Amy patted Megan's arm. "I'm going up to the door for a better view." Megan nodded, her hand poised over the camera controls.

Amy slipped through the curtain and sat on the floor in front of the door. Despite the textured surface of the glass, the view through it was relatively clear -- a little like viewing an underwater scene, but she could still see well enough to make out Linda's infuriated expression. The sounds from the dungeon came clearly through the speakers on the console.

Linda gasped and stared when the door to the dungeon opened. Amy realized Linda wouldn't have been able to hear the bell that signaled Steffi's approach, and her startlement was no doubt genuine. Linda suddenly brought her thighs together with a slap -- with her knees up, her short skirt had bunched up around her waist, revealing the expensive panties underneath. She watched cautiously as the figure entered, her jaw slightly thrust out belligerently.

Steffi was dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, the hood pulled up. In the dimness of that end of the room, her face was lost in the shadow of the hood. She stopped just inside the entrance, watching Linda.

Her teeth gritted, Linda rasped out, "You better let me out of here, now! You have no idea how much shit I can bring down on your head."

Amy could just make out that Steffi's mouth was slightly open. The lower half of her face, in fact, radiated complete astonishment. Like everyone else who had known in advance that Linda would look and sound like Zoey Hillcrest, she had still not been prepared for the perfection of the impersonation. Slowly, the corners of the open mouth curled upward into a smile. "I don't think you have access to your shit right now, Zoey."

Amy could see Linda's lips pressed together, her shoulders straining as she tried harder than ever to pull her wrists free of the cuffs. She gave up finally, breathing hard, and glared again at the intruder. "Who the hell are you? What do you want?"

Steffi reached up and pushed the hood back. Her hair was brushed back and held in a ponytail, and Amy felt sure she had worn it this way in high school. "I'm somebody who wanted to be your friend once, Zoey."

Linda started angrily, "Am I supposed to know..." She stopped, and leaned forward as much as the chains would allow. Her eyes went wide. She finally said in a whispery voice, "S-Stefanie?"

Steffi laughed delightedly. "It's so sweet of you to remember! Do you remember all the little people you stepped on along the way, or should I consider myself special?"

For the first time, a look of fear crossed Linda's face. "L-look, Stefanie, I never meant... I mean, it was all kind of... for fun, you know?"

The good humor disappeared instantly from Steffi's face. "Fun! Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was. Think of all the fun I had sitting in jail. Wondering what they were going to do to me. Wondering if they were going to execute me. They would have if I'd been eighteen, you know. I wasn't sure how that worked. Were you sure, Zoey? Did you check into the laws? Did you think they might hang me?" She took a step closer, her fists clenched, glaring, spitting out the words, "Did that thought ever come into your head while you were having fun?"

Linda pressed herself back against the wall. Her voice quavered as she spoke. Amy had a feeling the Linda was as deep into the fantasy as Steffi was. Linda was not the professional actress she was impersonating, but at the conscious level, Amy believed Linda was not having to pretend to be afraid of Steffi. She had spent two months immersing herself in Zoey, acting like her, trying to think like her. Today, now, she was Zoey. In her conscious mind, she believed she was the person who had tormented Steffi all those years ago. "S-Stefanie... You know they're looking for me. And I mean, this isn't just your average missing persons case. This is going to be big news everywhere!" Some self-confidence and defiance was coming back into her voice. "How long do you think you can hide me?"

That was one of the "conversation points" Steffi had wanted Linda to bring up. Amy knew what Steffi had planned as a response. Steffi gave Linda a grim smile. "Do you remember how you got here, Zoey?"

Linda bit her lip and shook her head.

Steffi giggled. "That's one nice thing about that drug. Short term memory loss. You do remember going out for a drive this morning, right? Just you and your hot little convertible? Top down. Beautiful day today." Zoey was known to do that, during her down time between movies. Linda nodded, and Steffi went on. "My associates rear-ended you at an isolated intersection out in the boondocks. Do you remember that much?"

Suddenly infuriated, Linda snarled, "You better not have messed up my car..."

