For what seems the millionth time, I eye ceiling and walls, loft space and living area, and the ladder that slides like a barn door from one side of the loft to the other. Nothing there.
I’ve checked every screw, nail, and bolt in the entire house, trying to pry free the tiniest of weapons, anything with which to attack my kidnapper, but every damned thing is screwed down tight, and I have no tools, not even a plastic knife or fork or friggin’ spoon to try to pry my way to freedom.
Damn, damn, damn!
Desperate, I study the ladder once more, then slam it to one side with such force that it bounces and returns, seeming to laugh at me. I examine the one step on the ladder that had seemed a little loose, but that was just my imagination. I give it another tug, and it doesn’t shift at all.
I rock back on my heels and glare at the beast of a ladder.
It won’t help. But there has to be something, one little flaw. I just have to find it.
Once more, I start opening drawers and cupboard doors, searching the insides and . . . then . . . Oh!
Like a bolt of lightning, an idea strikes.
The drawer pulls! Why haven’t I thought of it before? If I could loosen the screws . . . but that’s the problem, isn’t it?
Still . . .
Heart pounding, I check every one.
All fitted tight.
Nothing loose, but if there was anything to wedge in the inside of the drawers . . . My fingernails are broken, and there is nothing, not one damned thing . . . or is there? Adrenaline sliding through my veins, my pulse pounding, I rifle through the trash, something my captor takes away after each visit. Nothing . . . except . . .
The meals that had been provided are prepackaged, the kind from the freezer section of a grocery store—the food frozen in tiny plastic containers.
I find one in the garbage pail, pull it out, and without rinsing it, test it. My heart is beating wildly as I attempt to force the lip of the dish into a screw head behind a kitchen drawer.
No good.
The plastic is too thick. I swear furiously. But I don’t give up.
The bottom of the dish is thinner than the sides, I think.
Biting my lip while attempting to tamp down the hope starting to soar, I try to tear the plastic.
No go.
Again.
But it proves impossible.
My grip slips.
I wash the tiny tray and my hands, drying both, then tackle it again.
“Come on,” I grit out as I begin to work the small dish between my hands, making a valiant stab at tearing the black plastic.
There’s a reason plastic doesn’t decompose for upward of a thousand years, something I think I’ve heard. Tearing it seems impossible, and I sure don’t have a millennium to do it. But if I can just get an edge started . . .
Twisting the little tray back and forth furiously, I see the black plastic turning gray and start to whiten. “Good. Good.” More pressure. More twisting. Faster and faster, until I’m actually sweating. “Come on, come on,” I mutter, moving the hard material back and forth, back and forth, trying to break through, create a seam. I just need a slim edge to insert in the screw so I can remove it.
The damned plastic holds fast.
“Shit.”
I wipe my brow.
Set my jaw.
Go at it again.
Faster and faster.
Twisting, turning.
Back and forth.
Suddenly the plastic begins to click as I twist.
Yes!
My hands are sweaty.
My fingers are cramping.
I stick with it.
Ignore the pain.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
You can do this! Don’t give up.
“Come on.”
Snap!
Suddenly the small plate breaks apart, now in two pieces.
Each with a paper-thin edge.
I can’t help but smile and let out a whoop of triumph.
I know where to start. Not here in the living area, where everything is visible, but in the bathroom. I hurry to the small, closet-like room and open the cupboard door under the bathroom sink. It is small, but screwed tight to the back of the door is a slim bar with hooks on it, to be used to hang a washcloth or small towel. Not much of a weapon, but one that can be easily hidden. Now, if I can just unscrew it.
Carefully, holding my breath, I force the piece of plastic into one of the screws and try to twist, to turn the damned thing.
Nothing.
Not the smallest budge.
Damn!
“Oh . . . no, no, no! This is not going to happen,” I say aloud and despite a new sense of despair I keep at it, banging my knuckles.
Cursing.
Sweating.
And yes, even praying.
I have to make this work!
I have to save myself!
Because, like it or not, no one else will.
I am on my own.
CHAPTER 15
Riggs Crossing, Washington
December 5
On Monday morning, using the key he’d found hidden on the sill over the door, Rivers let himself into Megan Travers’s apartment. It was just before 5:00 A.M., a time he felt he could be in the place alone.
Mendoza wasn’t with him.
They’d been there before, complete with all the necessary paperwork, and looked over the place under the watchful eye of the apartment manager.
Today, he needed a few minutes in Megan’s home all by himself.
When he and Mendoza had come by the first time, the door had been latched, but not locked. Someone had secured it since.
He made a mental note to check with the manager.
Inside, nothing had changed. The apartment was as they’d left it and was the same cluttered mess as it had been. Dishes and a half-eaten sandwich, along with near-empty glasses of liquid, had been left on the coffee table, while the small dinette table was a catchall for magazines, mail, and coffee cups.
In the bedroom, the bed was unmade, the duvet in a pool on the floor, dresser drawers left open, the closet showing scattered clothes and hangers
