“Shut up!” the man shouted.

“We need to ask him some questions,” Claire Bennet said. “We need to know why he’s here. We need to know if he’s a threat or not.”

I tried to nod. “Hmmm mmm!” I said.

“Of course he’s a threat,” the man said. “If he’s here, if he’s found us, found Katie, then he’s a threat. Because if he can find us, anyone can find us.”

Some more pacing, then footsteps right up next to my head. Someone kneeling next to me.

“I’m gonna ask you some questions,” the man said, his breath hot on my face. “Okay?”

I nodded. I felt fingers on my cheek, working their way under the tape, and then he ripped it off suddenly.

“Owww!”

It took my mind off how much my head hurt. I moved my jaw around, did a bit of moaning. “My eyes,” I said. “Can you take the tape off my eyes? Please?”

“Whaddya think?” he asked Claire Bennet.

“He’s already seen me,” she said. “I guess it’s not that big a deal.”

He was working his fingers under the strip that went across my eyes when my cell phone went off.

“Shit,” he said. He stopped taking off the tape. “Who the hell is that?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Is it the people you’re working for?”

“I’m not working for anyone. The phone, it’s in my jacket.” I felt his hands reach in across my chest, fumbling about with my inside pocket. The phone’s ring got louder as he brought it out.

He said, “There’s a number showing.” He rhymed it off quickly, the phone ringing in his hand. It was the Metropolitan. Sarah, most likely.

“It’s my paper,” I said.

“Paper?” the man said. “A fucking newspaper? You’re a reporter?”

“Yes, well, not exactly. I’m suspended. Are you going to answer it for me or not? If they can’t get me, they’ll wonder what’s happened to me.”

Well, maybe. With cell phones, you didn’t get someone, you blamed it on the network. Your first assumption was not usually that the person you were trying to reach was bound with duct tape, on the floor of a barn, with some guy who was weighing the pros and cons of whether to kill him.

“Okay,” the man said. “But one word about where you are, you’re a dead man, okay?”

I nodded, heard the phone flip open, felt it pressed up against my ear.

“Hello,” I said.

“Zack?” Sarah. Even in my present situation, I was thrilled to hear her voice.

“Hey, honey,” I said.

“You okay? You sound funny.”

“No, I’m fine,” I said, trying to spit a bit of dirt from between my lips. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“I just, I don’t know, I thought I should call.”

“Yeah, well, that’s good. It was kind of, you know, awkward yesterday morning.” It was only yesterday, wasn’t it? When we’d had our chat in the bedroom, when Sarah had thought I was packing up to leave indefinitely? Unless I’d been unconscious for a day or two and didn’t know it yet.

“Yeah, well, yeah,” Sarah said.

“How’s it going? How are things, you know, at the paper?”

“Having a wonderful time here with Frieda.” Sarah paused. “This is the most humiliating thing that’s ever happened to me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being a home writer, okay?”

“Sure,” I said. My duct tape blindfold, at least the half that was still stuck to me, was starting to itch.

“But to get busted down from management and end up here, working for Frieda. Honest to God, she should be running a fucking flower shop.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. In addition to massive headache, having my arms tied behind me was making my shoulders sore as hell.

“Where are you?” Sarah asked.

I felt the man’s hand on my neck. Clearly, he was able to make out both sides of the conversation. I was going to say, “I’m kind of tied up right now,” but it seemed like such a cliché, so I said, “Canborough? You know Canborough?”

“Okay, I know.”

“Just talking to some people, you know.”

“Listen, Zack, I’ve been thinking,” Sarah said.

“Okay.”

“And, I don’t know, I love you, you know.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to know that. That I love you.”

“Okay.”

“But I need something from you. I need you to understand me.”

“Okay.”

“I want you to understand what I need. And I need some stability. I need some calm.”

“Sure,” I said, feeling the man’s grip on my throat relax somewhat. “I could use some of that too.”

“You seem to have this knack lately, it’s like, I don’t know, you’ve become this magnet for trouble,” Sarah said.

“Well,” I said, trying to shift my duct-taped legs, “maybe a little, sure.”

The man whispered, “Wrap it up.”

“What was that?” Sarah asked.

“Nothing. I was just saying yeah, a little, about the magnet thing. Attracting trouble.”

“You never used to be like this.”

“It is kind of new, I know. I can’t explain it. I think maybe I’m hanging out with the wrong kind of people.”

“Fuck you,” the man whispered.

“Is there someone else there?” Sarah asked.

“No, it’s a coffee shop. Just some other people.”

“Anyway, Zack, the thing is, I can’t go on this way. I can’t take the stress. It’s not just hard on me, it’s hard on the kids. If you were a cop or something, you know, maybe I could understand, try to live with it. But you’re not really cop material.”

“No,” I said, twisting a bit more. “That’s true.”

“Look, I have to go. Frieda’s looking for a linoleum update. Maybe we can talk again in a day or so. Think about what I’m saying.”

“Sure, honey,” I said.

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

The man flipped the phone shut. “That was touching,” he said, and then, without warning, ripped the rest of the tape from my eyes, taking half my eyebrows with it.

I screamed, even more than when he’d ripped the tape off my mouth. Then, as light filled my eyes, I blinked to let them adjust.

He was a big guy. Work shirt, John Deere hat, jeans, work boots. Gray stubble, needed a shave.

Claire Bennet stood further back, and she looked taller than I remembered her, although that might have had something to do with the fact that my face was pressed against the barn floor. “Mrs. Bennet,” I said, trying to be cordial. “And you,” I said, my eyes darting toward the man in the tractor hat, “are Mr. Bennet?”

He nodded slowly. “Why are you here?”

“I’m looking for Trixie,” I said.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Zack Walker. I used to be Trixie’s neighbor, we became friends. Just, you know, friends, nothing more than that. Then we moved away from Oakwood, but Trixie and I, we kept in touch.”

Claire Bennet said, softly, “She’s mentioned him, Don.”

Don Bennet said, “How do we know that’s who you really are?”

“Check my wallet, my driver’s license. In my back pocket.”

He rolled me over onto my stomach, wriggled my wallet out of my pants. Suddenly, this all felt a little too intimate. I rolled back over and watched as he opened it up, looked at my various cards. He held my license up, compared the image to the person before him.

“That would have been when I still had eyebrows,” I said.

He tucked my license back into the wallet, set it aside. “So what do you want with her?”

“She dragged me into this mess. Now I want to know what’s going on.”

“How did you get here? What led you to this house?”

“Do you think you could untie me first?”

Don shook his head. “You answer my questions and then we’ll see.”

“A gas station receipt in Trixie’s car. It led me as far as Groverton. I asked around, in the kids’ clothing store-”

Claire Bennet drew in a sharp breath.

“And that led me up here.”

“It sounds legit, Don,” Claire Bennet said.

“I don’t know. I don’t trust him. I think I may have to try a little harder to get the truth.”

“This is the truth,” I said.

“Honey,” Don said to his wife, “you go into the house, make sure Katie’s okay.”

“What are you going to do?”