I return to my mattress. Turn it so it faces not the viewing room but the door. I take a seat, and with my body as a shield to block my motions, I feel gingerly for the ripped edge of the mattress, my stash of wooden shards. I pull out two, feeling instant relief, which I refuse to show on my face. He’s not the only one who can keep someone in the dark.
I position my makeshift weapons along the length of my thigh. Then I reach down for the hem of my ridiculously stupid satin nightie and begin to tear. One long strip. Not easy to do, as the satin is happy to rip up but not across. Through sheer stubbornness I eventually win.
Then I have it. Two soft pine wooden stakes as weapons.
A strip of cloth tied around my mouth and nose to block (maybe, doubtfully) any kind of nefarious sleeping gas.
And a plan.
I take a seat, butt on mattress, shards tucked beneath my leg, out of sight, and water bottle on my lap.
I stare directly in the direction of where I know the door has to be.
And, fingers wrapped around my weapon, I wait.
*
I THINK I DOZED OFF AGAIN. The effect of total darkness? Disorientation from the kidnapping? Drugs in my water?
But this time, I catch the telltale rasp of a metal bolt sliding back. I told my subconscious what to listen for, setting it like an alarm, and it didn’t let me down. I force myself to remain still, not lifting my head, not giving any sign of consciousness. It’s possible there’s more than one predator. I’ve read several cases of kidnappers who work in pairs. Now is not the time to be stupid.
My bound hands press the two long, skinny pine shards into one larger, heavier unit. While my homemade satin mask wicks the moisture from my mouth and delivers the scent of musty cloth.
Slowly, the door eases open. Shades of black, I realize. No brightly lit corridor to suddenly flood my room with slashing rays of light and rouse me from slumber. No, this is a stealth job, all the way. As the shadowy figure moves from the darkened hallway to the even more impenetrable gloom of my space.
My fingers tighten on the pieces of wood.
Not terribly tall. Or maybe he is hunched?
Moving carefully, very carefully, as if not to wake me.
I remind myself not to move. I remind myself to stay very still. Wait till the figure steps all the way into the room.
Except, halfway through the door, the figure stops. A hand comes up . . .
To spray a drug? To render me unconscious?
I can’t take it anymore.
I spring. With the sound of rattling chains, I leap to my feet and dart forward, pulling heavily on my tether.
No thinking. Just moving. Bound hands clasped tightly around the pine shards.
The man realizes too late what’s about to happen. He turns defensively, raises an arm to block.
But I have trained harder. I have trained better. I drop beneath his forearm and drive my pine stakes into his ribs.
He screams. High, shrill, distinctly feminine.
He drops to the ground, while behind him, the door slams shut.
Myself, standing wide-eyed in the dark. Clutching my bloody weapon. Wanting to wave it triumphantly over my fallen target.
Except . . .
Something is not right here. The scream. Distinctly feminine. The fallen figure whimpering and cowering at my feet.
Slowly, I sink to my knees. Slowly, I set my wooden shards on the floor. And slowly, ever so slowly, I reach for the huddled form beside me.
I encounter fistfuls of thick, shoulder-length hair. It tells me everything I don’t want to know.
“Stacey Summers?” I whisper.
She cries harder, and I find myself nodding in the dark.
I’ve finally found who I’ve spent weeks looking for.
And I just stabbed her.
Chapter 25
AFTER THE INTERVIEW with Colin Summers, D.D. returned to HQ as promised. No doubt her in-box was already overflowing with reports to edit, warrants to review, and interrogations to read. She felt antsy, keyed up in a way she didn’t like. Nervous about seeing Phil? Or simply overadrenalized by a series of crimes that didn’t make sense?
First the Devon Goulding scene, where the victim had turned out to be the perpetrator, and his attacker also their prime suspect. Florence Dane had annoyed D.D. then, and not just with her unwillingness to answer routine questions, but because Flora didn’t fit.
Plain and simple, policing was about playing the odds. Find a wife murdered in her home, arrest the husband. Beaten child, handcuff the parents. Poisoned executive, haul in his hot business partner and former lover. Knowing who did it was rarely rocket science. Proving it was where D.D. and her squad mates earned their keep.
Then, you got cases such as Florence Dane. Where you were looking at an animal with hooves and stripes, and yet it definitely wasn’t a zebra.
D.D. still didn’t know what Flora was. Who she was.
Having finally made it safely home, why would the woman keep seeking out danger time and again? Because D.D. had no doubts: Flora had met with Colin Summers. And she’d made finding Stacey Summers her own personal mission. The question was, did Flora really want to save a young college student? Or did she simply want a fresh target to kill?
In D.D.’s mind, that was a fifty-fifty proposition. Which didn’t make her less keen to locate Flora, but rather gave her a certain urgency on the subject. One way or another, whatever had happened to Flora and Stacey, whoever had happened, it was going to end badly.
Because that’s how Flora needed it to end, D.D. thought. Something had happened five years ago, between her and her first kidnapper. After four hundred and seventy-two days of captivity, something had gone down that left Jacob Ness dead and Flora very much alive. Except Flora had never gotten over it. And, even now, seemed to be seeking out the same sequence of events over and over again.
Entering HQ, D.D. spotted Phil walking across the cavernous glass-and-chrome lobby with a steaming cup of coffee. Never one to shy away from conflict, D.D. headed straight to him.
“Any chance that’s for me?”
Phil clutched his coffee close. “Back off. I’ve spent the past two hours with a crier. Trust me when I say I need this more than you.”
D.D. had to think about it. “Kristy Kilker’s mom?” she asked while sniffing at the wafting scent of dark-roasted bliss.
“Doesn’t know a thing. Honestly thought her daughter was studying abroad in Italy. Totally fell apart when I informed her Kristy had never signed up for any such program. Oh hell, take it. I’ll grab another.”
Phil thrust out his coffee. D.D. didn’t argue. Peace offering, she decided, then gamely followed Phil into the lobby cafeteria where he could grab a second cup.
“She hasn’t heard from her daughter in months. Was less than thrilled, but figured Kristy was busy with her studies. Not to mention the two of them had a bit of a brouhaha right before Kristy supposedly left town. So maybe Kristy’s nursing her wounds. Needless to say, to discover her daughter had been lying all along and was never in Italy—”
“She close to her daughter?” D.D. asked, though the “brouhaha” combined with the fact Kristy had deceived her mother about her trip seemed to say enough.
“Used to be. According to the mom, Kristy changed when she went off to college. Became less communicative, more secretive. Nancy—Kristy’s mom—worried her daughter had fallen in with the wrong crowd, that sort of thing. It was her idea for Kristy to sign up for the international program. Figured it would be good for her to have a change of pace. She funded it too, which wasn’t easy on her secretary’s salary. So to find out Kristy lied about the program as well as pocketed the funds . . . Nancy’s not having a good day.”
“She able to give you the names of some of Kristy’s college friends?”
“Yeah, and I sent some uniforms over to start on-campus interviews, with the dean of admissions, current professors, that sort of thing. But I don’t think that’s where the magic is.”
Phil paid for his second coffee. They walked together to the desk sergeant, flashing ID, getting waved through. D.D. headed for the stairwell, if only to torture her one-time squad mate further.
“Okay, so where’s the magic?” she prodded as Phil began to climb the stairs wheezily beside her.
“Kristy had a job to help with her living expenses. Part-time cocktail waitress.”