Steffi laughed again. "Have some perspective, Zoey. You're in a lot more trouble than your car is. Anyway, when you and my associates got out of your cars to look over the damage, they gave you a little injection. And here you are!" Steffi gestured grandly at the surroundings.

Linda glared at her. "They will find me. I couldn't be that far away. A drug wouldn't put me under that long."

"Well, distance is the least of your problems. You see... oh, wait." Steffi looked at her watch. "The news should be coming up. That should clear things up for you."

Steffi picked up a remote on the table nearby and thumbed a button. The ending of the popular song "Consume My Heart" filled the room from unseen speakers, followed by a female voice saying, "Stay tuned for the news on the hour, including the latest on the Zoey Hillcrest mystery." After a commercial, another voice started speaking. The first voice had been Monique, playing a DJ. The second was Sadie, one of the Second Years, who had been judged to have the sort of calm, authoritative voice favored in radio newsreaders.

Sadie's pre-recorded voice began, "The car belonging to missing actress Zoey Hillcrest has been found in the last hour. An alert passerby spotted the car partially submerged in the Planque River, not far from Miss Hillcrest's Forest View home. Police spokesmen say Miss Hillcrest was not in the car. Tire tracks indicate the car was driven into the river, and police speculate Miss Hillcrest may have lost control of the vehicle. The seat belt was unused, and it is possible Miss Hillcrest may have been swept out of the car by the current. There is no information as to whether Miss Hillcrest may have found her way to shore following the accident, but the police are cautiously hopeful. They are now awaiting the arrival of divers, who will begin searching the river shortly. Stay tuned to this station for the latest bulletins." Sadie paused. "In other news..."

Steffi switched the "radio" off. She smiled at Linda. "I'm sure you see the problem, Zoey. Everybody's going to be looking in the wrong place! They think they know where you are, and that's where they'll stay, combing the bottom of that river, probably for days! It won't occur to them to look anywhere else, certainly not in an underground bunker on the estate of a person nobody will think to associate with you! Not in the amount of time you have left."

Linda gawked at her. "W-what do you mean? About 'time I have left'?"

Steffi reached towards the wall and pushed a button. A panel in the ceiling, invisible until it moved, opened above the center of the room. Through the now-open panel from above dropped a length of rope -- looped at its end in a hangman's knot. The noose bobbed and swung at the end of the rope, gradually becoming still.

Linda shrank back against the wall, her shoulders hunched. "No! You can't do that to me!"

Steffi looked at her curiously. "Why not? You didn't care if I was hanged."

Linda shook her head violently. "You can't, you can't! I've got so much longer to live! I just..." Her eyes widened, and she spoke rapidly, hopeful. "I just signed a contract with City Lights Studios. They're going to pay me one million dollars a year, over the next fifteen years, and at the end of that, I've agreed to do a snuff film for them. You can have that money! I don't need it! Think about it, Stefanie! A million dollars every year, for fifteen years! And when I do the movie, you can come on the set and watch me be snuffed! And eat part of me after! I'll tell them you have to be there!" Amy was proud of that story. She'd come up with it herself.

Steffi laughed more heartily this time. "Money! You think that will fix it. Tell me, Zoey, have you kept track of me at all? Do you know what I've been doing lately?"

Linda shook her head blankly.

Steffi gave her a nasty grin. "Well, offers of money don't mean a lot to me. I'd barely notice a few more millions. But being able to hang you myself..." She looked at Linda intently and spoke slowly. "...that means everything to me."

Linda stammered quickly, "Th-there must be something I can do! Stefanie, you could hang anybody! I'm not just anybody, I'm Zoey Hillcrest! I can get things done for you. I'm not just talking about money. Tell me what you want. Anything!" Steffi had suggested that "Zoey" remind Steffi that she was an actress. Linda decided that Zoey wouldn't do so directly, and had settled on this oblique reference to her exalted place in the scheme of things.

