The October List

on. The strands were deep green and blue …
    Echoing a line from a song.
    One of her favorites.
    Eyes red, demeanor anxious, Gabriela sat once again in the shabby plush purple chair in the center of the living room. Though she clutched the yarn, she didn’t begin the rhythmic, comforting motion, so familiar, with the red knitting needles yet. She touched her mouth with a tissue. Looked at the wad, which was white as fine linen, now blotched red. Her fingers were tipped with polish of a similar shade.
    Then, tap, tap , Gabriela knitted five rows. She coughed several times, pressed her side, below her right breast, her eyes squinting shut momentarily. She tasted blood. Copper, salty, bitter.
    Concern rippling his brow, Sam asked, ‘If it’s bleeding like that, shouldn’t you go to the emergency room? It looks worse.’
    Gabriela gave a brief laugh. ‘That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Didn’t Daniel tell you what happened this afternoon?’
    ‘Oh. Sure. Wasn’t thinking.’
    ‘I’ll live with it until I get Sarah back. Then I’ll have things taken care of. In the prison hospital, most likely.’ A cynical smirk accompanied this comment.
    She studied the apartment once more. When she and Daniel had arrived two hours ago she’d been too preoccupied to notice much. In addition to being filled with beat-up furniture, and exuding a sense of the temporary, it was gloomy, particularly now in the oppressive dusk. She supposed this atmosphere was mostly due to the tall ceilings, small rooms, gray wallpaper flecked with tiny pale flowers. Her eyes went to the wrought-iron coffee table in the middle of the room. Its spiky edges looked like a weapon from a science fiction film.
    Pain …
    The table set her nerves aflame. But she thought yet again, as she’d done so often in the past two days: Your goal. All you should think about is your goal.
    Sarah. Saving Sarah is your only goal. Remember that, remember that, remember that.
    Gabriela asked, ‘You work with Daniel much?’
    Sam replied, ‘We’ve had a relationship with him and The Norwalk Fund for close to seven years.’
    ‘How many people’ve told him he looks like the actor?’ She was thinking back to Friday night – could it really have been just two days ago? – meeting Daniel Reardon for the first time. Then later that evening: Recalling his damp brow, speckled with moisture, and beneath, his blue eyes, which were simultaneously easy and intense.
    ‘A lot,’ Sam said and again rubbed his bare, shiny scalp. ‘I don’t get that much: Are you this or that actor?’ He was laughing. He had a sense of humor after all, maybe.
    ‘And the head of your company, Andrew – what was his last name again?’
    ‘Faraday.’
    ‘He’s a fascinating man,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard of a specialty like his before.’
    ‘Not many companies do what we do. He’s made a name for himself. Travels all over the world. Flies a hundred thousand miles a year. Minimum.’
    She knit another row of blue and green. Tap, tap .
    ‘And your job, Sam?’
    ‘I’m a behind-the-scenes guy. The operations chief for the company.’
    ‘Like me,’ she said. ‘I run my company’s office and …’ Her voice faded and she gave a sour laugh. ‘I ran the office. Before all this happened.’ She sighed, dabbed at her mouth once more, examined the tissue and continued knitting, as if she were simply tired of receiving bad news. She gave him a wry look. ‘Operations chief also has babysitter in the job description?’
    He opened his mouth – a protest was coming – but then he said, with a grin, ‘Was it that obvious?’
    She continued, ‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense for you to be involved in this except for one reason: to make sure I stay out of their hair.’
    ‘Daniel and Andrew are negotiating your daughter’s release from a kidnapper. What would you do if you’d gone with them?’
    She shrugged. ‘Scratch Joseph’s fucking eyes out.’
    ‘That’s what Daniel figured. Better for you to stay here.’
    ‘And if I wanted to sneak off to the meeting, how were you going to stop me?’
    ‘I’d probably beg.’
    She laughed.
    ‘What do you know about Joseph?’ Sam asked.
    The smile vanished like water in parched dirt. ‘He’s a monster, a sadist.’ She cast a glance at the CVS drugstore bag, inside which they could see a bloodstain, paled by the white plastic.
    Sam noted it too. ‘Daniel told me about that. Unbelievable. Who’d do something like