Jordan Ellis?” he said. “Have her come in this afternoon to see me during a free period, or maybe after her basketball practice?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Big Bad Wolf replied. “Is it urgent?”
“More of the same,” the dean said ruefully. “She’s doing poorly in every subject and now Mr. and Mrs. Ellis want me to referee their custody battle, which will only make matters significantly worse.” He managed a wan smile. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if some of these parents just left their children alone and let us deal with them?”
This was a familiar complaint and a prayer that never had any realistic chance of being answered.
“I’ll see that she’s here to see you today,” Mrs. Big Bad Wolf replied.
“Thank you,” he said, nodding. He glanced down at the sheaf of papers in his hand and shrugged. “Don’t you just hate it when seniors throw their futures away?” he asked. This was a rhetorical question, and one that Mrs. Big Bad Wolf understood didn’t need answering. Of course everyone hated it when seniors did poorly. They struggled in school and then got into lower-tier colleges, and that skewed the school’s Ivy League statistics. She watched as he retreated back into his office, still clutching the file, although eventually it, and all the confidential information it contained, would arrive on her desk for sorting away in a large black steel file cabinet in the corner of the room. It had a combination lock. 8-17-96. Her wedding day.
9
Sarah Locksley shifted about uncomfortably in her seat. She was dizzy, twitching, and felt both exhausted and energized, as if the two opposing sensations could happily coexist within her. Every second that passed was boring and exciting. She felt on the verge of something, whether it was passing out unconscious for twenty-four hours or taking aim and shooting the next person-who would be the first person in weeks-to knock on her door.
Over-the-counter NoDoz, Stolichnaya vodka and fresh orange juice, a large supply of candy bars, packaged donuts, and sweet rolls, and an occasional peanut-butter-covered banana had fueled her over the past few days. Fattening, calorie-filled, but she felt like she hadn’t gained a pound.
She wanted to laugh out loud. She imagined a cynical advertising copywriter: The dead woman’s diet. Just have an anonymous someone threaten to kill you and watch the pounds melt away!
She had placed a stiff chair in a spot where she could cover both the front of the house and much of the kitchen entranceway in the rear, and she had arranged a few pillows and an old sleeping bag nearby, so that when she’d had to sleep, snatching a few hours from night, she’d been able to tumble half-drugged and half-drunk into the makeshift bed. She was avoiding her bedroom. There was something frightening about concealing herself inside the place she’d shared with her husband. The room seemed suddenly prisonlike and she was determined that she would not allow herself to be murdered in the place where she had once known so much pleasure.
She knew this seemed totally crazy, but crazy was a state that she was willing to embrace.
She had constructed a homemade alarm system by the rear door-hanging a string across the doorway and tying empty cans and pots and pans to it, so anyone bumping into it would rattle and clang with noise. Just beneath the windowsills she had shattered empty liquor bottles into glass shards and spread them around, so a person-no, she thought: a Big Bad Wolf-breaking in that way would likely slice hands or feet clambering into the house. On the stairway leading to the basement she had strung strands of wire an inch or two above each riser to trip the Wolf if he tried to use the steps. She had also spread some ball bearings and old marbles around on the basement floor and unscrewed the light, so that the room was pitched into darkness and likely to cause her stalker to trip.
She had her dead husband’s gun close by and she periodically checked it to make sure that it was loaded and ready, even though she knew she had already checked it a hundred times. The area around her was a mess of plastic wrappers, empty Styrofoam cups, and discarded bottles. Sarah kicked away some of the trash accumulating next to her bare feet and sighed deeply. Well, this isn’t working, goddammit.
Her defense systems seemed straight out of the Home Alone movie, better preparation for a slapstick comedy than preventing a killer from sneaking unseen and unheard into her house and slaughtering her in her sleep. She knew she was likely to pass out at any moment and that when she did succumb to inevitable exhaustion, no clattering of pots and pans would wake her. She was all too experienced in the fog that accompanied booze and narcotics.
And mostly, Sarah doubted that the Big Bad Wolf was anything less than completely skilled at murder and professional at killing. She had no evidence to support this feeling, but she believed it to be the truth. Instinct. Sixth sense. Premonition. She didn’t know what it was, but she knew he would wait until the right moment, which would be the moment he knew she was at her most vulnerable.
Vulnerable. What a god-awful, pathetic, barely adequate word, she thought. More likely it described her every second of every day and every night, regardless of whether she was asleep or sitting waiting by the front door, gun in hand.
She looked around. Her back was stiff. Her head ached. Everything she’d done to protect herself seemed precisely what a middle school teacher would do. Scissors, sticky glue, and brightly colored construction paper-it was very much like a class project. All that was lacking were some excited fifth graders and happily raised voices.