The Empty Chair

inflatable toys, of picnics, of trim women in Speedos and thongs.
    Outside reminded Lydia of a life she wanted but didn’t have, of her loneliness.
    He led her down another path, out of the forest. Suddenly the trees vanished and a huge pit opened in front of them. It was an old quarry. Blue-green water filled the bottom. She remembered years ago kids used to swim here, before the swamp started to reclaim the land north of the Paquo and the area got more dangerous.
    “Let’s go,” Garrett said, nodding toward it.
    “No. I don’t want to. It’s scary.”
    “Don’t give a shit what you want,” he snapped. “Come on!”
    He gripped her taped hands and led her down a steep path to a rocky ledge. Garrett stripped off his shirt and bent down, splashed water on his blotched skin. He scratched and picked at the welts, examined his fingernails. Disgusting. He looked up at Lydia. “You want to do this? It feels good. You can take your dress off, you want. Go for a swim.”
    Horrified at the thought of being naked in front of him she shook her head adamantly. Then sat down near the edge and splashed water on her face and arms.
    “Just don’t drink it. I’ve got this.”
    He pulled a dusty burlap bag out from behind a rock, where he must’ve stashed it recently. He pulled out a bottle of water and some packets of cheese crackers with peanut butter. He ate a package of crackers and drank half of a bottle of water. He offered the rest to her.
    She shook her head, repulsed.
    “Fuck, I don’t have AIDS or anything if that’s what you’re thinking. You gotta drink something.”
    Ignoring the bottle, Lydia lowered her mouth to the water in the quarry and drank deep. It was salty and metallic. Disgusting. She choked, nearly vomited.
    “Jesus, I told you,” Garrett snapped. He offered her the water again. “There’s all kinds of crap in there. Quit being so fucking stupid.” He tossed her the bottle. She caught it clumsily with her taped hands and drank it down.
    Drinking the water immediately refreshed her. She relaxed some and asked, “Where’s Mary Beth? What’ve you done with her?”
    “She’s in this place by the ocean. An old banker house.”
    Lydia knew what he meant. “Banker” to a Carolinian meant somebody who lived on the Outer Banks, the barrier islands off the coast in the Atlantic. So that’s where Mary Beth was. And she understood now why they’d been traveling east—toward swampland with no houses and very few other places to hide. He probably had a boat stashed to take them through the swamp to the Intracoastal Waterway then to Elizabeth City and through Albemarle Sound to the Banks.
    He continued. “I like it there. It’s really neat. You like the ocean?” He asked her in a funny way—conversationally—and he seemed almost normal. For a moment her fear lessened. But then he froze again and listened to something, holding a finger to his lips to silence her, frowning angrily, as his dark side returned. Finally he shook his head as he decided that whatever he’d heard wasn’t a threat. He rubbed the back of his hand over his face, scratching another welt. “Let’s go.” He nodded back up the steep path to the rim of the quarry. “It’s not far.”
    “The Outer Banks’ll take us a day to get to. More.”
    “Oh, hell, we’re not gonna get there today.” He laughed coldly as if she’d made another idiotic comment. “We’ll hide near here and let the assholes searching for usget past. We’ll spend the night.” He was looking away from her when he said this.
    “Spend the night?” she whispered hopelessly.
    But Garrett said nothing more. He started prodding her up the steep incline to the lip of the quarry and the pine woods beyond.

. . . chapter six
    What’s the attraction of the sites of death?
    As she’d walked the grid at dozens of crime scenes Amelia Sachs had often asked this question and she asked it again now as she stood on the shoulder of Route 112 in Blackwater Landing, overlooking the Paquenoke River.
    This was the place where young Billy Stail had died bloody, where two young women had been kidnapped, where a hardworking deputy’s life had been changed forever—perhaps ended—by a hundred wasps. And even in the relentless sun the mood of Blackwater Landing was somber and edgy.
    She surveyed the place carefully. Here, at the crime scene, a steep hill, strewn with trash, led from the shoulder of Route 112 down to the muddy riverbank. Where the ground