I did as he directed, and while he ran his hands down my body I saw Carlo tied to a chair as I had expected. I had never seen the look on Carlo’s face until that day. His eyes were wide and unblinking, and his bushy brows taut as if they were paralyzed in that spot. His mouth was slightly open with a white circle around his lips. There was no gag. His breath came in fast, tiny sniffs through his nose. It was audible across the room. It wasn’t just the inconvenience or even the pain of his restraints. The man was pretending not to be terrified. And he stared at me so intensely it was as if he see anything else. I glanced at a closed door leading off the living room, and then back at him. His eyelids trembled with the strain of not following my glance.

“Carlo.”

“Shut up,” Beaufort said.

“I want to know if he’s been hurt,” I said.

“He hasn’t hurt me,” Carlo said with an effort to smile for my benefit. “My wrists are a little sore.”

“Undo his wrists,” I said to Beaufort.

He laughed. “You’re giving me orders? I’m the one with the gun.”

“Are you sure?” I said, and hoped he would see some logic in that preposterous statement. I was at the edge, too, not thinking real clearly, holding the bag farther out from myself and hoping it would neither drip nor dry altogether. I wasn’t sure exactly what Gemma-Kate had used.

He might have taken the bag then, but he needed both his hands. Telling me again to hold both arms out, Beaufort held his gun in his right hand as he used his left to frisk me for weapons. He ran over the side pocket of my pants without noticing the empty plastic bag that Gemma-Kate had given me.

A snuffling and scratching sound came from behind that closed door. “How’s Achilles?” I asked, hoping to distract him.

Goddammit. Beaufort had reached the buttoned pocket in my travel pants and felt through the cloth. He reached inside and withdrew the vial. I held my breath and prepared to dive away in case he got cute and tried to squirt it on me.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“What does it look like? I get congested at high altitudes,” I said, praying that he wouldn’t tell me to use it. Capsicum up my nose would sting like the devil.

He unscrewed the top and gave it a little sniff, then tossed the container on the rug, and I put all my energy into not crying out, not moving a muscle in my face. I waited for the solution to seep out into the rug.