Page 47 of The Book Doctor
I have no idea how our story ends, but this cannot be it. Hard as I tried, I couldn’t manage to get out of that cottage and back to the illusion of safety in my own home. Not without Liam in tow. Of course I couldn’t. That would have been too easy. More and more, I am learning, nowhere is safe and nothing is easy.
He’s going to kill me. That much isn’t too hard to work out. After I found him in the cottage, hacking up all the limbs, he marched me straight back here to my office. Now he wants me to write out the scene in detail. Also, then he’s going to finish me off.
In this kind of situation, what you need to do is assess how important you are to another person getting what they want. That will tell you your odds of survival.
The more you are needed, the more likely you are to survive. I’ve witnessed firsthand how talented Liam is. He hardly needs me. He’s already wealthy, and he can write. He has the chops. I’m just a cog in the wheel of whatever game it is he’s playing. A chess piece. A blip on his radar as he makes his way to the top. That’s the thing about rich people, especially those who also have talent. They’re endlessly restless. Always looking for something, or someone, to sink their teeth into. And why wouldn’t they? Their basic needs are easily met; how else are they supposed to fill all those hours?
Imagine the press the book will get when I end up dead. Is that what he’s after? What else could it be, if not the fame and attention?
Fame is dangerous, that way. It’ll get you every time. The thrill of acclaim, of having people think you’ve done something worthwhile. It’s a double-edged sword, notoriety, as evidenced by my current predicament. Liam doesn’t know this yet, but he will someday. There will always be someone smarter, someone younger, someone with more talent.
All you can do is ride the wave when it comes and keep your head down after it passes. If only I’d been better at the latter.
“You know,” he says, slapping the back of my head, the force of which causes blood to spray from my lips. “It really can’t get much worse.”
Surveying the blood that coats my desk, I beg to differ.
He spins the chair around until I good and truly can’t see anything. Then, he smacks me with the barrel of the gun. The crack reverberates from ear to ear, bouncing around inside my skull like a snare drum. “Write.”
When I can manage and not a moment sooner, I flex my fingers. Stretch and flex. Flex and stretch. It’s a scene he is used to, which is maybe why he elbows me in the face. My mouth fills with blood. I spit a broken tooth onto the keyboard. “I told you. I can’t.”
“You are going to die,” he tells me. “Either way, you are. How it happens is up to you.”
When he moves to strike again, I lean away. This time, I hold my hands up in surrender. I relent. “Okay…just give me a minute.”
I watch in relief as he shoves the gun in the waist of his tuxedo pants. He walks toward the door, and I think this is where it ends, but I ought to know him better than that. With a smile, he lifts a plastic bag from the floor and raises it until it’s eye level. “Do you know what this is?”
I’m a writer. I’m afraid I might.
He pulls out a container of lighter fluid and then another and another, counting as he tosses the empty bottles onto the floor. When the bag is empty, he drops it and fetches a book of matches from his coat pocket. On the front, the name of the restaurant where we had our first meeting. “Don’t worry,” he says. “It’ll go quick.”
My eyes dart toward the door. “Listen—”
As he watches me contemplate my next move, a grin spreads across his face. He knows I’m thinking about what’s at stake if I don’t make it out of this room alive.
She will die. She will burn to death, and while he will have been the one to set the house ablaze, we both know this is a fire that started long before he struck the match.
“You see. This is what happens when a person doesn’t know their own limits.”
He’s wrong. It’s the dead of night, and even if I could manage the mile and a half it takes to reach the neighbors, it would be too late.
“You can’t save everyone,” he says, confirming my suspicion. “That’s the problem nowadays. Everybody wants to be the hero.”
He lifts me by the throat and drags me across the office. I could ask why he doesn’t just put a bullet in my head and be done with it, but I don’t have to. That would ruin the ending.
“It could have gone differently, you know.”
I hold my breath as I crane my neck. There’s a car coming up the drive. Is it her? Is she coming back? Has she ruined my life, only to save it?
Soon enough, I realize I am mistaken. No one is coming to save me. It’s only wishful thinking. Hope will suffocate you if you let it.
My eyes flit toward the gun. His attention is on the door. That’s always been his weakness, his distractibility.
He tears off a match and drags it along the rough edge of the matchbook. “I know what you’re thinking…”
What I’m thinking is I’ve spent some time in burn units doing research. Even if I didn’t love Eve, even if I could hate her for what she’s done, inviting him into our home, I don’t want her to die this way.
The match ignites. At the halfway point, he leans forward and stubs it out on my hand. I move