Because I'm Watching Read online

  “While you could hear the screams, he talked to you about your home?” Maddie had witnessed madness. She had witnessed sadism. She had witnessed death. Never had she witnessed the kind of cold intent Dr. Kim had used to batter Jacob and his sanity.

  “He told me I was home. He told me I could hear the waves, smell the salt air, feel the hot sand and the cold water. He told me all I had to do was look, and I would be transported. He would ask me what I saw … that voice in my ear, kind and sweet … We had been imprisoned two months. They were torturing Brandon when”—Jacob swung his arms so suddenly she jumped—“when I snapped.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  “You killed Dr. Kim.” Maddie was glad. So glad.

  “I stood up, picked him up by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his pants, and slammed him headfirst into the glass.” Jacob moved, lifted, used what looked like a sledgehammer in a gruesome reenactment of his violence.

  She put down the bottle, leaned forward eagerly. “How did you know what to do, how to reach him?”

  “When we walked, I judged by his voice that he stood no higher than my shoulder, so I knew his height. In the torture room, he was always speaking into my right ear, close behind me, so I knew where he was. But … but mostly I didn’t care where I grabbed him, only that I used his head to shatter the window, to destroy the window.” Jacob stopped, breathing heavily, as if he were reliving that moment. “I couldn’t do it; I didn’t realize the glass was reinforced with metal mesh. He screamed and screamed, over and over, and kicked his feet, but I used him like a battering ram. Brandon said before I quit, the doctor’s brains were oozing through the—”

  She held up her hands. “Please. No.”

  More quietly, he said, “Luckily for me and Brandon, the two soldiers who worked the torture room were not armed. But the machine I could hear was the control center for the prison, and like so many things in North Korea, it was thirty years out of date. The soldier who manned it was armed, and when he realized I had gone berserk, he pulled his pistol and started shooting. Me.”

  “I saw your scars.” Bullet holes, surgical scars.

  “He hit me five times.”

  “You should have died.”

  “Later I almost did. But at that moment, I was invincible. All I knew was that something stung me—in my rage, it felt like a wasp—and I swung Kim’s body around and flung it at the control panel. The soldier went down beneath the weight. The two men slammed into the panel, flipping switches, setting off alarms.” Jacob’s face lifted in exaltation. “I liked the noise. I loved the siren. I knew I had done something dire. So I stumbled to the panel and flipped every switch and pressed every button. I unlocked all the cells, released all the prisoners. The prison was in havoc. The guards didn’t know what to do, where to run, what had happened. In the torture room, the two North Koreans escaped, leaving Brandon with his hand nailed to the table. He had seen it all. He was determined to help, so he tore his hand loose.”

  She closed her eyes against the image, but still she could see Brandon, the young man she had met, had helped sit and helped rise, had listened to and empathized with.

  “He grabbed the iron bar the torturers used to break bones. He had to get through an army of soldiers to get to me. He eliminated them. Not bad for a brainiac.”

  She opened her eyes. “An enraged brainiac.”

  “Exactly.” Jacob smiled at her, a savage delighting in the defeat of his enemies. “I groped around and found an old-fashioned corded phone connected to the control panel. I picked it up and tried to figure out how to make an announcement. But I hadn’t killed the soldier with the pistol. Brandon arrived in time to save me from a gunshot to the head. He confiscated all the weapons in the room, handed one to me, told me to shoot as necessary. He still hadn’t snapped to my problem.”

  She could imagine the anger and anguish Brandon had felt—hating the man who had been impervious to his pain, beholden that Jacob had at last acted.

  Jacob continued, “Then he saw my eyes from up close. My eyes had no color, no pupil. They were shiny black. I must have looked … grotesque. He realized that somehow I had been mutilated. I’m surprised he didn’t run from me.”

  That idiocy incensed her. “You do him an injustice. He came to get you even when he thought you had abandoned them!”

  Jacob turned his head stiffly to look down at her. “I’m sorry. I am descending into self-pity.”