Steffi's eyes lit up. Amy thought Steffi's smile, in some way, seemed genuine. Obviously things were going as she had intended, and she seemed both relaxed and very excited -- she must have been worried that the acting out of her fantasy would fall short of her imaginings, but Linda's appearance, her vocal impression, and above all her realistic Zoey-reaction to the situation was making it easy for Steffi to slide into the fantasy wholeheartedly.

Steffi was biting her lip thoughtfully. "You know, you may have something there, Zoey." After a long pause, with her eyes glued to Linda, Steffi asked, "Are you ready to take on the most important roles of your life?"

Linda looked at her blankly. "Wh-what do you mean?"

"I mean I want you to be an actress for me. I've got a few roles in mind for you."

Linda gave her a tentatively hopeful look. As if Zoey were thinking there might be an easy way out of this after all. "So tell me about it."

Steffi smiled. "The first one should be easy. Let me describe your character for you. For about the next... oh, twenty-four hours, you'll basically be yourself. Think you can handle that?"

Linda glared at her and waited for her to continue.

Steffi did so. "I'll be me. The important part is the relationship between our characters." She paused, and her smile grew wider. "We've been lovers for years."

Linda gasped suddenly and shook her head slightly. Steffi laughed softly, seeing Linda's reaction. She knew Zoey was suspected of not being sexually attracted to women. Linda had just "confirmed" that for her.

Steffi went on, "But you've been gone so much lately, making one movie after another. You've taken me for granted. And you've just now realized, for the first time, you're in danger of losing me. You've sensed a certain coolness between us. And along with that you've realized, for the first time, how much you need me, and how terrified you are by the idea of losing me. You're determined, even desperate, to show how much you want me. How much you need to be part of my life, how much you need me in yours. You know that I've always valued our sexual intimacy, but that's not enough, by itself. You know you have to show how special I am to you. Have I illustrated your character well enough?"

Amy stifled a laugh, worried about sounds she might make as close to the door as she was. Linda was breathing fast, seeming horrified to a level only slightly below that inspired by the threat of hanging, but Amy knew that, buried underneath her Zoey-personality, Linda must love the challenge she was being presented.

Without responding directly, Linda asked, "If I do this, then you'll let me go?"

Steffi shook her head. "You can't imagine I can let you go, Zoey. My life would be over if I did that."

"Then what's my..." She stopped.

Steffi laughed. "So actors really do say that, do they? 'What's my motivation?' " She folded her arms. "You haven't asked me what I'll do with you after I hang you."

Linda said hopefully, "You'll give my friends back my body so they can eat me?"

Steffi smiled again. "Well, that's if you're a very good girl. I could get you back to them, anonymously... well, minus your head. I'm keeping that. I plan to sleep with it between my legs, every night from now on." Steffi laughed again at the expression on Linda's face. Behind the door, Amy choked back another giggle. However appalled Zoey would be at that idea, Amy knew Linda would love the thought of her head servicing Steffi for years to come.

Steffi sighed happily, and went on. "But if you're not a good girl..."

Linda scowled. "You'll eat me yourself."

Steffi shook her head. "No, I'll just weight you down and toss you into that river, where you're supposed to be now anyway. Well away from where they're looking for you, though. You'll make a nice meal for the fish long before they find your bones, if ever."

Linda suddenly gasped convulsively and jerked against all her restraints. Amy knew that Linda understood as well as Steffi that Steffi not only had no reason to do that to Linda, but that she wouldn't be allowed to do that to a Hanging Girl anyway. But the part of Linda that was Zoey was convinced that Steffi would indeed dispose of Zoey that way. Linda shouted, "NO!! You're a woman yourself! You would never do that to any woman, no matter how much you hated her! We live our lives to be food for people! You can't take that away from me!"

Steffi leaned forward slightly, and her stare at Linda seemed sufficient to bore a hole through her. "I won't take it away unless I have to. You owe me something, Zoey. If I get it from you, you get to live on inside the bodies of the people you love. If I don't, you can feed the fish. It's all up to you."

Linda still looked stricken. "If I do everything you want, how do I know you won't just dump me in the river anyway?"

Steffi said bitingly, "You know because I'm the only honorable and trustworthy person in this room. I've never lied to anybody or led them on. I do what I say I'll do."

