“Help me,” he said.

He was high on pills. She could see him see her register it. They were prescription pills. He was in pain. But he didn’t offer any explanations. He laughed. “Fuck,” he said, rubbing his eyes with one hand. He leaned his forehead against the glass and he looked at Gretchen Lowell. No one said a word. Susan thought she could hear someone’s watch ticking. The lawyer blew his nose. Finally, Archie turned his head back toward Susan. “I should never have brought you here. I’m sorry.”

Susan lifted her chin toward the window. “What does she want with me?” she asked.

Archie looked at Susan. He ran a hand over his mouth, through his hair. “She wants to size you up. See what you know.”

“About you.”

He nodded a few times. “Yup.”

“What do you want me to tell her?”

He looked her in the eye. “The truth. She has a marvelous bullshit detector. But if you go in there, she will fuck with you. She’s not a nice person. And she will not like you.”

Susan tried to smile. “I’m charming.”

Archie’s craggy face was dead serious. “She will feel threatened by you and she will be mean to you. You need to understand that.”

Susan put her palm on the glass, so that Gretchen Lowell’s head rested in the crux between her thumb and forefinger. “Can I write about it?”

“I can’t stop you.”

“True.”

“But no pens,” Archie said definitively.

“Why?”

He looked in through the glass at Gretchen. Susan could see his eyes travel over her, her neck, her arms, her hands. It reminded her of the way someone might linger over a lover. “Because I don’t want her using it to stab you in the throat,” he said.

Gretchen,” Archie said. “This is Susan Ward. Susan, Gretchen Lowell.”

It suddenly seemed, to Susan, that there wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. She stood stupidly for a moment, wondering if she was supposed to offer to shake Gretchen’s hand, then remembered the manacles and thought better of it. Just be calm, Susan told herself for the tenth time in thirty seconds. She pulled a chair out so she could sit down across from Gretchen. The chair scraped against the floor, making Susan feel clumsy and awkward. Her heart was racing. She avoided eye contact with Gretchen as she sat down, conscious of her silly thrashed jeans, wishing that she had asked for a minute back in the hall to brush her hair. Archie sat down next to Susan. Susan forced herself to look across the table. Gretchen smiled at her. She was even more lovely up close.

“Well, aren’t you cute,” Gretchen said sweetly. “Like a little cartoon character.” Susan had never been more self-conscious of her stupid pink hair. Of her childish clothes. Of her flat chest. “I’ve enjoyed your stories,” Gretchen continued, with just enough lilt in her voice that Susan couldn’t tell for sure if she was being genuine or sarcastic.

Susan plunked her digital recorder on the table and willed her heart to slow. “Do you mind if I record this?” she asked, trying to seem professional. The room smelled antiseptic, like industrial-power cleanser. Toxic.

Gretchen tilted her head toward the window, where Susan knew the others were watching. “It’s all being recorded,” she said.

Susan met Gretchen’s stare. “Humor me.”

Gretchen raised her eyebrows gamely.

Susan pressed RECORD. She could sense Gretchen absorbing her. She felt like a mistress suddenly confronted with her lover’s glamorous wife. It was a role to which Susan was well suited, an irony that did not escape her. She glanced at Archie for some indication of what to do next, how to behave. He sat leaning back in his chair, hands threaded on his lap, not taking his eyes off Gretchen. There was a level of comfort between them. As if they had known each other their whole lives. Debbie was right: It was creepy.

“She likes you,” Gretchen said teasingly to Archie.

Archie pulled a brass pillbox out of his pocket and set it on the table in front of him. “She’s a reporter,” he said, rotating the small box in a clockwise motion on the tabletop. “She’s friendly with her subjects so they tell her things. It’s her job.”

“Do you tell her things?”

“Yes,” he said, looking at the box.

“But not everything.”

He glanced up at Gretchen meaningfully. “Of course not.”

Gretchen seemed satisfied by this, and she settled her attention on Susan. “What are your questions?”

Susan was startled. “My questions?”

Gretchen gestured to the digital recorder. She wore the manacles like they were bracelets, lovely and expensive baubles to be admired and envied. “That’s why you’ve come here, right? With your little gadget and furrowed brow? To interview me? You can’t write a story about Archie Sheridan without talking to me. I made him who he is today. Without me, he wouldn’t have had a career.”

“I like to think I would have found some other megalomaniacal homicidal psychopath,” Archie said with a sigh.

Gretchen ignored him. “Go ahead,” she said to Susan. “Ask me anything.”

Susan’s mind went blank. She had gone over this in her head dozens of times, what she would ask Gretchen Lowell if she had a chance. But she had never believed that she would have the opportunity. Get a grip, she chided herself. Come up with a question. Anything. Ask the first thing that comes into your head. “Why did you kidnap Archie Sheridan?” she said.

Gretchen’s skin glowed. Susan wondered if they allowed exfoliants in prisons. Maybe she was hoarding strawberries from the cafeteria and making her own masks. Gretchen leaned forward over the small table. “I wanted to kill him,” she said with glee. “I wanted to torture him in the most interesting, painful manner imaginable until he begged me to slit his throat.”

Susan had to swallow before she could speak. “Did he?”

Gretchen looked adoringly at Archie. “Do you want to take that one, darling?”

“I did,” Archie said without missing a beat. He placed the pillbox in his open palm on the table and looked at it.

“But you didn’t kill him,” Susan said to Gretchen.

Gretchen shrugged and widened her eyes. “Change of plans.”

“Why him?”

“I was bored. And he seemed to take such a genuine interest in my work. I thought it would be nice for him to get to see it up close. Now can I ask you a question?”

Susan shifted in her seat, struggling for an adequate response. Gretchen didn’t wait for one. The question was directed at Susan, but Gretchen’s attention was fixed on Archie. Archie was looking at the pillbox.

“You’ve met Debbie? How is she?” Her voice was tender, as if she were asking after an old friend.

Oh, Debbie! She’s great! Just moved to Des Moines. Married, couple of kids. Sends her love.

Susan glanced over at Archie. He wasn’t looking at the box anymore; he was looking at Gretchen. But other than his eyes, he hadn’t moved a muscle. The brass pillbox glistened in his palm. The sudden tension between them made Susan’s stomach feel rigid.

“I don’t think that I should answer that,” she said. Her voice came out smaller than she had intended. She felt like a teenager. Like she was fourteen again. The feeling made her uncomfortably warm.

“There’s a cemetery,” Gretchen announced. “Off a state highway in Nebraska. We buried Gloria on top of one of the graves. Want to know where it is?”

No one moved for a minute. And then Archie finally looked at Susan. His eyes were glassy. Now I see why you’re high, thought Susan.

“It’s fine,” Archie said. “Really. She likes to revel in what a thorough mess she’s made of my life. We talk about it all the time. You’d think she’d get tired of it after a while.” He set the box back down on the table. He did it gently, like it was bruised. “But it never ceases to entertain her.”