A Life Transparent (9 page)

He looked back at the phone. Now that calling the cops was out, Donovan was left with Dullington’s demands. Aleister Dullington’s explanations flew in the face of logic, but given all Donovan had seen that week, he realized he believed the man and his threats.

“The world behind the world.” His stomach churned. He flickered, his office suddenly cast in a gray tone. After four days of seeing and experiencing the impossible, Donovan still found himself in disbelief. It was preposterous to believe that Donovan’s boring existence could make him disappear—and yet it was happening to him at that very moment. When the flickering stopped, Donovan realized he had no choice but to accept his predicament: Dullington had him.

He thought of Donna, imagined her curled up in some dark room, the restraints cutting into her skin. What worried him wasn’t her state so much as what lurked in the darkness beyond her. Though he believed Dullington’s statement that no one had molested her, he was certain this was merely circumstantial, and that if he didn’t act soon her situation might change.

Donovan rubbed his eyes.
Get it together. You can do this. She’s okay
. Comforted by these thoughts, he picked up the phone.

“What would Joe Hopper do?”

He wouldn’t call the cops, too much red tape. But who, then? The answer came immediately, blurted out by the frantic, screeching voice of his conscience:
Call the
real
Joe Hopper
. Michael was born to be a hero—from their childhood days in the backyard to his current career in private investigation, he always had to be the good guy. It was this trait upon which Donovan drew much of Joe Hopper’s character, and one that had not diminished in its significance to Donovan despite all the intervening years of suppressed sibling rivalry.

Donovan frowned. He dialed Michael’s number, his fears preparing him for assault with the press of each button. What if Michael couldn’t hear him? Worse: what if he didn’t believe? He hoped the news of Donna’s abduction would be enough to erase any doubts his brother might have. For once, the issue at hand was not Donovan’s inability to live up to his older brother’s expectations.

As the phone rang a third time, Donovan realized he didn’t care what Michael thought of him, so long as he got Donna back safe and sound. After a fifth ring, Michael’s voicemail answered. Donovan waited for the beep, then cleared his throat. His voice sounded weak to his own ears. He cringed.

“Mike, it’s Don. Listen, I need your help. I really don’t know how to say this, but—aww, God, Mike, she’s missing. Someone broke in and took Donna while I was at work.
Please
call me back as soon as you get this. Thanks.”

He hung up the phone. The tears clouded his vision, but he did not let them keep him from moving. He made his way back downstairs.

A stiff, cool breeze greeted him with a chill as he stepped outside. He zipped up his jacket, locked the front door, and went to the car. He wiped tears from his eyes, shifted the car into reverse, and backed out of the driveway. The dashboard clock read 6:37, but he tried not to think about what he would have normally been doing on a Friday evening. Right now he had only one thing on his mind: George Guffin.

•  •  •

A jolt of pain brought Donna out of a troubled slumber. Her head swam. Everything was dark—God, the pain was horrible. Her breath was hot, and it covered her face in a thick cloud that would not diminish.

I can’t breathe.
The words surfaced from a murky pool of thoughts, and she panicked. She moved her head, desperate for fresh air, only the warm cloud of breath remained. She realized there was something coarse—
a cloth
—pressed against her face.

Confused, Donna tried to sit up. She wanted to pull the material from her face, only her hands would not cooperate. Something was wrong. Her heart began to race, hammering nails into her chest.

The pain in her wrists shot up into her elbows each time she tried to move, and she realized she was bound hand and foot. Memories of what happened came rushing back to her in a heap of broken images—

The man smiles and quickly shoves his weight against the door. It catches against her foot with such force that she loses her balance. The world spins, and for a moment she is falling. The floor catches her. Dazed, her head fills with sparkles of light, and she looks up to find the dirty man standing over her. She sees him reach into his pocket and pull free two items. One is a black cloth. The other is a handgun.

She panics at sight of the weapon. Her heart begins to race, and she reacts instinctively, scrambling onto her back and aiming a forceful kick at the intruder’s groin. He yelps in pain and lurches over in agony. She struggles away from the door and back into the kitchen as he falls to his knees.

