He then dispatched me to the bedroom to shower and dress, while he cooked some food for us.He then dispatched me to the bedroom to shower and dress, while he cooked some food for us. Over the meal -- breakfast? lunch? -- I told him what had hap- pened, sparing no details. I even explained the "Kidnap" game to Roger; he seemed fascinated. When I finished, I asked him to explain how he had shown up to rescue me. "When I saw John following you away from the office yesterday, I knew there would be trouble. I had biked in to work, so I had no way of following you, and of course I had no idea where you were going except for *the farmhouse*. I tried going to the police, but they weren't interested; everything was too vague and weird- sounding. So I went back to the office and thought for a while." "It seemed to me that your farmhouse would be 30 minutes to two hours from here. Much closer and you wouldn't get any extra privacy over your regular house; much further and it would be too inconvenient for weekend visits. I kind-of guessed it was a love nest, but I wasn't certain just how you'd feather it." We both blushed. "I narrowed down the search area a bit by assuming it was in the same general direction as your house; the direction you headed off in was at least consistent with that guess. That still left a lot of towns, though. But it was all I had to go on, so I started dialing Information for each of the towns. No dice." "No," I said. "The purpose of this place is relaxation and isolation; I deliberately didn't get a phone or even any clocks. As far as possible, this is not the real world." Roger nodded. "That left the local tax offices, for all those wretched little towns. I knew there was nothing else to be done until morning when they opened, so I called my `assistant' and alerted her. |