enough air.
But for how long Two minutes Three
“Let me out!” she screamed, hoping they would hear her and show mercy. “Please let me out, let me out!”
The echoes of her cry clanged against the metal walls and floor and ceiling, and died unanswered.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming again. Waste of strength, of breath. Wherever she was, whatever kind of fix she was in, no one could hear her, and there was no escape.
She was trapped in this place, this room-not even a room-a sealed compartment-locker, maybe, or steamer trunk—
Trunk.
Car trunk.
The Caprice.
It rushed in on her, full comprehension, vivid and terrible.
They’d locked her in the trunk of the squad car, and dumped the car-Jesus, they’d dumped the car …
“In the lake,” she whispered.
The words were squeezed past the strangling tightness in her throat.
They would have wanted to conceal the cruiser. The lake Wald had mentioned was an obvious place to do it. And the water trickling in, cold and powdered with fine grit-it was lake water, thick with silt from the murky bottom.
“Help me,” she moaned, speaking to nobody and nothing. “Help me, please help.”
But help would not come. She was alone, more alone than ever before in her life, and if she wanted to have any chance, she would have to help herself.
Yes. That was the bottom line, wasn’t it
No medals for quitters. That was what Mrs. Wilkes used to say, Mrs. Wilkes who’d been her Girl Scout leader a million years ago.
Good words. She tested them aloud. “No medals for quitters.” Again, more firmly: “No medals for quitters.”
Her tortured breathing went on, as did the reckless pounding of her heart, but her thoughts calmed.
It was a locked trunk. Perhaps it could be opened. If she could find the latch …
To do anything she would need the use of her hands.
She groped behind her, fumbling for her gun belt, where she kept her handcuff key.
No belt. It was gone. They’d taken it from her, the sons of bitches, and she couldn’t get the cuffs off, couldn’t break out, and the water murmured louder, the level climbing.
Irrationally she stamped her feet on the wall, as if she could punch a hole in the car, puncture welded steel like tissue paper. The banging of hard-soled shoes on metal reverberated in the trunk, a second heartbeat, grotesquely amplified.
“No medals for quitters.” The motto was her mantra. “No medals for quitters, no medals for quitters …”
Couldn’t shed the cuffs. But did she have to
Even manacled, she could manipulate objects with reasonable dexterity-if her hands were in front of her, not behind her back.
She worked out daily, alternating between upper body and lower body routines. Each session began and ended with stretching exercises. She was limber. She was young.
Maybe she could do it. Maybe. God, please.
She twisted sideways, head lifted to keep her mouth and nostrils above water, then arched her back and bent both legs under her.
Her hands were level with her pelvis. To succeed, she had to get them past her buttocks and behind her thighs.
It wasn’t going to be easy.
Teeth clenched, she folded her legs at a still more acute angle, curving her spine to its full extension. Her knees banged the license-plate wall. Impossible to make any move in here without hitting something. It was like trying to do gymnastics in a bathtub.
Pain speared her triceps and shoulders as she forced her hands lower. She separated her wrists as far as possible, drawing the chain taut. The cuffs rode her thumb joints, friction rubbing the skin raw.
“Hell,” she gasped, “this really hurts.”
Coughing seized her. Even with her chin lifted, she’d swallowed water. The level was higher.
No medals for quitters. She had to do this. No medals for quitters. Do it or die.
With a shout of agony she dragged the handcuff chain over the twin obstructions of her buttocks. Simultaneously she snapped forward at the waist, tucking her hands under her legs.
Her hands sizzled where the steel bracelets had bitten deep. She was bleeding from the knuckles of both thumbs.
Pain and blood didn’t matter. She’d done the hard part.
Now she just had to step over the chain.
Fighting to hold her head above water, she doubled up in a fetal pose. Quickly she passed her right elbow over her right knee, then pulled her right foot toward her and lifted the handcuff chain around her shoe.
Next, the left leg.
Same procedure, same result.
Abruptly her hands were in front of her. In startled wonder she raised her arms fully and touched her own face.
She’d gotten this far. At least she had a chance.
Water filled half the trunk now. The height of the compartment was only about twenty inches, leaving her less than a foot of clearance above the waterline.
She searched in the dark for the trunk latch, having no idea if it could be operated from inside. Her fingers read the grooves and contours and machine-stamped indentations on the lid as if they were inscriptions in Braille.
After several desperate seconds she found what had to be the latch, a recessed boltlike mechanism engaged by a metal claw. For the lid to open, the bolt and claw had to be separated. Her scrabbling fingers, numb with cold, slipped on the smooth metal parts, finding no purchase.
She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t open the lid from the inside.
But maybe she could smash the latch. With a blunt instrument.
She rolled onto her stomach. Folded back the floor mat to expose the rectangular cover of the spare-tire well. It was secured by a wing nut, the shape distinctive to her touch.
Her shaking hands, joined at the wrists, turned the nut counterclockwise till it spun free.
The air pocket was shrinking fast. Six inches, at most, separated the waterline from the underside of the trunk lid. She had to tilt her head sideways to breathe without inhaling water.
It cost her valued seconds to wrest the cover off the tire well, then still more time to shove the unwieldy board into a corner, out of her way.
Come on, come on.
Beneath the spare tire her groping hands found the jack, fastened to the side of the well.
God, the water was getting really high. Four inches of clearance left.
Frantically she pried at the jack. Blocked by the tire, it refused to come loose. She couldn’t get it out-damn, why couldn’t anything be easy, even the simplest thing
Another tool, smaller and more accessible, lay beside the jack. She felt a hexagonal socket at one end.
The lug wrench.
Gripping the wrench, she guided it out of the tire well.
Two inches now. To breathe she turned on her back, her nose brushing the lid at its highest point. She swallowed a deep gulp of air, puffing up her cheeks to hold it in.
Then she submerged, hunting again for the latch.
The water was cold, the pressure like the gentle squeeze exerted on a swimmer at the bottom of a pool. Silt drifted everywhere. Her eyes closed instinctively in protection against the floating grit.
