There was a printed caption near where a stamp could be placed: Odalisques with great beauty and high intelligence were carefully trained to be concubines. They learned to dance quite beautifully, to play musical instruments, and to write exquisitely lyrical poetry. They were the most valuable part of the harem, perhaps the emperor’s greatest treasure.
The caption was signed in ink with a printed name. Giovanni Giacomo Casanova de Seignalt.
He knew that I was here in Durham. He knew who I was.
Casanova had left a calling card.
CHAPTER 25
I’M ALIVE.
Kate McTiernan slowly forced open her eyes inside a dimly lit room… somewhere.
For a couple of blinks of her eyes, she believed she was in a hotel that she couldn’t for the life of her remember checking into. A really weird hotel in an even weirder Jim Jarmusch art movie. It didn’t matter, though. At least she wasn’t dead.
Suddenly, she remembered being shot point-blank in the chest. She remembered the intruder. Tall… long hair… gentle, conversational voice… sixth-degree animal.
She tried to get up, but thought better of it immediately. “Whoa there,” she said out loud. Her throat was dry, and her voice sounded raspy as it echoed unpleasantly inside her head. Her tongue felt as if it needed a shave.
I’m in hell. In a circle from Dante’s Inferno, with a very low number, she thought, and she began to shiver. Everything about the moment was terrifying, but it was so horrible, and so unexpected, she couldn’t orient herself to it.
Her joints were stiff and painful; she ached all over. She doubted that she could press a hundred pounds right now. Her head felt huge, bloated like aging fruit, and it hurt, but she could vividly remember the attacker. He was tall, maybe six two, youngish, extremely powerful, articulate. The images were hazy, but she was absolutely certain they were true.
She remembered something else about the monstrous attack in her apartment. He’d used a stun gun, or something like it, to immobilize her. He’d also used chloroform, or maybe it was halothane. That could account for her bruising headache.
The lights had purposely been left on in the room. She noticed they were coming from modern-looking dimmers built into the ceiling. The ceiling was low, possibly under seven feet.
The room looked as if it had recently been built, or remodeled. It was actually decorated tastefully, the way she might have done her own apartment if she had the money and time…. A real brass bed. Antique white dresser with brass handles. A dressing table with a silver brush, comb, mirror. There were colorful scarves tied on the bedposts, just the way she did them at home. That struck her as strange. Very odd.
There were no windows in the room. The only way out appeared to be through a heavy wooden door.
“Nice decor,?
?? Kate muttered softly. “Early psycho. No, it’s late psycho.”
The door to a small closet was open halfway and she could see inside. What she saw made her feel physically ill.
He’d brought her clothes to this horrible place, this bizarre prison cell. All of her clothes were here.
Using her remaining strength, Kate McTiernan forced herself to sit upright in the bed. The effort made her heart race, and the pounding in her chest frightened her. Her arms and legs felt as if heavy weights were tied to them.
She concentrated hard, trying to focus her eyes on the incredible scene. She continued to stare into the closet.
Those weren’t actually her clothes, she realized. He’d gone out and bought clothes just like hers! Exactly to her taste and style. The clothes displayed in the closet were brand-new. She could see some of the store tags dangling from the blouses and skirts. The Limited. The Gap in Chapel Hill. Stores she actually shopped in herself.
Her eyes darted to the top of the antique white dresser across the room. Her perfume was there, too. Obsession. Safari. Opium.
He’d bought all of it for her, hadn’t he?
Next to the bed was a copy of All the Pretty Horses, the same book she had bought on Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.
He knows everything about me!
CHAPTER 26
DR. KATE MCTIERNAN slept. Awoke. Slept some more. She made a joke of it. Called herself “lazybones.” She never slept in. Not since before med school, anyway.
She was beginning to feel more clearheaded and alert, more in command of herself, except that she had lost track of time. She didn’t know if it was morning, noon, or night. Or even which day it was.