The Husband

and rises to his feet.
    He leaves her in pitch black with the half-full can of Pepsi, which she expects him to take. Her intention is—or had been—to squash the can and to create from it a miniature pry bar with which to work on the stubborn nail.
    The Saint Christopher medal will do a better job. Cast in brass and plated with silver or nickel, it is much harder than the soft aluminum of the can.
    Her keeper's visit has changed the quality of this lightless space. It had been a lonely darkness. Now Holly imagines it inhabited by rats and waterbugs and legions of crawling things.

Chapter 42

     
    Anson fell hard in front of the back door, and the wind . seemed to cheer his collapse.
    Like a creature accustomed to filtering its oxygen from water and now helpless on a beach, he twitched, spasmed. His hands flopped, and his knuckles rapped on the bricks.
    He gawped at Mitch, moving his mouth, as if trying to speak, or maybe he was trying to scream in pain. All that came out was a thin squeal, a mere thread of sound, as if his esophagus had constricted to the diameter of a pin.
    Mitch tried the door. Unlocked. He pushed it open and stepped into the kitchen.
    The lights were off. He didn't switch them on.
    Not sure how long the effects of the shock would last, hoping for at least a minute or two, he put the Taser on a counter and returned to the open door.
    Warily, he grabbed Anson by the ankles, but his brother was not capable of trying to kick him. Mitch dragged him into the house, and winced when the back of Anson's head stuttered against the raised threshold.
    Closing the door, he turned on the lights. The blinds were shut, as they had been when he and Anson received the phone call from the kidnappers.
    The pot oizuppa massaia remained on the stove, cold but still fragrant.
    Adjacent to the kitchen lay a laundry room. He checked it and found it to be as he remembered: small, no windows.
    At the kitchen table, the four dinette chairs were retro-chic stainless steel and red vinyl. He moved one of them to the laundry room.
    On the floor, hugging himself as if he were freezing, but most likely trying to stop the twitching, trying to get control of the less dramatic but still continuous muscle spasms, Anson made the pitiable sounds of a dog in pain.
    The agony might be real. It might be a performance. Mitch kept a safe distance.
    He retrieved the Taser. Reaching to the small of his back, he withdrew the pistol that he had tucked under his belt.
    "Anson, I want you to roll over, facedown."
    His brother's head lolled from side to side, not in refusal but perhaps involuntarily.
    Anticipation of revenge had been in its way a different kind of sugar rush. In reality, nothing about it tasted sweet.
    "Listen to me. I want you to roll over and crawl as best you can to the laundry room."
    Drool escaped a corner of Anson's mouth. His chin glistened.
    "I'm giving you a chance to do it the easy way."
    Anson continued to appear disoriented and not in easy control of his body.
    Mitch wondered if two Taser shots in quick succession, and the second held perhaps too long, could have done permanent damage. Anson seemed to have been worse than stunned.
    The big man's fall might have contained an element of tragedy if he had fallen from a height, but he had gone from low to lower.
    Mitch hounded him, repeatedly making the same commands. Then: "Damn it, Anson, if I have to, I can give you a third shock and drag your ass in there while you're helpless."
    The back door rattled, distracting Mitch. Only the hand of the wind tested the latch as a strong gust swept more boldly into the sheltered courtyard.
    When he looked at Anson again, he saw an acute awareness in his brother's eyes, a sly calculation, which vanished in that glaze of disorientation. Anson's eyes rolled back in his head.
    Mitch waited half a minute. Then he moved quickly toward his brother.
    Anson sensed him coming, thought he was going to use the Taser, and sat up to block it, grab it.
    Instead Mitch squeezed off a shot, intentionally missing his brother, but not by much. At the report of the pistol, Anson flinched back in surprise, and Mitch slammed the gun against the side of his head, hard enough to hurt bad—hard enough, as it turned out, to knock him unconscious.
    The point had been to gain Anson's cooperation by convincing him that he was not dealing with the same Mitch. But this worked, too.

Chapter 43

     
    He ain't heavy, he's my brother. Bullshit. He was Mitch's