Only after I clicked over to the other line did I realize that I had hung up without telling Eleanor goodbye. More importantly, I had not told her that I loved her. Perhaps that was a trivial matter considering the circumstances, but I knew in that instant that I had spoken with my wife for quite possibly the last time; too much had been left unsaid. I had only a moment to reflect on this regret before the immediacy of my situation took hold.

On the other end of line I heard someone breathing.

I did not know how to respond. My brain tried to form words, and my lips to utter them, but neither succeeded. What did one say to the man that was stalking his family?

In the quiet of that open line a faint sense of peace rose amidst the panic. I blinked and my eyes held shut for a moment. Time stretched. It would have been so easy to just fall asleep and drift away.

Then it struck me. I gasped as a another jolt shot through my chest and slammed my head back, banging it against the wall. That only managed to trigger another stab of pain, this one in the back of my head, and as this new pain hammered in, I bit down catching the tip of my tongue. A light trickle of blood began to flow. Perhaps it was a result of the taste of blood in my mouth, or of the pain that had shook my system, but I began to wake from my pill-induced haze.

That is when the silence on the other end of the line broke.

"You do not sound well, Nelson." The voice drifted in, light and soft, just barely a whisper. Yet behind its calm tone a strength of purpose loomed. The man spoke directly without a hint of question. Each word came forward carefully annunciated and spoken with a rigid level of control.

Those words froze me still as a corpse.

"You really should answer me." Did I recognize that voice?

The quiet stretched out once more, as if each of us willed the other to speak first. I knew that I would lose this battle. Even in this stranger's silence I could sense his resolve and it frightened me.

I waivered, uncertain of what to do. Then an idea struck me. This wasn't so much a light bulb of an idea, but a bright flashing neon sign of an idea. My name did not appear in Eleanor's phone. She had me listed as 'Husband.'

"You know me, don't you?" I had to know him. It made sense, right? Crimes are most often committed against you by people you know; that's what the reports say. Stranger danger is but a misdirection clouding us from the real threat – the anger and jealousy stirred within our own very personal relationships. Yes, I must have known this man.

He didn't answer.

"You know my name," I continued.

"Names are easy to come by."

"But you called me Nelson. Not Mr. Pugh, not Mr. Nelson Pugh, but Nelson."

"Don't delude yourself. You cannot control this. You cannot spin the tide in your favor." So calm. So calculated. And why had he mentioned the tide of all things?

My mind raced through the possibilities. Who could want to hurt me, to hurt my family? Who could I have hurt to such a degree that this seemed an appropriate recourse?

Suddenly the alarm bells went off. One person had a reason to hate me. I had betrayed our friendship of nearly fifteen years. By convincing Mr. Rochester to keep me on staff, I had cost Stan Meyers his job. We had been friends before the cutbacks. After Rochester let Stan go, or let's be blunt, after Rochester fired Stan, however, Stan's life had turned to shit. His marriage had collapsed under the strain of supporting a family on unemployment. His drinking had grown out of control and he had fallen into a downward spiral. During that time I had been unable to face him. I still couldn't. I knew that I should have been there for him, but I didn't know how to look Stan in the eyes knowing what I had cost him. Stan Meyers had reason to hate me. He bore a wound both recent and brutal.

"Stan?"

Silence. I wondered if I had guessed right. Had I ferreted out the man on the other end of the line? Being caught would he call it a bust, turn and run? I had to hope. Then came the reply.

"Have you honestly lived such a malevolent life that you can so swiftly name one who wishes you such harm?"

No. I was wrong. This man wasn't Stan. He couldn't be. The man on the other end of the line had a sophistication and a madness to him that were both beyond the simple life of Stan Meyers, no matter how badly that life had been shattered. His speech pattern was all wrong, and his voice too low and guttural. No matter how hard Stan tried, he wouldn't have been able to pull off that voice.

I had to forget about who and seek the answer to a more prominent question.

