The state trooper walked away.
Fake Everett returned. He spotted the cruiser. Jerked open the cab door, already appearing panicked. Then he saw me, just sitting there, eyes locked forward.
He got in, buckled up, drove away.
Neither of us said a word.
That night, when he was done, he didn’t put me back in the box. He let me stay out. Night after night. Day after day. No more coffin-size box.
Because Flora didn’t exist anymore, and we both knew it.
I wrote another postcard to my mom.
Dear Mom, I wrote. Having the best time, touring the country with the man of my dreams.
Chapter 24
UPON WAKING, I reach immediately for the water bottle, discovering it still tucked in the curve of my body. Good.
Lights remain out, the room its usual soul-sucking black. It doesn’t frighten me as much as it makes me impatient. Sooner or later, he’s going to flash on the lights. Not even monsters want to spend all their time in the dark.
For now, I orient myself, concentrating on the thin plastic of the water bottle, the lacy edge of my ridiculous nightie, and the welted edge of my mattress. And moisture, I realize belatedly. On my cheeks. Along with the taste of salt.
I’ve been crying in my sleep.
I dreamed of Jacob.
I lift my bound hands and quickly wipe the tears from my face. I don’t think about it; I don’t dwell on it. Survivors should never second-guess. If I hadn’t done what I did, I’d never be here today.
Once again kidnapped, dealing with cheap pine coffins.
I make a barking noise that might be laughter. Hard to tell. My throat’s dry. I decide to risk a small sip of water. It’s an important resource. A person can survive weeks without food, but only days without water. I know these things now. I deliberately researched them.
Which makes me angry at the impenetrable dark again. I didn’t study and train all these years just to be locked away like a pair of old shoes. Where the hell is my captor anyway? Doesn’t he want to gloat? Punish me? Assert his sexual superiority? What kind of freak goes to all this trouble, then never shows his face?
I sit up, swing my legs over the edge of the thin mattress.
An old pro by now, I sniff the air first, trying to detect any new scents that might indicate another meal delivery, even the smell of soap, shampoo, body odor, to signal someone else’s presence in the room.
I get nothing.
Next up, as long as I’m playing blindman’s bluff: sound. More carefully modulated breathing? Or the distant hum of traffic beyond the blacked-out windows, muffled thumps or thuds from other rooms in the house?
Once again, nothing.
I start crawling. Bump against the plastic bucket, veer right. I continue through the room to where there should be the remnants of the pine coffin. Except this time, when I find nothing, it actually means something.
He’s removed the shards. Realized they could be utilized as weapons and quickly carted them away? Which, of course, makes me immediately wonder about the ones I stashed inside the seam of my mattress. But I don’t dare double back to check, not when he could be watching.
Instead, I sit back on my heels, considering.
How is he doing this? Entering and exiting the room so quietly? It’s one thing for him to observe through the viewing window, then make his move once he thinks I’m asleep. Except I’m an extremely light sleeper. The odds of him dragging entire coffin-shaped boxes in and out without me ever stirring . . .
He must be drugging me. Sneaking in and placing more chloroform over my mouth? Except, contrary to popular belief, it’s not that easy to instantly knock someone out with a chloroform-soaked rag. Meaning I should’ve woken up fighting or, even now, detected remnants of the odor in the air.
On the other hand, addicts, sniffers, and the like have perfected mixing chloroform with other drugs to produce a much more powerful cocktail. If my abductor has access to the Internet or spends any amount of time in a nightclub, God only knows what he could’ve learned.
Which leads me to an even more basic question: How is he getting in? So far, I’ve found evidence of two single windows on what I believe is the exterior wall, plus the larger pane of glass, the one-way mirror, on the opposite wall.
But there has to be a door, of course. Every room has a door.
I focus my eyes in the gloom. Trying to identify a thin seam of lighter dark framing a doorway.
But no matter how much I squint and strain, I see nothing. Evil Kidnapper’s blackout capabilities are very good.
Fine, the Helen Keller method it is.
I crawl toward the wall with the viewing window first. If the two single windows are on an exterior wall, then basic architecture makes this the longest interior wall, which, in my mind, makes it the most likely to have a door. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I’m convinced this wall must abut a hallway, hence the viewing window. He stands in the hall, staring in.
I stand up gingerly once I hit drywall. It feels strange to stand, and it occurs to me I’ve spent most of my time on my hands and knees, crawling around in the dark. Falling back into bad behaviors, I realize, making myself small. But there’s no reason in this space I can’t stand and walk. For that matter, some yoga and light calisthenics would be a good idea. I’m fed. I’m hydrated. I should also work on remaining strong.
I find the black-painted trim of the viewing window easily enough. It’s nearly as long as the full stretch of my open arms. But, upon further inspection, it’s not mounted in the middle of the wall, as you might expect. No, it’s off to one side, leaving plenty of wall space to the left for a door.
I shuffle sideways, fingers skimming over the drywall. I wonder if he’s standing on the other side of the viewing window right now. Intrigued by my efforts? Nervous?
There are so many kinds of predators in the world. Those who require submissive victims.
And those who like it when you fight back.
The obvious sign of a door would be a doorknob. Definitely no such luck. So I sway side to side, slipping my fingers across the wall in broad horizontal strokes, determined to feel the slight hiccup that would indicate the edge of a door. But nothing, nothing, nothing.
I pause, consider the room design again. I’d pictured the two single windows as being part of an external wall. Say, the front of a house. Which would mean this room is positioned as a long rectangle in the home.
But what if the two single windows are actually on the side of the house? Meaning the room isn’t a horizontal dash, but a tall I. That would put the viewing window on a wall most likely adjacent to another room—a viewing room to go with the viewing window?—while one of the narrower walls would be most likely to open to a corridor.
I shift counterclockwise, moving from the long wall to the skinnier one. Again, my fingers span from side to side, looking for a protruding doorknob, a narrow ridge. And then . . .
I find it. No doorknob, but definitely a seam in the wall. Which I can trace up to the top of my fingertips, then down to the floor. And across. Yes, a door. Fit flush into the black-painted walls with no protruding knob or metal locking mechanism to make it stand out.
How does he open it then? A knob on his side? But surely he’d want it secured as well? Maybe he has bolts mounted on the outside of the door that he can manually work, then pull the door open and walk through.
I know in the next moment what I’m going to do.