There was no one but Charlie in the remote farmhouse. At exactly 10:30 he heard a knock at the door.

“Come in!”

Lucy smiled as she opened the door and stepped into the house. She saw the person she thought was Mr. Hansen staring out a window.

“Hi! I’m Lucy Colby, the realtor.” She closed the door.

When he heard the latch of the closing door, Charlie turned to face her. The realtor approached him with a smile.

“I’m so glad to – “ She extended her hand, then she recognized him. She had never met him before, but she had seen pictures of him many times at Carol’s house while Charlie was overseas.

“Hello, Lucy. Is something wrong?”

“What are you doing here?”

“So you know who I am?”

“You're Carol's husband, aren't you?”

“That's right. I'm here to talk to you about your affair with my wife.”

“Where is Mr. Hansen?”

“With his family, in Florida. They'll be back next week, so we've got plenty of time to get to know each other.”

Lucy hesitated for a second, then ran toward front door. She was wearing pumps so she couldn’t go very fast. Charlie quickly caught her.

“No! Let me –”

Charlie grabbed her from behind and he covered her mouth. She struggled for a few seconds, but stopped when she saw that he was too strong for her.

Charlie kept his hand over her mouth, but he removed his hand from around her waist. He pulled out his knife with his free hand and showed the knife to Lucy.

“Would you like to die right now?”

Lucy was terrified. She shook her head, but Charlie's grip on her mouth limited her movement.

“Are you sure?”

Lucy nodded her head.

“The only chance you have to live past this day is to do exactly as I tell you. Do you understand?”

Lucy nodded her head.

“Good girl. Now I'm going to take my hand off of your mouth, and you're going to behave.”

Lucy nodded her head again. Charlie slowly removed his hand from her mouth and wrapped his arm firmly around her neck without choking her, with his hand gripping her shoulder.

“Tell me, Lucy, what are you going to do?”

“Exactly what you tell me.”

“Smart girl. Now where is your cell phone?”

“In my purse.”

Her purse was hanging from her shoulder. Charlie put his knife in his belt and he pulled Lucy's phone from her purse. He saw that there was no call in progress.

“Come with me.”

Still holding her around the neck, Charlie moved Lucy into the kitchen.

“I see on the calendar on your phone that you were going to meet Carol for lunch today. And you've got two appointments for this afternoon. Do you have any appointments for today that aren't on here?”

“No.”

Charlie set the phone on the counter. He reached into her purse and removed her car keys. He put the keys into his own pocket.

“I'm going to let go of you now, and you're going to lie on your back on the floor. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Charlie slowly let go of Lucy, but he took her purse from her and put it on the counter. Lucy got down on the floor. She stretched out on her back, with her arms at her sides.

“What I like about the kitchen is that it's easier to clean blood from the linoleum. Plus, we aren't visible from the front windows if anyone should come around.”

Lucy began to cry, and her knees started shaking.

“Please don't hurt me. I'll do anything you say.”

“I'm going to dial Carol's number. You're going to cancel your lunch with her. If you say anything out of line, you'll be dead within two seconds, and you won't be able to help her because you won't be able to get enough words out before my knife enters your heart.”

“I understand.”

“You need to stop crying.”

“I'm sorry.”

Lucy sniffed, then wiped her eyes on her shoulders. She cleared her throat.

Charlie dialed the number, then got down on one knee and handed the phone to Lucy. He pulled his knife back out. He rested his knife hand on one of his knees. Lucy saw the knife. Charlie heard the sound of a phone ringing before he handed the phone to Lucy.

“Hi, Carol...I'm good, but I'm going to have to cancel our lunch meeting. Something came up...I can't really talk about it now, but I'll tell you later. Okay?...It's just allergies. They affect my voice sometimes...I have to go now. I'll talk to you later...Yes, everything is all right...Okay. Goodbye.”

Lucy handed the phone back to Charlie.