  “In this case, it is acceptable,” she said formally.

  He frowned, concentrating on the story. “Brandon told me to hold the gun and use it to threaten. He set the emergency beacon to flash red, white, and blue. At once a call came in from the Americans—”

  “A call? What kind of call?”

  “The phone rang.” Jacob laughed, a dreadful splinter of amusement. “I told you. Primitive technology. Turns out we were being held in a bunker not far from the border. Since our disappearance, the Americans had been watching the facility. They told us to get to the roof. Brandon got on the PA system and announced to my men to rendezvous with us for pickup.”

  “Didn’t any of the Koreans speak English?”

  “Some. But the guards had bigger fish to fry. As soon as the locks on the prison cells clicked open, my men were out, and they were angry. They had all been tortured. Because of their injuries, they had to help each other up to the roof.” Jacob stood like a commanding general, shoulders back, chin up, hands clasped at the base of his spine. “Please remember, they were the brainiac squad. While they ran, they set fires. They visited the armory and cleared the way with grenades and tear gas. They had lived through hell and they left hell behind.”

  His words sent a chill through her. A thrill through her. “You’re proud of them.”

  “On that day, they became warriors. Yes. I’m proud of them.” His expression defied the world’s condemnation.

  But she—she understood how much it meant to fight back. “Brandon led you to the roof to join your soldiers.”

  “He did. He led a blind man through leaping flames and up smoke-filled stairwells. We were almost to the top—almost—when a shot from below hit him, taking his leg out from under him.” Jacob whispered, “So close.”

  Enthralled by the story, she wrung her hands. “What happened? What did you do?”

  “He collapsed.” Jacob’s voice rose as he remembered the action. “I used a fireman’s carry to transport him the rest of the way. He remained conscious long enough to tell me of upcoming obstacles. When I stepped onto the roof, we were the last Americans to arrive. I could hear the helicopters coming in. I asked if they were U.S. choppers, if we were really going to be saved. The others wouldn’t answer me. They wouldn’t speak to me. They hated me. I didn’t blame them. I hated me, too.”

  “Why didn’t Brandon tell them—”

  “Brandon was now unconscious. I loaded him into a basket and waved him up. I sent the others ahead, too. I didn’t want to come. I wanted to stay behind, to put down enough fire to allow the helicopters to escape. But someone—one of the rescuing Americans—grabbed me, harnessed me, and pulled me up, and we were away. By the time the choppers got safely over the border, my men had seen my eyes. They knew I had not willfully abandoned them.” Jacob drew a quivering breath. “That meant everything to me.”

  Silence fell between them, but the story wasn’t finished. She could tell that it wasn’t. But he didn’t want to continue, and she had to know … had to know what drove him out of his mind. “Did the helicopters make it across the border?” A stupid question, but it drove him to talk again.

  “Of course. Our pilots were the first to see the pain and torture the North Koreans had inflicted on us. Failure was not an option.” He turned and stared out into the oncoming night as if he could see the agony they had suffered. “Two months of hell … then suddenly we were home where soldiers guarded us and doctors mended us and nurses cared for us. Such an odd contrast…”

  “Did you tell them what had happened?
”

  “I gave my report, of course, before I went into surgery the first time.”

  “To fix your eyes?”

  “To remove the bullets. And my spleen and one kidney.”

  “Of course. The bullets.” For all her horror at Dr. Kim’s cruelty, the doctors had to save his life first.

  “I didn’t want the care. I wanted to die. No one understood, because Brandon’s report praised me, exalted me, gave me credit, and was responsible for awarding me military honors.” With a bone-deep hostility, he said, “Honors for doing nothing but sitting there listening to my kids being tortured.”

  “You did get them out.”

  “By accident. I could as easily have killed them all.”

  “Isn’t it enough that you were blind and wounded?”

  “I still hear their screams in my head. I still hear Dr. Kim in my nightmares. I wake up rigid with terror. I am a coward.”