Linda looked at her for what seemed to be a long time, breathing hard through her nose. At last, she simply nodded. She twisted slightly to bring her hands into view from behind her. "You'll have to let me go for this."

Steffi nodded. "Obviously. But before I do..."

Suddenly Linda squeaked in seeming pain, her whole body convulsing suddenly and going limp. After about thirty seconds, she began moving again, her forehead wrinkled in pain, her muscles slightly jumpy. In a shaky voice, she asked, "What did you do to me?"

Linda, and Amy as well, had known that was coming at some point. Steffi now explained to Zoey what Linda already knew. The thickness of her wrist and ankle cuffs hid an elaborate electrical system, powered by batteries within the cuffs that had been charged through wires in the chains running from the wall. Tiny probes on the inner surfaces of the cuffs passed an electrical shock through Linda's skin to her nerves. Steffi had sent the cuffs to Linda at the Academy to try them out, weeks earlier. The shocks could be delivered in two strengths, the lower strength painful, the higher much more so and temporarily paralyzing. Linda had insisted Amy give her the higher level shock once a day for three days running, to train her body to react to it. From that time on, her reflexes reacted in panic to the shock even at the lower, essentially harmless level. Amy knew that Steffi was using the lower strength shocks now -- or should be, at any rate. Linda's initial reaction was a conditioned response, and the ensuing paralysis was feigned.

Amy bit her lip. At least she hoped it was feigned.

Steffi held up her right palm. "The control button is embedded under my skin. I'll always have access to it, and you can't take it away from me. If you decide you want to attack me, all I need to do is jab my fingernail into my palm and you can get a repeat of what you just felt. And I can get that noose around your neck before you can recover. But I'm not going to need to press that button again, am I, Zoey?"

Linda shook her head slowly. She slumped in her restraints. Resignedly, she said, "Let me loose now. I'll do what you want me to do."

Steffi produced a key that opened the padlocks. She did not, of course, remove the cuffs at her wrists and ankles. Nor the collar.

Sighing, unsmiling, Linda stood and smoothed out her skirt. Seemingly casually, as if stretching her muscles, she moved her right hand behind her back and wriggled her fingers. The gesture was out of Steffi's sight, and out of view of the camera. It was meant for Amy, who sighed out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It was the signal that everything was okay. Without looking at Steffi, Linda asked in a dull voice, "So, are we married?"

Smiling, Steffi responded, "No, that's never come up, but we've been living together for several years."

"How have I figured out our relationship is strained? I've been away, right?"

Steffi nodded. "We just had a fight this morning. You got back home last night after a movie shoot of several weeks. You were too tired to make love. And you went too long without calling me while you were away. That's what the fight was about."

Linda finally looked at Steffi, and nodded in turn. "Just basic neglect. Okay." She reached up and tugged at her metal collar. "Could you at least take this thing off? It's going to make it harder to get in character."

Steffi shook her head. "It'll remind you you belong to me now. Deal with it."

Linda sighed and shrugged. "Do you want to go out there," she pointed to the door, "And come back in? You've been... okay, you went out for a drive to cool off. You come in, returning from that."

Steffi looked a little too excited at present to carry off the impression of a pissed-off lover, but it was her show. She nodded vigorously.

As Steffi turned towards the door, Linda said, "Give me a few minutes to get my head in the right place, okay? I need to... feel the part."

Steffi smiled. "Of course, Zoey dear. I want you to be at your best." She patted Linda's shoulder, turned and walked to the entrance door of the dungeon. She looked back at Linda. "I'll give you about ten. I'll miss you." She opened the door and left, closing it behind her.

Linda stood for a moment after Steffi's departure, her gaze sweeping around the room. At last she walked over to the overstuffed chair. As she turned to sit, she noticed the camera had not yet turned to follow her. Quickly she looked at the door behind which Amy sat, and, with her fists clenched in front of her, her eyes shining, she mouthed, "This is so cool!!"

The camera now turned. Without looking into it, Linda curled into the big chair, wriggled to get comfortable, and waited.