Had he deposited the letter? Had it been his footsteps on gravel, his van pulling away?
No way. Impossible.
Still, she had to be sure.
He had seemed nervous about taking a long lunch break today. And something about that accident just didn’t add up. And when she mentioned the dirt on his pants, he’d seemed flustered, hadn’t he? Almost… guilty?
She wondered if he had really taken the van for an estimate, or if he had gone someplace else.
There ought to be a way to find out. Another minute of hectic, feverish thought guided her to a plan.
Before leaving the bathroom, she flushed the toilet and ran the faucet again, for realism.
In the front of the shop, Harold was on a stepladder, hanging a basket of green camellia on a ceiling hook to replace an identical item sold earlier today.
“Looks good,” Annie said, studying the plant from below. “Maybe spread the leaves a little more on this side.”
He did so.
“Perfect. Which auto-body shop gave you the estimate, by the way?”
“Metzger’s, at Grant and Campbell.” He glanced down at her, and she wondered if it was only her imagination that caught a glint of suspicion in his eyes. “Why?”
“Just curious. I know a good place if you need a second opinion.” A pause, then casually: “You know, I never did get lunch. Think I’ll run next door and grab a sandwich.”
Gund made some kind of acknowledgment, which she barely heard, and then she was out the door, breathing hard. The effort of maintaining a neutral facade had exhausted her.
On her way to the delicatessen, she circled around to the rear of Gund’s van and memorized the license number. The tires, she noticed, were streaked with desert dust.
At the back of the deli, there was a pay phone. A battered copy of the Yellow Pages was set on a shelf below. She looked up Metzger’s, dropped a quarter in the slot, and dialed.
As the phone rang on the other end of the line, she drew a deep, soothing breath and tried to calm her frantic heart.
“Metzger’s,” a female voice answered.
“Good afternoon.” She kept her tone cool and professional. “This is Barbara Allen, calling from Allstate Insurance. I’d like to confirm an estimate for one of our clients, Harold Gund, policy number seven-six-two-three- eight.” The five digits came out of nowhere; insurance people always gave the policy number, and she didn’t expect the receptionist to check. “The vehicle in question is a Chevrolet Astro van, license plate…” She recited the memorized number.
“Hold, please.”
Silence. Annie clutched the hard plastic shell of the handset and tasted a sour flavor at the back of her mouth.
Click, and the receptionist was back. “Sorry, but we have no record of any estimate on that vehicle.”
Her heart slammed into overdrive. “It was my understanding”-she fought to betray no reaction other than mild consternation-“that our insured party, Mr. Gund, took his van to Metzger’s for inspection earlier this afternoon. He’s informed us that Metzger’s provided an estimate of twelve hundred dollars.”
“Well, we have no record of that.”
“I see. There must be some mix-up, then. Thank you.”
Even after she had replaced the handset on the plungers, Annie kept her hand on it, as if afraid to let go.
No record.
He hadn’t gone to Metzger’s.
Hadn’t gotten an estimate.
Then what had he been doing? And where?
Briefly she considered calling Walker. No, waste of time; she had nothing, really. Nothing specific, nothing tangible.
For the time being, she was on her own.
Okay, then.
Erin had sent an SOS. A distress signal. A cry for help.
Annie would do her best to answer it.
Tonight.
39
Even after she awoke, Erin lay unmoving on the futon for long minutes, taking inventory of every separate pain.
The cramps in her abdomen and thighs had loosened their grip, to leave only a dull, throbbing ache. Rubbing at the rope for hours had taken its toll; her shoulders and arms were agonizingly stiff. When she turned her head, a hot needle lanced her neck.
The worst pain, however, was not internal but external-the searing sunburn on every inch of her exposed skin. Her gaze drifted to her right arm, lobster pink. It looked boiled.
The burn would torture her for days. Every scrape of her clothes against her skin would be a minor agony.
But at least, for the moment, she was alive.
Grunting, she propped herself on one elbow and threw back the cheap cotton blanket. A gleam of metal caught her eye.
For a disoriented moment she imagined she was wearing an anklet. A large, curiously bulky anklet glinting on her right leg.
Then her mind cleared, and she recognized what she was seeing. A loop of chain, wound tightly around her leg just above her boot, with a padlock’s hasp inserted through two heavy links.
The chain snaked across the concrete floor to the wall, where a second padlock secured it to the sillcock.
Slowly she bent forward, wincing at the residue of pain in her abdomen, and studied the chain. The links were rusty and soiled, as was the padlock. They had been used outdoors.
The gate. It had been chained and locked. Yes.
And the other padlock, the one fastening the chain to the spigot, most likely had come from the rear door, which she’d tried to open last night.
While she slept, her abductor must have removed the chain and both padlocks, then brought them in here and shackled her. Christ, shackled her to the wall-like a prisoner in a dungeon.
Well, what else was she? What had she ever been?
She struggled to her feet, gingerly testing her legs. Though her knees were stiff and her balance uncertain, she could walk.
She tried reaching the door, couldn’t. The chain, drawn taut to a length of six feet, stopped her when she was still more than a yard away.
He was taking no chances, quite obviously. He didn’t want her escaping again.
Little likelihood of that, anyway. He’d cleaned out the room, removing all possible lock-picking tools, leaving only a bare minimum of necessities. Besides the futon, all she had left were the two chairs, a roll of toilet paper, the milk jugs and coffee cans she used for bathroom purposes, and, in the cardboard box, a few items of food-none requiring the can opener, which was gone.
Painfully she shuffled over to the sillcock. Crouching down was an exercise in self-torture so intense it was almost pleasurable. She turned the handle and cupped her hands under the lukewarm stream from the spout, drinking until she was satisfied.
A memory of the awful thirst she had known in the arroyo returned to her. It was said to be impossible to remember physical sensations, but the sandpaper dryness of her mouth, the swollen thickness of her tongue, the
