then to make sure he’s not followed. Give him an hour, hour and a half to get back here. So we have maybe two and a half hours, at best.”
“Two and a half hours,” Jo said. Not much time, but it was something. “All right.”
“Do you have an idea?” LePere asked.
She didn’t. Except not to remain on the floor like someone already dead. She scooted to the wall and pushed herself into a standing position. Grace followed her example, saying, “I’m with you, whatever.”
Jo looked the room over carefully. She wasn’t seeing anything she hadn’t seen before, but she was trying to see it in a different way. The nearly empty shelves, the long tables where for years fish had been gutted and cut, the windows. She paused, thinking for a moment it might be possible to break a window and to use a shard of glass to cut free. Unfortunately, the windows were all too high to reach-too high for someone like her, anyway, someone with her hands bound behind her. She eyed the washbasin, the slender wooden cabinet above it, the floor drain. She came back to the washbasin and the cabinet above it.
“Your father, when he shaved, what did he use for a mirror?”
LePere closed his eyes, remembering. “He had… something… inside the cabinet.”
“Glass?” she asked.
“I don’t remember.”
Jo hopped toward the cabinet. She put her belly against the washbasin and leaned toward the cabinet door. There was a wooden knob on the left-hand side that she intended to take between her teeth and use to pull the door open. As she leaned, she realized she wasn’t quite tall enough to reach. She resettled herself and leaned forward again. This time, she lifted her feet off the ground as she set her weight full on the edge of the washbasin, hoping the fixture would hold for a few seconds while she got her teeth around the knob on the cabinet door. Unfortunately, the basin shifted. Jo fell forward, hit her head on the wall, and tumbled to the floor.
“Are you all right?” Grace asked.
“Mommy?” Stevie called in a frightened voice.
“I’m fine, honey,” she said. “Mommy’s just fine.” In the growing dark, she turned her gaze toward Grace. “You’re taller than I am.”
As Jo worked herself up, Grace Fitzgerald hopped to the washbasin.
“Careful,” Jo cautioned her. “It’s not as solid as that damn razor blade box.”
Grace was able to keep her feet on the ground as she took the knob between her teeth and pulled the cabinet door open. The shelves were empty, but a glass mirror had been affixed to the inside of the door. Grace looked at it, then at Jo. “How do we break it?”
Jo surprised herself with a slight smile. “In a situation like this, it’s best to use one’s head. Can you open the door all the way?”
Putting her long nose to good use, Grace nudged the door so that it swung clear of the basin. Jo hopped into position with the back of her head against the glass.
“Oh, Jo, be careful,” Grace cried.
Jo closed her eyes and tapped her head against the glass. Nothing. Harder, she told herself. Again, nothing. Damn. She threw her head back and heard the glass shatter, and she tensed for the feel of it cutting her.
“Let me see,” Grace said.
Jo turned her head.
“There’s no blood.”
Jo realized she was holding her breath. She let out a deep sigh of relief. “Okay. We’re getting there. Now, Grace, can you get a piece of the broken glass off the floor?”
Grace knelt, then went down on her butt, and slid to where shards littered the old wood planking. She lay on her side, rolled a bit so that she could sweep her fingers across the floor. “I’ve got one. It’s pretty fragile, I think, but the edges feel good and sharp.”
“Grace, I’m going to lie down with my back to yours. I want you to try to cut the tape that’s around my wrists.”
Jo maneuvered herself to the floor and edged backward until she felt Grace Fitzgerald’s bound arms touch her own. She repositioned herself-careful of the shattered glass under her-so that her wrists were even with Grace’s hands. She waited. “Well?”
“Jo, I’ll be cutting awfully close to your wrists. I’m afraid if I slip-”
“Do we have a choice?” Jo broke in.
“All right. But, Jo, if it goes wrong… I’m sorry.”
“You’ll do fine, Grace.”
She made her words sound strong and positive, although she knew that the skin at her wrists was very thin and the glass very sharp and it wouldn’t take much of an error for an edge to slice right through to an artery.
“Here I go.”
Jo closed her eyes. A moment later, she felt the prick of a jagged edge. “That’s me,” she told Grace quickly.
“Sorry. How’s that?”
“I don’t feel anything. You must be on the tape now.”
The process was awkward and slow, mostly because Grace was reluctant to put a lot of pressure against the duct tape. As it turned out, she wasn’t concerned just about Jo.
“Are you all right?” Jo asked, hearing small, painful grunts from Grace.
“I may be doing more damage to my fingers than the tape,” she answered. “The glass is getting slippery. And I don’t think it’s from sweat.”
“I can feel the tape beginning to give. Can you stay with it?”
“I’d cut off a finger if I thought it would get us out of here. Unhhh.”
“What was that?”
“Nothing.”
“Mom?” Scott called out with concern.
“I’m fine. Just fine. How you doing, kiddo?”
“Feeling a little sick.”
“Hang on, sport. We’ll all be out of here in a minute.”
Grace took a deep breath. Jo felt again the cut of the glass on the tape, and the grip around her wrists loosened dramatically. She forced her hands apart, breaking the last of the tape that held her. She sat up quickly, picked up a piece of broken glass, and cut her ankles free.
“Now you,” she said to Grace.
The light had faded almost completely. The fish house was filled with a deep, dismal gray that was all the narrow windows would admit of twilight. Although color was nearly impossible to tell, Jo knew that in a stronger light, the dark that dripped over Grace Fitzgerald’s right hand would have been bright red.
“Oh, Grace,” she whispered gently.
“Just cut me loose.”
Jo did, carefully and quickly. “Let me see.”
Deep slices scored Grace’s palm and fingers. All the wounds bled freely and all looked severe enough to require stitches to close them. Under normal circumstances, her injuries would have been at the center of concern. As it was, she pulled her hand back and said, “Now my ankles.”
Jo cut the last of the bonds that held Grace prisoner, then freed Scott and Stevie. Before she turned her attention to LePere, she tore a wide strip of material from the tail of her blouse and gently wrapped Grace’s bleeding hand.
“Thanks,” Grace said.
“No. Thank you.” Jo put her arms around Grace and thought how, aside from Rose, she’d never felt such love for another woman. “You’re remarkable.”
“Just desperate,” Grace said with a smile. “Come on. We still have to get out of this damn place.”
Jo set to work on the ropes that bound LePere. Stevie snuggled next to her and took hold of the loose tail of her torn blouse for comfort. She paused a moment in her cutting and gave her son a kiss on the top of his head. “We’ll be home soon,” she promised.
When he was finally free, John LePere sat a moment rubbing where the ropes had bit deeply into him.