Donna’s next impulse is to get a weapon of her own. She thinks of taking his, but realizes she hasn’t the slightest idea how to use a gun, nor how to retrieve it without putting herself within his reach. He could easily grab her, wrestle her to the ground, and choke her to death. Instead she crawls to the kitchen. Her foot ignites with pain when she tries to put her weight on it, and she thinks she may have twisted it when he forced open the door.

Donna crawls to the kitchen counter. She reaches up and pulls a knife from the wooden block. She doesn’t care what kind, so long as it has a blade, but before she can find one—

“You sneaky bitch.”

The man is behind her. There is pain in his voice, but worse, there is anger. She feels his hands on her legs, and she cries out when he squeezes her bad ankle. Desperate, she clings to a drawer, and it gives way as he pulls her from the counter. The drawer’s contents spill to the floor. She spots a steak knife and strains to reach it, but the man is one step ahead of her. He kicks it away and forces her onto her back.

He’s going to rape me
, she thinks.
Then he’s going to kill me
. A dozen images flash before her in light of this realization—things she always wanted to do, a baby she wants to have but never will, Donovan’s smiling face—and regrets that she will die with him angry at her.

Donna fights. She kicks at the man, her foot connecting with his stomach, and he yowls like an animal. Seizing the opportunity, she scrambles for the dining room, unsure of where to go but not caring so long as it’s away from this lunatic. Mr. Precious Paws is underneath a chair, watching. The man mumbles something that sounds like, “I won’t let you down,” and he’s upon her before she can climb to her feet. She rolls on her back in time to see him standing over her, a butcher knife in each hand.

He moves toward her and the cat yowls. He’s stepped on Mr. Precious Paws’ tail. What Donna sees next is horrifying, something that will be seared forever in her mind.

“I won’t let you down,” the man screams. He drops to his knees, catching the cat as it tries to escape. He holds the animal steady with one hand, brings down the knife, and exterminates Mr. Precious Paws in a single, violent stroke. Donna can see the feline’s eyes, can sense its terror as the poor thing lets out a final, gurgling cry. Blood pours from its middle and its legs twitch in death throes. The knife has gone all the way through, pinning the animal to the floor.

“I. Won’t. Let. You. Down.”

He takes another knife and spears it through Mr. Precious Paws’ neck. Blood spurts onto the wall and dribbles across the floor.

“No,” Donna gasps. She cannot muster a scream. The man turns to her, shaking his head, his eyes wide with a fury she has never seen before.

“I killed the cat,” he whispered, looking at the blood on his hands. He set his murderous gaze upon her. “You made me kill your fucking cat.”

He pounces on her, and she does not have time to react. The man pins her to the floor. She continues to thrash, but he plants his knees on her arms. His entire weight immobilizes her. She watches his arm block out the light on the ceiling. His hand is balled into a fist, and it comes down in a swift arc.

She feels it connect with her temple, but there is no pain. There are only stars and the dark.

Donna found that darkness still lingered, and reasoned that her head was now covered by the attacker’s black cloth. She tried to calm herself, holding in her breath to slow her heart. When the echo of its interminable pounding finally subsided, she discovered the sounds of movement, voices.

“Hello?” she croaked. “Somebody?”

“She’s awake.”

“What do we do?”

“Shut her up.”

The voices were low, hushed whispers, but she could tell they belonged to men. They sounded frightened.

“Help me,” she said. “I’m hurting—”

Pain shot through her right thigh. She cried out. One of the men laughed.

“Damn right, you are. Now you shut your mouth, lady, or I’ll—”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” A new voice. A woman’s voice. “Get away from her.”

“I don’t have to take orders from you, Alice.”

A loud smack echoed about the darkness. One of the men gasped. The other, Donna’s attacker, fell silent.

“Maybe not,” said Alice, “but I’ll be god damned if I’ll sit here and watch you beat her.
He
didn’t tell you to do that, did he?”

There was a pause, and then the man timidly said, “No. He didn’t.”

