'What difference does it make? We're here now.'
'Please, humor me. Have you got something better to do?'
'I was busy dying until you interrupted.'
She was being sarcastic, but a closer look at her face suggested her comments might be closer to the truth than she intended.
'I don't know what good it will do until you tell me. If we can figure out who did this to us, maybe we can figure out where we are. If we know where we are, we can figure out how to get out.'
'That's a lot of if-ing and figuring,” Lauren said but began anyway. “I left your room and went to my brother's apartment. He had to go back to the school, and he was all worked up about those files he'd taken from Selestina's office. He was afraid the police would find them and think he'd killed her. He wanted to get rid of them, but he doesn't have a shredder, so I sat there with my scissors and cut each and every page into little tiny pieces.'
'What was in the files?'
'I don't know. I was cutting, not reading. They were forms of some sort. Probably insurance. There were a few typed pages with signatures on them. It looked like it was employee benefits stuff. It took hours to cut it all up.
'When I was finished, I took the garbage bag full of pieces to the kitchen and put it under the sink, which is where Les keeps his recycling. He had nothing good to eat, so I made a piece of toast, ate it and then I lay down on his bed and took a nap.” She laid her head back down on her arm.
'Don't stop. How did you end up here?'
'If I knew that don't you think I'd tell you?'
'What do you mean?'
'Do I have to spell it out? One minute I was sleeping on my brother's bed, the next I'm tied up in this dungeon with a giant headache.'
'So, you didn't hear anyone, see anyone, nothing?'
'Hello, didn't I just say that? Now, stop talking, you're making my head hurt.'
Harriet reached the sofa and knelt on the seat at the opposite end, facing the wall. A spring poked her knee through the threadbare upholstery. The wall behind the sofa was covered with hinged shutters. If she could pry them open, there just might be a window. A small brass latch held the shutter panels together.
'What are you doing?” Lauren asked.
Harriet looked at her and could see fresh tears streaking her face.
'It looks like this might be a shuttered window. I'm going to see if I can reach the shutters and try to get them open. If I can do that, and then if there's a glass window, I'll break the glass and hopefully get a piece of it and use it to cut your ties and then you can cut mine.'
Lauren closed her eyes. “Let me know how that goes.'
Moving around when your hands are tied behind your back and your feet tied to each other is a lot more difficult than it seems when you watch people on television do it. Harriet fell down onto the couch several times before she was able to balance on the back and press her face to the shutter. She turned it sideways so her cheekbone took the force of the fall as she propelled herself forward and into contact with the hinged pieces of wood.
Tears filled her eyes, and her nose ran when she hit, but she knew if she stopped she wouldn't start again. She worked her mouth into position and used her tongue to poke at the latch. The brass tasted terrible, and she had to stop and spit before she could continue. The hinge pinched her tongue; and when she slipped, it hit her teeth, sending sharp shards of pain into her skull, but she kept working at it until the hook piece finally flipped off the peg that held the two halves together.
The momentum it took to pull the shutters open knocked her back to the seat of the sofa. Lauren moaned when Harriet accidentally jostled her in the process.
'Sorry, but I got the shutters open.'
'Could you see where we are?'
'There's a window, but it's boarded up on the outside, but that's a good thing. When I break the window, the glass will all stay within reach. Hopefully.'
As she talked, Harriet worked her way around until she was balanced on the back of the sofa on her side with her feet in position to kick the window glass.
'Here goes nothing,” she said, and kicked as hard as she could.
She fell back onto Lauren's legs, causing the prone woman to yelp, but the glass broke with a satisfying tinkle as broken pieces hit the sofa and floor. She spun around and looked at her handiwork. Several large shards remained in the window frame, held in place by the putty.
'I'm going to need your help for this next part,” she said to Lauren.
'What do I have to do?” Lauren gave a world-weary sigh.
'I'm getting a piece of glass, and then I'm coming down beside you. You need to sit up, and I'll cut the rope around your wrists and then you can cut mine.'
'Oh, no, sister. I'll cut yours first. If anyone's going to slip while they're sawing with a piece of glass, it's going to be me. I'm not having my hand sliced off by your ineptitude.'
'Fine, just sit up, turn your back to me and get ready to be handed the glass.'
Harriet wiggled around until her bound hands were able to reach the broken window. She pulled out a chunk of glass that was about the size of her fist and dropped back down to the sofa seat beside Lauren. She handed the glass off and with only minor slicing of her wrist, Lauren cut her bonds. Harriet immediately turned around and cut the rope binding Lauren's wrists.
Both women rolled their shoulders and then rubbed their wrists before they reached to their ankles to untie their feet.
'My knot won't move,” Lauren whined. “It's hard as a rock.'
'Someone was very clever. They saturated the knot with some kind of glue, probably the instant-drying kind.” Harriet picked up the piece of glass again and sawed through the ropes on first Lauren's and then her own ankles.
'Can you stand up?” she asked.
'I think so,” Lauren said. She rose and fell immediately back to the sofa.
'Take it slow,” Harriet advised. She knew from her own experience with head injuries that slow was the only way to take it. She put her arm around Lauren's shoulders and helped her to her feet. They stood still for a moment and let Lauren's head stop spinning.
The door was locked, but the knob assembly was old and loose. Harriet leaned Lauren against the wall then jerked, twisted and rattled the brass knob. When it didn't yield, she went back to the sofa, retrieved the glass shard, wrapped it in the hem of her sweatshirt and used it carefully to pry the knob plate from the wood. The metal pieces fell away, leaving only a hole in the door.
She pulled the door inward and cautiously looked out. There was a landing of some sort that led to a narrow flight of stairs. The air outside their prison was cool and smelled fresh.
The stairway was dark, but the light from the room they were leaving gave enough illumination for them to descend. She retrieved Lauren and, once again putting her arm around her shoulders, guided her to the first step.
'Here, hold the rail,” she whispered, and helped Lauren brace herself on the banister. “I'll stay ahead a few steps and make sure it's safe.'
'I think I'm going to be sick,” Lauren whispered.
'No, you are not. Your stomach is empty. Just stay there while I look ahead.” She went down a few steps, crouching to see where they would come out. “Come on,” she said, and continued to the bottom.
The stairs ended in a dark hallway. Harriet could see the top of another, wider flight at the opposite end of the hall. The one she and Lauren were on continued down.
'These must be servant's stairs,” she whispered. “Tom and Aiden are searching the grounds looking for you, so hopefully we'll run into them once we get outside.'
'What makes you think we're on school grounds?” Lauren whispered back. “This place doesn't smell like the forest, and it doesn't smell like dried flowers. Think about it-every room at the school had dried wildflowers in it. The place reeks of dried eucalyptus. And the Tree House smelled like the woods.'
'You're right,” Harriet said. “It doesn't smell like the school. Maybe this building has been closed up for a long
