Greta couldn't have spoken even if she'd wanted to. An apology? Of all possible things, that was the last she expected to hear. This couldn't be real. Either she was having an absurd dream, or he was about to laugh, point at her and say "Got you".
However, he was very serious when he continued.
"I know you don't trust me. I gave you no reason to trust me. I'm going to list all the mistakes I made with you, okay?"
She didn't say anything, so he continued.
"So, I apologize for grabbing you, locking you in the storage room, drugging you, bringing you to a ranch without your permission, chaining you to the bed, and locking the door. Did I forget anything?"
Faced with that cold admission, she couldn't contain herself:
"You killed the attendant at that store."
It was impossible to read the man's expression as he assessed the accusation. He massaged the point between his eyebrows with his thumb, releasing a puff of air before responding.
"No, Greta. I didn't kill that man."
Her judgment must have short-circuited from trauma, because the statement seemed honest. Still, she insisted, unable to keep her mouth shut:
"So who did?"
"That doesn't matter for our conversation."
"It doesn't matter? A murder isn't important to you?"
Congratulations, Greta. Keep confronting the criminal. You're simply brilliant. You just won't die of old age, that's all. But not even self-recrimination in thought could make her disguise her combative expression.
"It's important, of course it's important. But it's not relevant to us, in this conversation, at this moment. It would be only a distraction, OK?"
The most bizarre thing was that there was no trace of fury in his voice. On the contrary: everything in his body language conveyed calm. He gave her time to absorb the idea before continuing.
"Right. Now, back to our situation. There's a chance someone is after me. Doesn't matter who. Traveling with another person would be great for throwing them off. Especially if we use your car."
He waited for her to say something, but Greta remained silent.
"I saw on your GPS that you're going to Imbituba. I want to go to Florianópolis, but I don't mind going on alone before you even reach your destination. I want to throw them off at least at the beginning, that's all. But I won't do anything else against your will. And I'll understand if you don't accept."
"If I don't accept?" That carried the weight of an insult to her. "The question should be different. Why would I accept?"
The man straightened his spine, abandoning his relaxed posture in a fraction of a second. Very serious, he leaned toward her and explained, and his voice was almost melodic when he spoke:
"Because you're running away and you're afraid. Because you might be afraid of me, yes, but you're much more afraid of what you left behind, and I could protect you from that. You already know I can, I'm good at it."
From the expression of shock on her face, Daros knew he'd touched a nerve. So he continued.
"My guess is you're running from your husband. You screamed much less than you could have in the storage room, and even less here at the ranch. You're afraid of being found. You took off the wedding ring so you wouldn't be recognized as a married woman, in case they're looking for you, but your finger itches all the time, doesn't it? So you massage the lighter skin there, the part that didn't get sun for a long time. You only stopped to fill up the car when it got dark, and you always glanced at the station cameras. For you, your husband is a much greater threat than I am."
Greta swallowed hard, returning to squeeze her hands in her lap. She doubted her neighbor psychologist made diagnoses that precise without a few hours of evaluation. After composing herself, she limited herself to asking a single question.
"And what happens if I refuse?"
Daros relaxed his muscles and leaned back on the sofa.
"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I'm going out for a hike. I'll be back around eleven, more or less, when the sun starts to get strong. I'll read a bit in my room, until one, two in the afternoon, around there. Then lunch and we'll talk."
She stood up. She returned to the stool where she'd had breakfast and ran her fingertips through the crumbs, looking for clues about what to do in the bread trails she opened on the surface.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Daros going to the door to the lawn and stretching. He pulled one elbow behind his head, then the other. When the man was leaving, she called out:
"Aren't you forgetting something?"
He looked at the woman, who was holding the chain. He ignored the suggestion of restraint.
"No, I am not. Your car's in the garage. The remote is back there, on the coffee table. Just follow the dirt road, going in the opposite direction from those hills, far away." He adjusted a cap on his head, forcing the brim down. He was looking down at the floor when he continued. "I really regret what I did to you, Greta. If we don't see each other again, good luck."
The kidnapper left the house with agility, maintaining a constant running pace and an erect spine.
She followed him, approaching the door where he'd been slowly. She watched as he ran across the lawn without looking back, until the figure transformed into a tiny dot in the distance and then disappeared into the woods at the back of the property.
Greta grabbed the remote from the coffee table and ran without wasting a single minute. She looked one way, then the other. The lawn was more trampled on the left side. She concluded the garage was on that side, immediately taking off in that direction. She raised the door with the remote, entered, and opened the car door. On the passenger seat, the purse lay open. No documents, no ID. The wallet was still in the envelope in the room, she just had to go get it. But the gun was visible, nestled in a place where he knew it would be found. A parting gift. Or the final test.