Kiss the Girls

chair.
    She couldn’t defend herself against him!
He’d wanted her powerless, and he’d apparently succeeded. More than anything else that finally got to her, and she started to cry.
That
made her even angrier.
    I don’t want to die.
    I don’t want to die.
    How do I stop it from happening?
    How do I stop Casanova?
    The house was so very quiet again. She didn’t think he was there. She desperately needed to talk to somebody. To the other women prisoners. She had to work herself up to it again.
    He
could
be hiding in the house. Waiting. Watching her right at this second.
    “Hello out there,” she finally called, surprised at the raspiness of her own voice.
    “This is Kate McTiernan. Please listen. He’s given me a lot of drugs. I think he’s going to kill me soon. He told me that he was. I’m very afraid… I don’t want to die.”
    Kate repeated the same message once more, word for word.
    She repeated it again.
    There was silence; no response from anybody. The other women were afraid, too. They were right to be petrified. Then a voice came floating down from somewhere above her. The voice of an angel.
    Kate’s heart jumped. She remembered the voice. She listened closely to every word from
her brave friend.
    “This is Naomi. Maybe we can help each other somehow. Every so often he gets us together, Kate. You’re still on probation. He kept each of us in the downstairs room at first. Please
don’t fight him!
We can’t talk anymore. It’s too dangerous. You’re not going to die, Kate.”
    Another woman called out. “Please be brave, Kate. Be strong for all of us. Just don’t be
too
strong.”
    Then the women’s voices stopped, and it became very quiet again, very lonely, in her room.
    The drug, whatever he had pumped into her, was working full blast now. Kate McTiernan felt as if she were going mad.

Chapter 41

    C ASANOVA WAS
going to kill her, wasn’t he? It was going to happen soon.
    In the terrible silence and loneliness, Kate felt the overwhelming need to pray, to talk to God. God would still hear her in this grotesquely evil place, wouldn’t He?
    I’m sorry if I only partially believed in You for the last few years before this. I don’t know if I’m agnostic, but at least I’m honest. I have a pretty good sense of humor. Even when humor is inappropriate.
    I know this isn’t
“Let’s Make a Deal,”
but if You can get me out of this one, I’ll be eternally grateful.
    Sorry about that. I keep saying this can’t happen to me, but it’s happening. Please help me. This is not one of Your better ideas….
    She was praying so hard, concentrating, that she didn’t hear him at the door. He was always so quiet, anyway. A phantom. A ghost.
    “You
don’t listen
a whit, do you? You just
don’t learn!
” Casanova said to her.
    He held a hospital syringe in one hand. He had on a mauve-colored mask smeared with thick white and blue paint. It was the most gruesome and upsetting mask he’d worn so far. The masks
did
match his moods, didn’t they?
    Kate tried to say
don’t hurt me,
but nothing came out. Only a little
pff
sound escaped from her lips.
    He was going to kill her.
    She could barely stand, or even sit, but she gave him what she thought was a faint smile.
    “Hi… good to see you.” She got that much out. Had she made
any
sense? she wondered. She didn’t know for sure.
    He said something back to her,
something important,
but she had no idea what it was. The mysterious words echoed inside her brain… meaningless mumbo jumbo. She
tried
to listen to what he was saying. She
tried
so hard…
    “
Dr. Kate… talked to the others… broke house rules!
    “Best girl, the best! … Could have been… so smart that you’re stupid!
”
    Kate nodded her head as if she understood what he’d just told her, followed his words and logic perfectly. He obviously knew she had talked to the others. Was he saying that she was so smart that she was stupid? That was true enough. You got that right, pal.
    “I wanted… talk,” she managed. Her tongue felt as if it were enclosed in a woolen mitten. What she had wanted to say was
Let’s talk this all out. We need to talk.
    He wasn’t much into talking on this visit, though. He seemed
inside
of himself. Very distant. The Iceman. Something especially inhuman about him. That hideous mask. Today, his persona was Death.
    He was less than ten feet away, armed with the stun gun
and
a syringe.
Doctor,
her brain screamed. He’s a doctor, isn’t