28

S HE CLUTCHED HER NECK, WHERE THE BLOOD STARTED POURING out as he removed the bread knife from the cut he’d just made. It felt messy, the way it trickled down inside her blouse, between her breasts, and she didn’t dare look.

The scent of freshly baked bread emanated from the kitchen. The coffee table was set with cups and lit candles.

He breathed out, a vein on the side of his neck throbbing. She glanced over at him without moving.

Her blouse was sticking. She bent her head down so her chin was resting on her chest, to stanch the bleeding. The pain seared her neck, and she thought maybe this was pushing more blood out instead, so she raised her head so she was looking straight ahead again. She wasn’t crying.

Moving slowly, he set the bread knife down on the coffee table.

She hadn’t recognized the silhouette of his body through the frosted glass in the door when he rang the bell. She had not been prepared at all and didn’t have a chance to react before he was inside.

With his arms in front of him in a defensive gesture, he had walked slowly toward her, assuring her that he didn’t want to hurt her, just talk.

She had backed up, step by step, as he moved closer.

“You have to listen to me,” he pleaded, when they were standing in the kitchen.

Oddly enough, she wasn’t afraid. With her back to the refrigerator, she listened as he explained that he hadn’t killed anyone. That the whole thing was a misunderstanding. There was something earnest and honest about his voice that made her believe what he said.

Her eyes moved down over his face as he spoke.

Suddenly she remembered those eyes. She wanted to move in closer. Woodland lakes, she thought. They were dark with a shimmer of green.

Now she stared desperately at the bread knife lying on the coffee table. The wound burned, and her body was paralyzed. The fear that had subsided when he started talking to her in his calm voice was back, wrapping itself around her like a mantle of ice. It had happened at that instant. She recognized the dangerous glint in his eye, and saw the distorted expression on his face. It had changed the second the phone rang. He ordered her to sit still and not pick it up. In a few quick leaps, he was out in the kitchen; when he came back, the serrations in the stainless steel blade had sliced into the thin skin on her neck as he held her firmly in his tight grip and pressed.

“Answer it,” he snarled.

She reacted mechanically, speaking in a voice she was not in control of, and was surprised at how calm it sounded.

She felt the blood spreading into a stain on her chest.

In an almost invisible motion, he gestured for her to stand up. He took the bread knife from the coffee table and was right behind her, leading her toward the closed door to the bedroom.