Page 122 of The Woman Who Couldn't Scream
Merida breathed deeply, working through the pain in her head. Okay. She was seated on a heavy wooden chair, her wrists cuffed behind her.
Not for the first time. She’d been held like this when Nauplius had chosen to exert his power, punish her with the inability to speak with her hands.
Elsa wore black leggings and a black sleeveless racerback tank. Her eccentric clothing had hidden how wiry she was; her thin arms were deeply muscled, her wrists resembled a wrestler’s. This woman worked out, ran, lifted weights.
Elsa retrieved a handkerchief and blotted the blood off the corner of her eye. She had that, a split lip and a bruise on her face, but the body bruises Merida had imagined Dawkins Cipre had inflicted didn’t exist.
Why not? What was the thump from the attic, the sound of a body falling? What had Elsa done to Dawkins Cipre?
Who was this woman?
With her fingertips Merida explored the fastening that held her hands. Plastic handcuffs with a zip tie. Her left wrist was caught tight enough to cut off her circulation. She’d been unconscious then.
But for her right wrist, she’d been awake, a little, so when Elsa fastened the tie, Merida had stiffened her hand to make it wider, give herself some wiggle room.
Having Nauplius bind Merida with whatever he had at hand—twine, rope, ribbon—had taught her some tricks. Who would have thought she’d be blessing him for that?
Elsa faced her. “Let’s see, you must have a million questions. Where shall we start? You may already have guessed Elsa Cipre is my pseudonym, chosen for me by your husband. By the way, he was a charming man, and knew exactly what he wanted. I’m Gloria Meyrick. Have you heard of me?”
Merida shook her head.
“Fame is so fleeting! You already know some of my story. Dawkins was angry with me when he caught me at that absurd woman’s quilting group, telling the truth about my background.” Elsa plucked a roll of duct tape from one of her cape pockets and tore off a strip. “In fact, I did lead the Home Sciences department at Northeastern Christian University. Ididdemand the best from my students, and Iwastough on them. Really tough on the ones with potential. Some of the girls complained. One of them, her mother was a lawyer. Her mother took action against me andthat’swhen the dean announced Home Sciences was a dated, unnecessary program. He ended my funding.” Bringing the tape to Merida, she placed it on Merida’s forehead. “Looking back, my mistake wasn’t killing the lawyer. It was sewing her mouth shut. That detail gave me away.”
Panicked and repulsed, Merida kicked at her with both feet.
Elsa punched her between the eyes.
Merida blacked out again.
She returned to consciousness to find her ankles zip-tied to the chair legs and her forehead taped to the chair back.
“You shouldn’t do that, you know.” Elsa stood by the table, selecting from among a variety of blades: ceramic paring knife, embroidery scissors, three kinds of rotary cutters… “I was in the penitentiary for thirty-one years. No chance of parole. Prison is brutal. One doesn’t survive without inspiring fear. When I went in, I already inspired fear.Youhaven’t got a chance. That’s why, out of all the killers in the world, Nauplius picked me as his first-wave assassin.”
She brought over a pair of tiny gold embroidery scissors and held them in front of Merida’s eyes. “Aren’t thesecute? They’re antiques, the handles are shaped like a crane. They were beyond belief expensive, but Nauplius gave me a spectacular budget to get what I needed to do the job.” She clicked the scissors. “They’re also the finest embroidery scissors in the world, and don’t worry, I have had them sharpened to a fine edge.” She tucked them into her cleavage. “I promised Nauplius I would do a good job, and I intend to keep that promise.”
Merida pushed her left wrist down as hard as she could, made her right hand as narrow as possible. The plastic edges were sharp; if she was going to free herself in time, she was going to lose skin. A lot of skin.
If she didn’t free herself in time, she was going to lose more than skin.
“You’re struggling to talk, aren’t you? That’s so endearing.” With a half-smile, Elsa watched her work her hands behind her back. “What I really think I’ll like about performing on you isn’t only that you can’t scream. I rather enjoyed some of that from the other victims, although Dawkins said it got old. But you can’t interrupt me! That is delightful.”
Merida showed Elsa her teeth.
“Ooh, you’re scary.” Elsa selected a new blade for her X-Acto knife and locked it firmly in place. “When Nauplius discovered he was doomed to a soon and sudden death, he broke me out of prison, spoke to me about his wishes. He said he had created you, your face was his, and when he died, he would take it back.”
Merida worked at moving the handcuffs down and off. She compressed the bones in her right hand, dragging the plastic over her thumb, scraping skin off the knuckle.
“Nauplius was so logical.” Elsa sounded admiring. “After I agreed to do as he wished, he gave me a cover story with Dawkins Cipre as my husband—and as my handler.”
Blood trickled down Merida’s thumb and she shook her hand repeatedly to scatter the evidence. Merida remembered the fit Elsa had thrown about the ringing phone. If she suspected Merida was trying to escape… Merida’s gaze wandered over the cutting implements. She listened to Elsa’s fluting voice, heard the edge of madness that anticipated this job, and looked into Elsa’s avid eyes.
Merida shook off the blood again, shook off the pain, and continued to work.
Elsa said, “You escaped us when Nauplius died, and I hated that. I needed to practice. That was the first time I gave Dawkins the slip, when I killed that member of Nauplius’s legal team. Iliketo kill lawyers… Dawkins caught up with me that time, but then I knew I was smarter than he was. He knew it, too. He was nothing but a historian, an expert in the past. I taught the practical; I knew how to do… everything. Cut anything. Soon enough, he was afraid of me. He saw what I was capable of. But he never imagined what I could do to him.” Throwing her head back, Elsa laughed, wildly, happily. “He’s up there, bleeding to death in slow increments, unable to move, a needle in his brain…”
Tears filled Merida’s eyes. She shook them away. She was terrified. She was in pain. She was ripping her skin off her hand. Not fast enough, though. She didn’t have enough time…
Elsa slid the handle of the X-Acto knife into her cleavage, then added the sheathed ceramic paring knife. “Just the two of us…” she sang. She caressed the handles of her embroidery scissors, then hooked them onto her shirt.