  He shied away from the final revelation. And she had to know. “How long until the doctors fixed your eyes?”

  “With the bullets, the organs, the blood, and the anguish … infection set in. I was in the hospital for two months. At week four, the medical team determined I would live, and performed the operation that gave me my sight back. They seemed to think it was a gift. But…” Jacob looked down at her. In the dim light, his eyes looked as black as they must have in the depths of his blindness. “I can’t tell you the whole truth. Not here. I want the dark.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Candy Butenschoen stood in her kitchen, lights off, watching the drama in Jacob’s house. And it was drama, she could tell. Jacob was telling a story and he stood so stiff and straight; she recognized pain when she saw it, and he was a man in pain.

  Madeline leaned forward, occasionally spoke and gestured, but mostly she listened, and Candy saw her wipe her eyes against her shirtsleeve.

  Drama. Tragedy. The two of them were enthralled by their conversation, oblivious to anything and anyone.

  How Candy would love to hear their words!

  Jacob began to gesture wildly and Candy flinched, thinking he was going to strike Madeline. But no, he was explaining more of his story while Madeline questioned and commented. These two—they shared a bond. Candy didn’t know what, but it was fascinating to watch as their empathy grew.

  Suddenly everything stopped.

  No motion. No speaking.

  Madeline stood, took Jacob’s hand, and led him back toward the bedroom. Toward the bedroom!

  That was it, then. They were going to have carnal relations.

  “No!” Candy hated to see poor Jacob Denisov trapped with a combination of compassion and sex by the neighborhood crazy woman.

  But Candy reminded herself she had resolved to be more charitable toward Madeline Hewitson. That woman had also suffered through dreadful trials. So she tucked her lips tightly together—she prided herself on barely showing her disapproval—and flipped on the undercounter lighting. She returned to her kitchen table and her half-eaten meal.

  The doctors had warned her to keep her strength up, but the dinner that had enticed her an hour before now made her feel vaguely ill. She took one last bite and a sip of tepid coffee and pushed the remains away. She shook a pill out of her loaded pill case and washed the pill down with water.

  Captivated by the drama across the street, she had delayed too long, and now she had to sit, holding tightly to the edge of her table, waiting for her pain to subside.

  Finally it did. She pulled her laptop close. She opened the security video and pushed Play.

  She had at last discovered how to program and slow her security camera and at the same time discovered a better way to spy on the neighbors. With the dog poop malefactor in jail, she felt free to allow the lens to roam up and down the street. The camera was equipped with a motion sensor; motion attracted it, and it focused on each man, woman, child—and pet—as they walked, ran, skateboarded, drove through her historic neighborhood. She understood that none of the neighbors appreciated her diligence. But she did what she did not as spying but as a community service. After all, look at the good she’d done by unmasking the arsonist Floren. Why, she deserved a public service medal!

  Not that she would get one. People were so ungrateful.

  She sipped her water and observed first the early morning’s action as her neighbors left for work and school. She fast-forwarded through the lull in the early afternoon, then slowed to watch the neighbors’ returns. The action was lively all the way through the long, late daylight hours.… She again saw Madeline cross the street, saw her ascend Jacob’s steps … then the camera moved to follow Mrs. Nyback’s obnoxious dog as he trotted out into the front yard, raised his leg, and piddled on the picket fence next to Candy’s house. The little beast did that every day, and Mrs. Nyback did nothing to stop him. In fact, Candy had heard Mrs. Nyback praise him. Which made Candy so angry … but in the big scheme of things, it wasn’t important. She needed to remember that. Mrs. Nyback and her urine-laden dog could not interrupt her serenity.

  The doctors told her it was important to maintain her serenity.

  On the monitor, she watched the sun set—that had been less than an hour ago—and the camera went into nighttime mode. That is, it switched back and forth between infrared in the dark patches and regular under the streetlights. Candy didn’t like that; it was hard to watch and gave her a headache. If it were up to her, she would flood the neighborhood with light all night for everyone’s security. Her eyes began to burn and she moved to shut down the computer—and paused.

