Those chores done, she’d stripped off her pajamas and robe, given herself a sponge bath, washed and combed her hair, subjected herself to the humiliating exercise of urination with the help of one of the empty milk jugs left for that purpose, and finally dressed.
She’d started with underpants and a bra, slipping them on with distaste bordering on revulsion. He had handled these items, these most personal garments. Feeling them against her skin had been almost like… like feeling his hands on her body.
Mustn’t think about it, she’d told herself. Anyway, he had probably worn gloves while packing the suitcase.
Looking through the other clothes he’d brought her, she had selected a cotton shirt, denim shorts, and boots.
The shirt was beige-an optimistic choice. It would blend in with the sere tones of the desert should she find a way to escape.
Escape. Sure.
She might as well have put on a bright red shirt with a target painted on it for all the difference it made. She wasn’t getting out of here.
With that thought, they began to prick at her again-vague and tentative manifestations of claustrophobia, which had been teasing her all morning. She paced the room, fighting to dispel the groundless fear.
Well, of course it was groundless. Utterly irrational. She ought to know; she treated phobias all the time.
The walls were awfully close, though. She could cross from one end of the room to the other in four strides.
Back and forth, back and forth, her perambulations ticking like the strokes of a pendulum.
Low ceiling-she had to dodge the hundred-watt bulb on the chain. The room’s only source of light-if the bulb failed, she would be sealed up in darkness.
Don’t think about it.
She didn’t want to, but the awareness of confinement was getting to her, accelerating her heartbeat, clenching the muscles of her abdomen.
Trapped here in this underground chamber-it was like being buried alive.
Suppose her abductor never returned. No one would know where she was.
The meager provisions he’d left would soon run out. The bulb would flicker and fail. In the dark she would starve slowly; deprived of her medicine, she would suffer seizures. Eventually she would die.
But first she would surely go insane.
“Don’t,” she snapped at herself, but the ugly thoughts would not leave her alone.
She sat in her chair and closed her eyes. Willed herself to relax, to go limp. She had done it last night when she was being carried to an unknown fate; she could do it now.
But the stiffness in her neck and shoulders wouldn’t abate, and her breathing still came fast and shallow. She was starting to hyperventilate.
Go away, Erin. Go away to some peaceful spot far from here.
She had visited San Francisco last year. Muir Woods, northwest of the city, had fascinated her. She hadn’t seen such dense stands of trees since her early childhood in California.
Now she pictured herself among the dizzying redwoods, in a place of birdsong and cool shadows and rustling greenery, misty in early morning, the air pregnant with droplets that tingled on her face.
So different from the heat and aridity, the vast spaciousness of the desert. Here in the forest she could see no more than a few yards into the tangled groves. The sun, low over the horizon, was hidden behind thick walls of foliage. Canopied branches shut out the sky, locking the woods in perpetual shade.
Colonnades of tree trunks, scrims of leaves… all of it close-too close-hemming her in. The moist air, clogging her lungs. Hard to breathe Damn.
She stood, her heart hammering against her ribs.
So much for visualization exercises. What was another strategy to control phobic panic?
Distraction.
She had tried that already, when she cleaned her cell. Hopeful of spotting something else to tidy up, she scanned the floor, but the place was immaculate save for two small rectangular cards lying near her suitcase.
Her driver’s license and MasterCard. She’d pocketed them in her robe last night after failing to slip the latch on the door; they must have fallen out when she folded the robe this morning. She picked them up and put them in the side pocket of her shorts.
No other litter to collect, no mess to deal with. No TV or radio to offer a diversion. No reading matter save the file of newspaper clippings, and she hardly expected those to ease her mind.
Nothing, then. Nothing for her to do, except pace and worry, until her abductor returned.
If he ever did.
When she lifted her head to survey the room again, the walls seemed closer than before.
17
“I’d like to report a missing person.” Annie sat rigid at her desk in the office at the back of her shop, clutching the telephone handset, fighting for calm.
“Adult or juvenile?” the T.P.D. desk sergeant asked with mechanical perfunctoriness.
“Adult. My sister. She-”
“Please hold.”
Silence. She stared at a green spray of rhododendron, blooming pink, and hoped she could keep her voice dry of tears.
What time was it, anyway? After three o’clock. Three hours had passed since she’d learned Erin was missing.
Should have called her last night, Annie thought. Should have trusted my intuition. Now it may be too late.
A murmur of voices bled through the door. Someone in the front room-customer or supplier or delivery person-talking with her assistant. She hoped nothing had come up that required her supervision. There had been enough interruptions as it was.
Since returning from her abortive lunch date, all she had wanted to do was pursue her strategy for finding Erin, carrying out a desperate quest via telephone, but there had been constant distractions.
First, she’d had to sign for a delivery of flowers and greens from a local grower; she made such purchases every day to keep her inventory fresh. Then an importer had called to inquire about her need for exotics. Precious minutes had been wasted talking to him.
At two o’clock a local restaurant, one of her regular customers, had faxed an order for a grand arrangement to serve as a centerpiece at a private dinner party tonight. Though it had been hard to concentrate, she’d had to design the bouquet herself, a complex mingling of spring flowers-azaleas, star magnolias, grape hyacinth, Passionale daffodils, and the quintessential seasonal bloom, the primrose.
Through it all a stream of customers had flowed into the shop, many with requests requiring her personal attention. Ordinarily she would have been happy to hear the cash register ring with such exuberance. Today she had other things on her mind.
“Walker, Detective Division.”
The male voice, quietly authoritative, matched her preconception of how a cop should sound.
“Detective? My name is Anne Reilly. I want to report a missing person. My sister, Erin.”
“How long has she been missing?”
“Since this morning, at least.”
“This morning? That’s not a great deal of time. Normally we wait twenty-four hours-”
“No, you can’t wait that long. She’s in trouble. I… I know she is.”
Oh, good, Annie. Very composed. Why not just burst into sobs and throw yourself on his mercy?