“Very good. I was hoping you'd give me a reason not to kill you, and so far you're doing well. I've only killed two women before, but they were wearing bombs. This wouldn't be the same.”

“I'll do anything you want. Whatever you say.”

“I found your office number. Ann is the office assistant, isn't she?”

“Yes.”

“You're going to ask Ann to cancel the rest of your appointments for today. Tell her you've already canceled your lunch appointment.”

“Okay.”

Charlie tapped the phone's screen a couple of times, then handed the phone to Lucy.

“Ann? This is Lucy. I'm not feeling well. I canceled my lunch appointment, but I need you to call my other appointments for today and cancel them...I'm not sure about tomorrow yet. It's probably just the stomach flu. I might be fine by tomorrow…. Any time next week should be fine...Yes, me too. Goodbye.”

Lucy handed the phone back to Charlie, and he made sure the call had ended. He turned the phone over and took off the back. He removed the battery and put it in his pocket. He stood up and tossed the phone and the phone's back into Lucy's purse.

“Roll over and face the floor.”

Charlie pulled some zip ties from his pocket. Lucy was lying face down on the floor. Charlie zip-tied her hands together behind her back. Then he zip-tied her ankles, then pulled her ankles up and zip-tied the zip ties on her ankles to the zip ties on her wrists. Lucy started crying again.

“My car is already around back. I'm going to move your car behind the house so no one will know there's someone here. Then I'm going to come back in here and we'll continue our discussion. I want you to stay exactly where you are right now. Don't move even one inch.”

“Yes sir. I understand.”

Charlie looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. He was used to Carol always trying to get her way, and he was pleased with Lucy's obedience. He unlocked the back door so he could enter that way after moving the car, then went back to the living room and exited the front door.

When Charlie got back to the kitchen, Lucy was in the same position that he had left her in, but she was no longer crying.

“Now, where were we?”

“I didn’t move.”

“I see that. You did well. A part of me wants to finish you off right now for having had an affair with my wife; but after we established who was in charge you've done everything I've told you to do. So here's what I'm going to do: I'm going to cut the ties binding your feet behind your back, and I'm going to free your wrists. I'm going to leave the ties on your ankles for now because we're in a room full of knives, and I don't want you getting any ideas. Now, what are you going to do when I free your hands?”

“Whatever you tell me to do.”

“That's the right answer.”

Charlie squatted down and cut the zip tie holding her wrists and ankles to each other, then cut the zip ties around her wrists. Her ankles were still zip-tied together.

“Thank you.”

“Now turn over and sit up.”

Lucy did as she was instructed. Charlie pulled over a wooden kitchen chair and sat in it. Lucy, still sitting on the floor, pulled her knees up and hugged them.

“In the Old Testament the penalty for adultery was to be stoned to death. In some places they still do that.”

“Tell me what to do, and I'll do it. I'll do anything you want. Just please don't kill me.”

“Tell me where you met Carol.”

“We met at a party.”

“At Ralph's?”

“You know about Ralph?”

“You see this little bit of blood at the bottom of the blade? That's Ralph's.”

“Oh god.” Tears started rolling down Lucy's face, and she tried to choke back a sob.

“I would like to have found a reason not to kill that worthless piece of shit, but there just wasn’t any. When he thought he could tell me what to do, that was the last straw.”

Lucy wiped the tears from her cheeks. “I'm sorry. I'm sorry I had an affair with your wife.”

“Sure, you're sorry now that her husband has got you alone in a remote farmhouse and you think he's going to kill you. But you weren't sorry yesterday. You weren't sorry this morning when you woke up.”

“I should have known better. When I was in college I was in love with a boy. I thought we would get married after college, and have children, but I found he was cheating on me. I was devastated. It hurt so much I wanted to die. Then a friend of mine invited me to a party at Ralph's. Ralph taught me that the secret to not getting hurt so much was to have multiple lovers. That way if you lost one you’d still have the others. So I protected myself from ever having my heart broken again.” She wiped the tears that were falling from her eyes. “I shouldn't have ever been with a married person because I should have known the pain it could cause, but I didn't think about what might happen if it became known. I always expected it would stay a secret. I'm sorry I hurt you.”