"Where are you?" I asked. I didn't want to hear what this man had to say, but I also didn't need an answer. I knew where he was.

"You tell me," he said.

I did not answer. He was in my house. Even if I knew his name it would not save my family. My throat began to constrict and my mouth to dry. I tried to wet my lips, to say anything, but I couldn't.

"Say it." His voice came through still so soft and calm, almost like he was speaking to a child.

I could feel the water forming in my eyes. My chest still throbbed, but the pain had dulled at least momentarily. Even my stress faded, replaced ever so slowly by an utter hopelessness leaching in to take its place. There was nothing to be done; I cracked and let forth an audible sob.

Again came that voice. Calm. Quiet. Without an inkling of compassion. "Tell me where I am, Nelson."

That voice rose ever so slightly this time. At first I thought that perhaps I had made the man, whoever he was, angry, but that was not it. That rise, that came from delight. He spoke like he was speaking to a child in tone, yet that voice held within it its own childlike anticipation. It built in the man's voice with the utterance of each word. I had heard it before in Erica and later in my youngest, Marie. Whenever I told Marie a secret she would find her mom and the guessing game would begin. She always wanted someone to guess. With each try, she would become more excited. She'd smile and laugh with her secret knowledge, but she would prod her mother more, desperate for that attention, holding to it and squeezing it for every last drop. That was the rise that I heard in this man's voice, and it broke something in me.

"No." As I said it, I let out another sob. I wouldn't say it. I could not give this man what he wanted; I couldn't give him that pleasure.

"Say it, Nelson. Tell me where I am." His voice had not changed, a childlike playfulness hiding just beneath the malice.

I did not want to play.

"No. I won't say it." The dam had collapsed and I sobbed full on, now, my cheeks slick with tears.

"Listen closely, Nelson." I did as I was told, but I heard only silence. If there had been anything more to hear I could not have heard it anyway, not over the sound of my own crying.

"Tell me what you hear," he continued.

Fighting was pointless. I answered. "Nothing."

"You're not listening. Stop your incessant wailing and listen."

Again I heard nothing but silence. This man wanted me to listen, but I did not know to what, only that whatever it was would break me. The answer petrified me, yet equally frightening was the thought of what would happen if I continued to disobey him. I swallowed and wiped at my eyes, forcing back the tears. A drip of snot leaked from my nose, but I paid it no mind; I listened. As I did, I began to make out more noises just beyond the silence. Not noises. Words. Distant. Faint.

"... to sleep, Erica. Daddy and I were just having a discussion."

I hadn't needed to hear Eleanor to know that this man was in my house. I had known that for some time. This man knew that I knew that, and yet he still wanted me to hear my wife.

"Now say it. Tell me where I am."

"Why? What's the point?" The torture, and that is what this was – pure psychological torture – weighed too heavily. I could feel myself cracking.

"Do you know what it feels like to have your abdomen slit open? To have a blade slice you up from gut to sternum, Mr. Pugh?" He pronounced my name with infinite disgust, or at least when I think back on that conversation that is how I hear it. At the time I barely noticed my name. The question itself had stopped me cold.

"Nelson?"

"No." There was nothing else to say.

"No is not an answer. No is the utterance of the feeble and the insipid. Do you know what it feels like to have your gut opened up while you are still alive? Do you know that type of pain, Mr. Pugh?"

I couldn't even fathom that kind of pain. Suddenly I broke, bursting into sobs. I could see no way out. The wave I had ridden had left me and soon I would be asleep and my family would be dead. My train of thought completely derailed and I could not answer. I don't know if the man forgave me that, so much as he gave up on a reply knowing that it would not come, that it couldn't. He moved on.

"I ask," he said, "because if you do not tell me where I am, Nelson, then I will gut your wife and kids and I will do it slow. There are drugs that can keep them awake for every excruciating moment. Imagine that as the last minutes of life for your precious daughters, Mr. Pugh, and then, for the last time, answer my question."

No answer would come. I hung up the phone.