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“It’s really all right,” I say, trying to silence the woman before she divulges more unwanted information. “I should get going, it was nice to meet you.”

“Likewise, Sam Riverman, and if I do see Ruby I’ll certainly tell her you were asking after her.”

I nod, smile anemically, and walk away.

I go back to the parking lot and sit in the nondescript compact car for several long minutes. I feel paralyzed by my confirmed suspicions. I have been gone for months and I’m particularly lousy at communicating my feelings so I suppose it’s only fair that Ruby has taken up with someone. All the same, I feel kicked, and particularly incensed to learn she’s been sleeping with a crooked jockey with a hit out on him.

I drive back to the motel. I let myself in and find Cat sleeping in the middle of the bed, not even deigning to open an eye.

I sit down in an uncomfortable brown chair and stare at the dirty carpet.

RUBY MURPHY

31.

Caught

At first, I was so scared I was sure I was having a heart attack. My chest felt tight and I couldn’t breathe. I kept hoping that we’d pass by someone I knew as we walked from the clubhouse into the parking lot. It didn’t happen though and I asked him if he was sure he had the right girl. After all, he hadn’t called me by name. He ignored the question. The way Attila’s world had been crumbling, I’d been half expecting something like this to happen, but I wasn’t sure what purpose my being kidnapped would serve.

When we reached the guy’s car he unceremoniously shoved me into the backseat. There was a white dog in the car and the animal started licking me, much to my captor’s chagrin. The guy scowled at the dog, sharply told him to get in the front seat, then started tying up my hands. I looked right into the guy’s eyes as he did this. He had light brown eyes clouded with trouble. His hair was longish, stringy, and dark. He was probably in his mid-twenties. He looked almost gentle, easily frightened. So I screamed. His hand flew over my mouth and he shoved me backward. I sunk my teeth into his hand. He found a rag on the floor and stuffed it in my mouth. Then, he searched me, finding my cell phone and taking it. He also took the forty dollars I had in a front pocket but returned the half pack of Marlboro Lights to my coat pocket. I wanted to tell him I desperately needed a cigarette but all I could manage from behind the gag was a horrible moaning sound that he chose to ignore. He shoved me under a dog blanket in the backseat of his car then started driving.

Between bouts of panic I thought about a whole lot of things as I lay under the smelly dog blanket with a gag in my mouth and my bound hands losing circulation. I thought about dying. In a surprisingly level-headed manner. I hoped that if it happened it wouldn’t hurt and someone would look after my cats. By age twenty-five I had begun announcing to my mother, sister, and friend Jane that I wanted to be buried in a nice graveyard with a tree and an old gravestone. People could conduct experiments on my body, transplant my organs, use my skin cells, whatever, so long as what was left of me went in a hole in the ground. My loved ones thought me mildly macabre for thinking about things like that at so young an age. Now I was hoping it hadn’t been prescient.

I thought about Attila too. And about Ed. Wishing Ed would save me. Hoping Attila wasn’t in even deeper trouble than I was in now.

After we’d been driving for about twenty minutes, the guy pulled over, got out, and came to take my gag off. It was like he’d been thinking about things while he was driving and decided he should have asked me a few questions.

“Where is the jockey?” he demanded.

“I have no idea.”

“Where!” he barked, shoving the gun toward me. I noticed that it was a tiny, almost feminine-looking gun.

“I don’t know! The last time I saw him he was at Aqueduct.”

“But where would he go after that?”

“I have no idea. And I don’t know what good I’m going to do you.”

“Please be quiet,” he said, pushing