  What was that? In infrared mode, she’d caught a flash of someone who had jumped over her fence—she checked the time stamp—ten minutes ago. She hitched her chair forward and played those brief moments again. The camera tracked the person, but she couldn’t tell who it was. Male, she guessed, someone young, tall, and strong, by the way he vaulted the fence. And in a costume? With a hat and a cape…?

  Candy remembered Madeline’s babblings, her own worry that she had misjudged Madeline, and her fleeting thought that if someone was actually tormenting Madeline, that person would be very dangerous.… She pushed back her chair and prepared to stand. “I must call the police!”

  A broad, strong hand clamped onto her shoulder and pushed her back down.

  She turned and looked up into a familiar face, and heard a familiar voice say, “No you don’t, Mrs. Butenschoen. You’ve seen—and said—too much already.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Jacob said he needed the dark. “All right.” Standing, Maddie took his hand and led him through the kitchen, through the bathroom, and into the bedroom.

  He followed obediently. Blindly.

  She shut the door behind them. Profound darkness pressed like a weight on her eyeballs and her own fear sprang to life.

  Monsters lurked in the dark.

  But he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and led her to stand against the wall. He tugged her hand and the two slid down until they sat on the floor, shoulder to shoulder, staring into nothingness. She could feel his body struggling for breath, reaching for speech, and she pressed herself harder against him, trying to lend him strength. “Tell me,” she said.

  “After the medical team performed the operation that gave me my sight back, everyone congratulated me and celebrated … for me. They seemed to think I would be … happy. But I didn’t deserve the gift because … I could already see.”

  She didn’t understand. “See … what?”

  “A beach, crashing waves, sunshine, and salt air. Snowcapped mountains. My family running toward me to embrace me.”

  Now she was glad of the darkness, for it hid her horror.

  “I saw what Dr. Kim told me to see. That was why I snapped, why I risked everything to kill him.” Jacob’s voice grew hoarse with torment and memory. “He had done as he vowed. He won. He took possession of my mind. He broke me.” Putting his head in his hands, Jacob cried, great, ugly, wrenching sobs, a primitive whirlpool of an
guish that swept Maddie into the depths with him.

  She put her arms around him, pulled him toward her.

  He resisted, rigid with anguish.

  But she wouldn’t let him go. She held him, never wanting him to ever be alone again. Not when sorrow held him in its grip and unceasing cries broke from his throat. This was more than hurt. This was shame.

  And yet practicality ruled; he was crying. He needed to wipe his nose. He needed tissues.

  She couldn’t stand to leave him alone, not for a second. Gently she pushed him away, stripped off her T-shirt, and shoved it into his hands.

  He muffled his sobs with the cloth, rocking as misery came tearing out of him.

  She petted his head, ran her hands through his hair. She kissed his forehead, rubbed his back, kept her arms around him until they ached. She did for him what she had longed for in her own despair.

  At last he lifted his head to say, “I’m selfish.”

  Maddie smacked him on the shoulder. “Selfish? You’re not selfish. You’re broken.”

  He caught his breath. “Broken. Yes.” He cried again.

  She understood. He had held it in for so long, never confessing his great dishonor, and his hell-bound soul gave vent to its torment.

  When at last his sobs had eased, she said, “Look. I’ve seen ruined minds. At the asylum. Really ruined. Insane for God knows what reason. Or hurt by a parent for terrible reasons. Or cut down by disease that takes a brain and makes it a wasteland. Those people are ruined. They cannot be cured. They cannot fight their way back.” She couldn’t see him, but she felt him lift his head. He was listening. That was more than she expected and all she wanted. “You and me—we can fight. We can win. We have hurt parts, parts in our brains that our whole lives will never get better. Sometimes somehow we’ll brush up against those parts and cry. Sometimes those parts will come back in nightmares. But in real life, we can put those parts away.”

  A metal grater couldn’t have made his voice more rough. “I can’t ignore what happened.”