The waiting is unbearable. Even if I make it out of the room, everything depends on the man I thought was Carl not noticing that anything is wrong until I’ve had the chance to escape. If he’s in the basement with Ned, he’ll be able to hear my abductor if he starts shouting for help and will be up the stairs before I’ve gone very far. But it’s too late to worry about that now. The key is turning in the lock, he’s here.
The air stirs around me, I hold my hand up, the door touches my palm, it’s open. I sense the abductor come into the room, move past me. Now!
My fingers find the edge of the door, I slide my body around it, pull it after me, feel for the key—it’s there. Relief weakens my body; shaking, I close the door, turn the key, hear the click, steel myself for a roar of anger. But it doesn’t come and for a moment, the silence confuses me. Why isn’t he objecting? He must know what I’ve done. I fight down the fear, force myself to move.
I inch my way down the pitch-black hallway, my breath coming in small panicky gasps, my fingers groping the wall. A sound reaches me, the handle being rattled. I tense, wait for shouting. But it doesn’t come.
I quicken my pace and farther along the wall, my fingers find the ridge of a doorframe. I move to face it, explore the surface with my hands. Two doors, double doors, in my mind they lead to a vast room, a sitting room of some kind. I grope downward, find two doorknobs side by side. I try them both, but the doors are locked, I don’t waste time, I move on. Then, as I advance farther down the hallway, I see a thin sliver of light at floor level. My heart leaps: it must be coming from under a door and behind the door, there’ll be a room, a room where there’s light, where there’ll be a window.
Using the light to guide me, I reach the door, find the handle. It turns, I push the door open. A light—bright, white, artificial—blinds me. I drop my head, screw my eyes shut, I’m wasting precious time. But I can’t open them, the pain is too severe.
I bring my hands to my face, use them as shields, open my eyes, just a little, part my fingers, just a little, and see a table in front of me, behind it a fridge. I’m in a kitchen. I spread my fingers a little wider; to the right of the fridge, I see glass doors and quickly move toward them, my hands still shielding my eyes. I bump a chair, move around it—WHUMP!
Something comes over my head, not a hood, a blanket, not my blanket, a different one, rough, not soft. An arm snakes around me, pinning the blanket down, muffling my protests. My hands are trapped in front of my eyes, I try to move them but there’s no room to maneuver. My weight is shifted to one side, I’m lifted off my feet. Held tight against his body, I feel the rhythm of his stride as he begins to move forward. I kick out and my feet whack against something hard. My mind scrabbles frantically, I try to work out where he’s taking me, we’re going back down the hallway, toward the room where I was kept, toward the door to the basement where Ned is being kept. Please let him take me back to my room, please don’t let him put me in with Ned! Terror takes hold, I struggle under the blanket. But it makes no difference.
The man pauses, stoops, crushing my body within his. A door is unlocked, my feet, dangling uselessly, knock against something a second time. I feel myself being tilted forward and unfurled from the blanket, I hit the floor hard.
Winded, I gasp for breath. Behind me, a door slams shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PAST
My phone rang. I squinted, looked at the time, then frowned. It was 7:10 a.m. Who could be calling me so early on a Saturday morning? There was no caller ID.
I answered the call. “Hello?”
“Amelie, it’s Ned. Sorry to disturb you so early.”
I sat up hurriedly, fully awake now. Questions flooded my brain. Was he phoning to fire me? On a weekend? How did he get my number?
“No, it’s fine, really.”
“Have you ever been to Las Vegas?”
I grabbed my computer, thinking he wanted me to pull some information on the city.
“No, never. I’ve never been anywhere really. I’ve never even been on a plane.” Mentally, I told myself to shut up; Ned Hawthorpe hadn’t called to listen to my life story.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Well, I’m flying out this morning. Paul Martin has agreed to give us an interview. Well, almost agreed,” he added.
“Wow,” I said, flattered that he’d said us. “That’s amazing.”
“As I said, it’s not a definite. But I’m going to try and persuade him.”