“Now get out of here.
I’ll
watch her.” Another beat of silence filled the dark. “Go on. Fuck off, you two.”

Donna chewed her bottom lip, unsure whether this Alice person was any better than the two men. And who was this “he” she referred to? Donna wondered if it was the man who abducted her.

Something pulled at the bag around her face. She gasped as its coarse surface tore away from her skin, reopening the wound she’d received with the punch that knocked her out. Dim light came into view, and she had to squint to see it. The light was orange, licking the air like a serpent’s tongue.
Fire
, she thought.
It’s a fire.

A shape came into view. Donna blinked, waiting for the blurriness to subside, and she saw the face of the woman who’d come to her rescue. She was young, not yet thirty, her face spotted with dark grime. Her hair hung over her shoulders in knots.

“Here,” she said. Hints of a smile teased the edges of her lips. “Drink.”

She put her hand behind Donna’s head, helped lift her up, and put a mug to her mouth. Donna drank the water. It was warm and bitter, but she welcomed it. When she was done, she pulled away from the mug and looked into the hardened eyes of the woman called Alice.

“Please let me go,” she said. The tears returned to her eyes. “Please, I won’t tell anyone. Just let me go. Let me go back to my husband.”

Alice frowned. For a moment Donna feared Alice would put the bag over her head again. She watched the young woman rise to her feet, still frowning. The fire beyond the room turned Alice into a silhouette. Beyond the doorway, Donna could see columns of some kind, and benches. There were trash bags piled atop one another, a rusty shopping cart tipped on its side.

“Where are we?”

The young woman turned and shook her head.

“Just be quiet and lie still. It’ll be over when he gets what he wants.”

“Let me go,” Donna cried. “
Please—
”

Alice left the room, pulling the door closed behind her. The darkness returned, washing over Donna’s body in a quick, cold wave.

•  •  •

Traffic was light, and it did not take Donovan long to reach the diner. The parking lot was filled with Friday night patrons, and the memory of his first date here with Donna made his stomach twist into knots. He parked the car and sat for a moment.

What would he say to this man? He’d thought about it during the drive. Playing the tough guy wouldn’t go over well—after all, he didn’t know how closely tied this George Guffin was to Mr. Dullington. He wished his brother was home to answer his—

Phone.

Donovan remembered the cell phone. He reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved it. His heart sank.
Don’t forget to charge the phone,
Donna’s voice echoed in his head. The week’s sudden turn off course had disrupted his usual morning routine, of which the brand new cellphone was only just becoming a part. He flipped it open. There was one bar of juice left.

He dialed his brother’s number. There were three rings, followed by an error tone. He tried a second time only to be met with the same result. Donovan pulled the phone from his ear and looked at the screen: CALL FAILED.

“No shit.” He looked out the window at the restaurant. “Just get it over with, Don.”

His voice sounded tiny, lost. He flickered and caught a glimpse of five white figures loitering along the sidewalk. The world resumed in color. He shook off the sensation in his stomach, slid out of the car, and made his way across the parking lot. It wasn’t until he reached the entrance of Rossetti’s Diner that he realized he didn’t know what the man looked like. He imagined a large, bulky figure—someone physically intimidating enough to force their way into his home and subdue an innocent person.

When he stepped inside, he saw no such figures. To his left and right were booths filled with teenagers, adults near his age, and even a few elderly couples. Straight ahead was a bar lined with stools and a pair of cash registers. Vintage photographs of diner promo ads from the 1950s adorned the walls, and even the wait staff were dressed in pastel colors reminiscent of the era.

Donovan stood against a sweeping tide of nostalgia. He remembered vividly the details of his and Donna’s first date, the way she smiled when he opened the door for her, the scent of her perfume. The atmosphere was inviting, comforting, and made him forget about the drab alternative he’d come to know so well.

As he stood in the doorway, Donovan realized just how alone he truly was. No one—not even the nearest waitress—looked up in his direction.
They can’t see me
, he thought. The flickering overcame him, painting the café in shades of gunmetal. The diner’s patrons darkened, filled in with a deep gray that obscured their features.