Programmed for Peril

about how far short her bid to become and remain independent had fallen—when put to a real test.
    He reached for her ankles now. She wished he would take off those foolish sunglasses.
    This was all wrong.
    “I want you to stop!” she cried.
    “I don’t believe you.”
    “Foster... please.”
    He ignored her.
    “Foster!”
    He tried to work a rope around her ankle.
    Abruptly she got angry. It was a healthy anger bubbling up from her restored ego. How dare he! Never again would she stand for this treatment. Never! “Foster, I’m telling you not to fool with me.”
    “Is that so?”
    “Yes!”
    He didn’t reply. The glasses masked his eyes. He pressed close to her.
    Abruptly she was in a rage. She exploded and drove a foot up into his crotch. “Aaaah!” he howled. He doubled over, white-faced, clutching his middle. Grimacing, he glared wildly at her.
    She screamed, “Untie my hands! I let Carson do this sort of thing before. I’ll never let him or you or anyone do it again!”
    Foster grunted and gasped for breath.
    “Foster, do as I say! Now. If you want a life with me...”
    He took deep breaths, his pain fading. Still he made no move to free her. She knew his thoughts then, her mortification welling. He was thinking of forcing her.
    “Foster Palmer! This instant! Untie me!” She saw the beads of sweat blossoming from his recent pain. The creases newly drawn in his face hinted at an aged Foster. He turned toward her, his mouth a narrow channel under the brown disks of the sunglasses.
    “Take off the glasses, Foster!” she ordered.
    He hesitated.
    “Do it!”
    He began, “You’re—”
    “Take them off!”
    He did as she ordered. His hands were shaking. “Patricia-“
    “Shut up!” She locked glances with him. She sensed he would look away. She sent her gaze like an arrow into his. After a long moment his eyes sought the floor, and relief.
    She realized she had won a test of wills. “Loosen the ropes,” she ordered.
    His long fingers moving over her wrists filled her for the moment with loathing. She could scarcely grasp the extent of her disappointment in him. He had proved himself so much more limited than she had ever dreamed.
    He made it worse still by then trying to make a joke of what he had attempted. He babbled on, forcing laughter like corn down the neck of a Gascony goose. She stared at him and gathered fresh insights.
    She was stronger than he now. Much stronger. That strength was a searchlight that increasingly illuminated the defects in his personality.
     
    Driving to an appointment the next morning, she took little pleasure from probing her fiancé’s character and finding soft spots. She sensed—irrationally, she supposed —that Carson himself had set in motion the cogs of that re-evaluation. She felt a chill and shivered despite herself.
    She began to feel Carson closing in on her. She imagined him somehow standing unseen beside her. She found herself not wanting to be alone, lest that give him the opportunity to approach, should he wish it. Yet so far as she knew, stopping the wedding, rather than confronting her, was his sole desire.
    For now.
    Should the wedding be canceled, she sensed he would come forward with some other equally outrageous demand. One that he would force her with glacial strength to meet. She knew Carson. The Master of Excess.
    Her fears deepened when she thought about vulnerable Melody, now visiting Washington, D.C., with Grandma. When she came back to walk through the rest of the summer mosaic assembled for her entertainment and education, how could Trish protect her from Carson? Should he kidnap the child and demand the wedding be scrapped, Trish would consent. No question! Blood always told.
    She had so hoped Nicholas would lead the police to Carson’s hiding place! For the time being he and Dino had failed. How could ordinary men penetrate the secret world of genius?
    She groaned with dread.
    She pressed a radio preset button to the golden oldies station. Ba-Ba-Ba-Ba-Barbara Ann...
    Coming to the site of a seemingly endless road-bridge construction area, she swung off the highway onto a secondary road, beginning her familiar self-designed detour. Two lefts and a right later she was heading down a narrow street faced with warehouses. Here, too, roads were under construction. But not today.
    The Acura’s engine sputtered, stalled. Muttering, she spun the ignition key. The engine caught. She drove sixty yards, then it died again. She didn’t