As Christine picked up the knife to spread blueberry jam on her toast, she noticed that there was another knife this morning. It was a sharp, serrated steak knife, probably put there so she could cut the thick, old-fashioned chewy bacon more easily. She looked around the room, then thought of the bathroom. She stepped in, looked around, and decided that the best spot was inside the big green plastic shampoo bottle in the shower. She unscrewed the wide top, pushed the knife into the thick shampoo, and closed the bottle again. She examined it carefully to be sure the knife hadn't displaced enough shampoo to make it drip over the side, then closed the shower door. Christine could hardly contain her excitement at her acquisition.
She went back to the bedroom, ate her cold eggs, and resumed work on her project. She used the fork to dig away at the plaster that covered the wall beneath the window. She was sure that if she kept at it, she would soon expose the spots where the bolts that held the framework of bars across the window were anchored in the wall. Her plan was to gradually loosen them from the inside, and then on the day when she was ready to go, push the bars into the shrubbery and go out the window. She had been working on her project since the day she arrived a week ago and opened the window to see the bars. She had refused to eat each meal until Ruby left her alone.
When she heard Ruby's footsteps retreating down the hall, she would eat quickly and then use her silverware to scrape away at the plaster.
Each mealtime, she worked as long as she dared, and then cleaned the silverware and returned it to the tray. She used wet toilet paper to clean up the plaster dust from the floor behind the bed and then flushed it down the toilet. This time she was careful to stop scraping before she heard footsteps coming. She had used some time to hide the steak knife, so she had to be careful.
When Ruby returned a few minutes later to take the tray, Christine pretended to be napping. She couldn't let Ruby look into her eyes and see that she had a secret. She was sure that Jane would be proud of her for hiding it so well.
23
Ruby didn't serve lunch at noon that day, as she always had every other day. Christine stared at the clock and waited, trying to prepare herself for Ruby's arrival, and the conversation that was sure to come with it. She had been persuaded that Ruby wasn't evil. Ruby wasn't cruel or spiteful like Christine's stepmother, Delia. She was just crazy, deluded into thinking that she had a right to things she couldn't have. Today Christine was determined to be less bitchy about things. She couldn't be completely nice about being held captive, or Ruby would know she was up to something.
Christine planned exactly what she would do as soon as Ruby brought the tray and left. Christine was becoming very efficient now, making her movements economically and without having to stop and think. Today her goal was to expose the first of the bolts that held the bars over the windows. It was the lower left one that was hidden by the bed. She was sure that if she bared one, the others would be much easier to expose and remove. She would know how to get directly to the others without unnecessary digging, and she would know what the next steps would have to be. Christine might need to fashion a wrench of some kind to remove a nut that held the bolt on this side of the wall. Or she might learn that the bolt was the pointed kind, just a big screw that bit into a two- by-four and held tight.
Her main goal was to use every second. She would only have about a half hour to work and ten minutes to clean up and hide what she accomplished. She had to exert all her strength and speed during that brief period. The three mealtimes constituted her whole workday. She thought about the sharp, serrated knife she had kept after breakfast. No, she couldn't use that to scrape plaster. The knife was too precious to use that way. She might need a sharp blade before this was over.
It was nearly one before Christine heard the sound of footsteps coming up the hall, and the sound was wrong. It was bigger, heavier than Ruby. Christine looked around her to see if there was anything to clean up, anything to hide, anything she needed to keep people from seeing. The key slid into the lock and the door swung open.
Richard. He stood in the doorway, smiling. 'Hi, Chris,' he said. There was an amused, ironic look in his eye, as though he were the one who had a secret, and not Christine.
'Why are you here?' she said. 'What do you want?'
He stepped in and closed the door, but he didn't lock it. Christine kept her eyes on his, hoping he wasn't aware of the opportunity he was giving her. She thought about the loose maternity dress she was wearing, and the open-toed shoes. If only she'd worn something she could run in. He said, 'It's really not necessary to use that nasty tone with me, Chris. It doesn't help you, it doesn't help me. Whether we like it or not, that baby means we're going to be involved with each other for life.'
'I wouldn't count on that. The baby and I aren't likely to go to jail with you.'
Richard shook his head. 'I don't think that's going to happen. I brought you home, but I wasn't trying to hurt you. I just wanted you back.'
'Richard,' she said. 'You hired Steve Demming and the others to kidnap me. They set off a bomb in a hospital. They did all kinds of terrible things along the way, and finally got me. It was wrong. It was also big-time illegal. You're acting as though if I stop making a big deal out of it, then it will be like it never happened. It won't. People got hurt. There were dozens of cops. They don't just forget.'
'There's nothing I can do about it now,' Richard said. 'I've got to concentrate on things I can change. I can make sure you're safe. I can try to make things more pleasant for you.'
'How about getting me to a doctor? Have you thought about that?'
'Of course we have. Don't worry about any of that.'
'Please,' she said. 'You're just so full of it.'
'I'm here to tell you it's lunchtime. Come on,' he said. 'We're going to eat in the garden.'
'Don't you know they won't let me leave? That I've been locked up in here for a week?'
'You need to get some air and sunshine. It'll put you in a better mood.'
Christine was surprised, and she was suspicious. There didn't seem to her to be any reason for them to let her go outside. Everything about the idea was to her advantage, not theirs. It really would be better for her health and the baby's. She could try to figure out where this house was, where the cars were parked, and how to get out when the time came.
Richard repeated, 'Come on.'
'Now?'
'What? You got another date?'
'I wish.' She followed him to the door. She was a bit disappointed to realize that leaving the door unlocked had not been inadvertent. Richard had been planning to take her outside all along.
They walked along the corridor, with Richard slightly ahead because the space was too narrow to walk comfortably together. Christine hung back more and more. They had brought her here at night, and the combination of the blindfold and the tape across her mouth made her worry more about her breathing than about trying to peek. She saw that the corridor had four more doors at regular intervals, so she assumed they were all bedroom suites, but the doors were closed.
The corridor spilled them into a huge open room that had a three-story ceiling with exposed beams and a second floor with a loft walkway running the length of the room and disappearing into halls on both ends. Facing Christine on the far end was an enormous stone fireplace and chimney, and on the near end a whole wall of shelves that looked as though they had been designed to hold books, but instead held the same arty junk that decorated the realty office lobby. There were rows of pots that looked Central American, a few small statues of stone, wood, or metal, a few hideous wooden masks from various countries. She wondered if she could hurl one of the statues through one of the glass windowpanes beside her to get out. As she walked she looked out the wall of windows to see high, impenetrable hedges and acres of lawn ending in a grove of trees. The vast, lake-shaped swimming pool and the bubbling spa dominated the paved areas near the house.
When Richard saw her looking at the water he said, 'We've already got the crew set to put in fences and gates to keep the kid safe. They start work in a couple of weeks.'
'Don't bother. The baby and I won't be visiting this place.'
'Oh. Right,' he said, and rolled his eyes.
Christine stopped, turned all the way around, and tried to memorize everything she could see. The view