“Is this the first time you've been caught?”

“Yes.”

“And how many married people have you had affairs with?”

“I'm not sure. One woman besides Carol, and a few men. Maybe four men. At Ralph's parties some different people would show up at each one, and there were a lot of people I was with just one time, or a few times, and I don't know if they were married or not.”

“And did Carol have a lot of hookups at these parties?”

“Yes. Everyone did. But she couldn't go to the parties very much when you were in town, except for some daytime parties. After you left for Afghanistan she was at almost every one.”

“And how often did you and Carol meet outside of the parties?”

“Once or twice a week.”

“Did she tell you about her other affairs, outside of the parties?”

“Yes. She told me everything.”

“And how many other affairs do you know of?”

“Only a few. Between work and the parties and our relationship, there wasn't time for a lot more.”

“The emails I found said pretty much the same thing.”

“You found her secret email account?”

“Yes. That's how I learned about you and Ralph and the others.”

“It must have been horrible for you when you found out.”

“Earlier you used the word ‘devastated’. That's exactly how I felt: devastated. Like someone had dropped a bomb on my life, and all that were left were smoking ruins. A faithful wife was the cornerstone on which I'd built my plans for the future, with a home, and someday some happy, healthy children. That was my dream, and it was all blasted away a few days ago. While I was risking my life for my country, and even before then, Carol was running around and having her little fun. If I had found out in the afternoon instead of the morning I probably would have killed her when she got home. But I had some time to think, and to plan. Carol didn't violate our marriage vows alone. She had help. People who knew she was married and didn't care. Our society doesn't place a high value on marriage anymore, so if I wanted justice I knew I’d have to exact it myself.”

“I don't know how I can make it up to you. I have some money saved up if you want that. It's over $10,000. You can have it all.”

“I don't want your money.”

“I don't have anything else to offer you except for my body. Is there something I can do for you so that you'll forgive me? I'll do anything you want if you'll just forgive me.”

Charlie slowly shook his head.

“Taking your body would make me as pathetic as you and your crowd. When the opportunity for pleasure comes along, you move towards it just like plankton move toward light. You have no sense of honor, or duty. You might as well not even have a brain.” Charlie was silent for a moment. “But I'm not going to kill you. The past can't be changed, and you've done everything I've asked, and I believe you've been honest with me.”

“Everything I've said has been the truth.”

“I'm not going to kill you, but I can't let you go just yet. You might get bold later and call Carol, or you might call the police about Ralph, so I'm going to have to keep you here for a while.”

In the basement of the farmhouse, Lucy's upper arms were duct-taped separately to the back of a wooden chair. She was able to move her forearms from side to side and up and down, but neither hand could reach the duct tape on the opposite arm. Her ankles and legs were also duct-taped to the chair. On a chair next to her, but within reach, were four plastic cups of water and a plate of fruit. Lucy's chair was zip-tied to the banister rails of the basement’s staircase.

Charlie said, “Today is Friday. The Hansens will be back on Monday. There's enough food and water for you to survive on until then. If you have to pee or shit, you'll just have to relieve yourself right there where you’re sitting. You can consider that as part of your punishment.”

“Thank you for not killing me.”

“Thanks for behaving. I wasn't looking forward to killing you. However, I've got some friends who owe me a favor, and they're not as nice as I am. They'd love to take you for a trip to their cabin in the mountains and keep you there for a few years, so if you get any heroic ideas, I suggest you forget them.”

“I'll stay here until someone comes. I'm just so grateful to be alive. Thank you again for sparing me.”

Charlie nodded in acknowledgment. He walked up the staircase, and Lucy heard the backdoor open and close.

Lucy prepared herself for a long wait.