Free Mind Prey by John Sandford Page A

and Mail said, "Don't move."
    She stopped, afraid to move, and he walked around her, until he was between her and the door. He stared at her for a moment, a little out of balance, she thought. He was seriously drunk, and his eyes looked closed in, heavy-lidded, and his lips curled in an ugly, contemptuous smile.
    "They don't have any idea where you're at or who took you," he said. He nearly laughed, but somewhere, under there, he was a bit unsure of himself, she thought. "They been talking about it on the radio all night. They're running around like chickens with their heads cut off."
    "John, they'll come sooner or later," Andi said. "Your best option, I believe..." She automatically fell into her academic voice, the slightly dry observational tone that she used when dealing with patients on a sensitive point. A tone that seemed educated and aristocratic at the same time, and often sold her viewpoint on its own.
    Not this time.
    Mail moved very quickly, shockingly quickly, like a middleweight boxer, and slapped her face hard, nearly knocking her down. An instant before, she'd been a Ph. D. applying psychology; now she was a wounded animal, trying to find its balance before it became simply meat.
    Mail stepped close to her, close enough to smell, close enough to see the texture in his jeans, and he snarled, "Don't you ever talk that way. And they're never gonna find us. Never in this world. Now stand up straight. Stand the fuck up."
    She had her hand to her face, nothing coherent in her head: her thoughts were like Scrabble pieces on a dropped board. There was a crunching sound and she looked toward Mail, who was watching her, still angry. He'd crushed the beer can in his hand, and now he threw it into a corner, where it clattered off the wall and then bounced back toward them.
    "Let's see 'em," he said.
    "What?" She hadno idea.
    "Let's see 'em," he said.
    "What?" Stupidly, shaking her head.
    "Your tits, let's see your tits."
    She tried to back away, one step, two, but there was no place to go. Behind her, an old coal-burning furnace stood like an old, close-cropped oak, the coal door open and leaning to the left; and behind it, a dark space, a place she really didn't want to go. "John, you don't want to hurt me. John," she said. "I took care of you."
    He thrust a finger at her. "You don't want to talk about that. You don't want to talk about that. You took care of me, all right, you sent me down to the fuckin' hospital. You took care of me, all right." He looked around wildly, then saw the beer can on the floor. He'd forgotten that he'd finished it. He came back at her. "Come on, let's see 'em."
    She crossed her arms over her chest. "John, I can't..."
    And as quickly as he had before, he hit her again, open-handed, not quite as hard. When she put her hands up, he hit her again, and then again. She couldn't block the blows, she couldn't stop, she couldn't even see them coming.
    Then he was on her, slamming her back against the stone wall, ripping at her jacket, at her blouse. She screamed at him, "No, don't, John..."
    And he swatted her again, knocked her down, pulling her hair, guiding her to the mattress, and landed on top of her, straddling her waist. She struck at him, flailed uselessly. He caught her hands, brought them together, took them in one of his, held them. She couldn't see him very well, realized that she was bleeding, that she had blood in one eye.
    "John..." She began to weep, not believing that he could go on.
    But he did.
    When he was done , he was angrier than when he had started.
    He made her dress, as best she could--her blouse was ripped nearly in half, and he took her bra away from her--and then thrust her back in the cell.
    Both of the girls, even the small Genevieve, knew what had happened. When Andi dropped onto the mattress, they automatically curled around her and held her head, while the steel door clanged shut.
    Andi couldn't cry.
    Her eyes had dried, or something. When she thought of Mail--not his