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“But don’t spoil her!” Emily reaches out to him. “Don’t spoil the meat! Don’t spoil her liver! I need it, Roddy! I need it!”

“I know,” he says. “Be strong, my love. It won’t be long now.”

3

Going down the basement stairs, Roddy hears big sloppy snores. He judges them not to be the snores of someone faking sleep. Still, care must be taken. He pushes the handle of the broom through the flap and pokes her. No reaction. Again, harder. Still no reaction. He bends, hypodermic in one hand, and pushes the other through the flap. He takes her fingers and pulls her hand out. She grasps him by the wrist… but weakly. Then her fingers relax.

Take no chances with this one, he thinks, and injects her wrist. Just half the contents of the hypo. Then he waits.

Five minutes later he punches the code on the cell door, thinking that if she can put up a fight after a double dose of sedative, she’s Supergirl. He would still like Emily to be standing by with the gun, but she’s currently not capable of getting down the basement stairs. It would be nice to have an elevator, but they’ve never even discussed it. How would they explain the cell at the end of the basement to the workmen? Or the woodchipper?

There’s no problem. Bonnie Dahl isn’t Supergirl; she’s out cold. Roddy takes her arms and drags her across the basement to the small door beside his racked wall of tools. Inside the next room, a fifty-gallon plastic bag hangs limp from the end of the woodchipper’s ejector hose. In the middle of the room is an operating table. There are more tools in here, but these are of a lab and surgical variety.

The last part of this operation—the operation before the operation, so to speak—is the most difficult: getting the unconscious young woman on the table. Roddy manages to lift her one hundred and forty pounds, back creaking and hips screaming. For one terrifying moment he thinks he’s going to drop her. Then he thinks of Em, lying in their bed with one leg drawn up, her face stamped with insupportable pain, and with a final effort he rolls Dahl onto the table. She almost tumbles off the other side, which would be a horrible joke. He grabs her hair in one hand and her thigh in the other and pulls her back. She gives a furry, guttural moan and a word that might be mom. He thinks how often they call for their mothers at the end, even if the mother in question is a bad one. The Steinman boy certainly did. Although the Steinman boy only became necessary because they didn’t understand how crazily devoted Ellen Craslow was to her stupid vegan diet.

Roddy bends over, panting and hoping he won’t have a cardiac event. We should have a lift in here, he thinks. It’s true, but they could explain the livestock cage to lift installers no more than they could explain it to elevator installers. When his heartbeat finally slows, he clamps her wrists and her ankles. Then he sets out the pans for her organs, takes a scalpel, and begins cutting off her clothes.

July 27, 2021

1

Holly has reached the point in her prayers where she’s telling God she still misses Bill Hodges when the universe throws her another rope.

Her phone starts playing its little tune. She doesn’t recognize the number and almost rejects the call, thinking it will be some guy from India who wants her to extend her car’s warranty or has an offer for a can’t-miss Covid cure, but she’s on a case—chasing the case—and so she takes it, prepared to hit end the minute the pitch starts.

“Hello? Is this Holly? Holly Gibney?”

“It is. Who’s this?”

“Randy?” Like he’s not completely sure of his own identity. “Randy Holsten? You came around asking about Tom? And his girlfriend, that Bonnie?”

“That’s right.”

“You told me to call if I remembered anything, remember?”

Holly doesn’t think Randy is drunk, but she guesses he’s had a few. “I did. And have you?”

“Have I what?”

Patience, she thinks. “Thought of anything, Randy.”

“Yeah, but it probably doesn’t mean anything. I was at this party, right? New Year’s Eve party, and I was pretty drunk—”

“So you said.”

“And I was in the kitchen because that’s where the beer was, and this Bonnie came out and we talked a little. I don’t think she was drunk, exactly, but she’d had a few, doing the zig-zag walk, if you know what I mean. I did most of the talking, I always do when I’m in the bag, and she mostly just listened. I think maybe she came out to get away from Tom, did I tell you that?”

“You did.”

“But she said one thing I remembered. I didn’t when we talked at Starbucks, but I did after. Almost didn’t call you, but then I thought what the hell.”

“What was it?”

“I asked her what she did over the Christmas break and she said she was an elf. I go what? And she says I was a Christmas elf. Doesn’t mean anything, right?”

Holly channels The Empire Strikes Back. “Everything means something, it does.”

Randy cracks up. “Yoda! Beautiful! You rock, Holly. Hey, if you ever want to go out and grab a burger and a pitcher sometime—”