got you dental floss and lip balm.” He glanced up at her. “You like Aveda products, right?”
Sheila almost choked on the last bit of food still in her mouth. “They’re all I use.”
“Good. I also brought you some antibiotic cream for your wrists and ankles, and, uh, some pads.” He dug into his bag again. Indeed, he’d bought her a travel pack of Stayfree maxi pads. “I couldn’t remember when your time of the month was, but I figured it was coming at some point.”
“Thank you.” She stared at the items, her voice faint. “That’s very thoughtful, Ethan. I appreciate it.” No way was he going to kill her. He wouldn’t buy her all this stuff and then kill her, right? Something had changed. The question was, what?
“You’re welcome. I know you’ve been showering with bar soap, but Abby always says that stuff is drying if you wash your hair with it.”
Abby. It was the first time he’d mentioned his girlfriend since Sheila had been here. Were they even still together?
She pointed to an unfamiliar blue-and-white tube. “What’s that?”
Ethan held it up. “Diaper rash cream. I noticed before that you’re pretty red… down there.” His face had a funny expression. Embarrassment? Another first.
There was also a change of clothes-two pairs of Puget Sound State University sweatpants, two T-shirts, and a sweatshirt, all brand-new, tags still on. A few pairs of cotton bikini panties. Socks. For a kidnapper, he was being quite considerate.
Her mind reeled as she tried to make sense of it. He was showing kindness? Now? What did that mean?
“Thank you,” she said again. The roast beef sub lay half-eaten on her lap and she pushed it away, appetite gone.
Ethan settled back into the sofa and nodded toward the TV. Julia Roberts was laughing at something Richard Gere had just said. “Turn up the volume, will you?”
An hour later he was snoring, splayed out on the couch with his arms up over his head and his mouth hanging open. She hadn’t noticed exactly when he’d nodded off, but a loud snort had gotten her attention. When she glanced away from the television to look at him, she was shocked to see him passed out.
She was wearing her new clothes. There was no reason for Ethan to have bought her all these things unless she wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Whatever his plans had been, they had obviously changed. When she’d first arrived, she was chained and in diapers. He’d told her he was going to kill her. Now a neatly folded stack of clean clothes was beside her, with a month’s worth of toiletries in the bathroom.
As if she was going to be here awhile.
She watched him from the bed. His body was relaxed and unmoving, his nostrils flaring in and out in rhythm with his snoring. The butt of the gun poked out about three inches from the top of his jeans, covered slightly by his T-shirt, which had pulled up to reveal the brown patch of hair that trailed from his belly button to his crotch.
Her captor was asleep.
Her mind flooded with possibilities.
If she was jackrabbit quick, she could have the gun out and pointed at him before he was fully awake. She could keep it trained at his head, as he’d done with her so many times, and she could make him tell her what the code was to get out of this room. With a gun to his temple, surely he’d give it to her.
But what if he refused? Sheila frowned. Of course he’d refuse. Should she shoot him in the leg? The arm? Leave him immobilized on the sofa, writhing in pain? He’d have to tell her then, wouldn’t he?
She swung her legs silently over the edge of the bed, her mind made up, then stopped as another thought occurred to her.
How many bullets were in a gun that size? Was it fully loaded? Was there some kind of safety mechanism she had to turn off before it would fire? She cursed herself for not taking Morris up on his offer to teach her how to shoot a gun. Then again, Morris had hunting rifles, which probably didn’t work the same way at all. Was she supposed to just point and pull the trigger? What if she missed? Did the gun reload automatically or would she have to do something to… chamber it? Was that even the right word?
The questions swirled around her head like ingredients in a recipe doomed to fail. The longer she stared at Ethan’s motionless body, the more desperate she felt to make a move, but she couldn’t decide if the risk was worth it. What if he came at her? She wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet between his eyes. Assuming she could hit her target.
Then what? With Ethan dead and no code to get past the door, what next? The gun looked so small and the door was heavy-she had banged on it plenty of times when he wasn’t around. It felt thick and impenetrable. Could bullets that small blast through it? If they couldn’t, she’d be stuck down here with his dead and rotting body. Oh, God. She’d die a slow, painful death from starvation because nobody knew where she was. Hell, she didn’t know where she was.
Unless… unless there was a phone in Ethan’s bag somewhere. She had never seen one, but that didn’t mean one didn’t exist. Her own phone might be in there. Wherever this place was, it had cell phone reception-he had made her call Morris’s answering machine from her BlackBerry and the message had gone through just fine.
Yes, it was definitely worth the risk.
She planted her bare feet on the floor and stood up. She eased toward Ethan, afraid to breathe.
Three steps in, he opened his eyes.
“Don’t even think about it.”
His voice was perfectly clear. His hand moved to the butt of the gun. Her heart sank. “What are you talking about?” she said, backtracking. “I was going to the bathroom.”
He sat up slowly, never taking his eyes off her. “Don’t fuck with me, Sheila. You should see the look on your face. You were going for the gun, weren’t you?”
“Of course not. I wouldn’t even know how to use it.”
He took the gun out of his waistband and rested it on his thigh, keeping his finger on the trigger. “I thought things were better between us. Why do you want to fuck that up?”
“Okay.” She relented immediately. Ethan’s face was pink with anger and this was not the time to play stupid. “Okay, I was looking at it. It makes me nervous, Ethan. It scares me.”
“I thought we were building trust. This really disappoints me.” His bleary eyes were sad.
Sheila stood her ground. “Trust? You want to build trust? You can start by getting rid of that thing. What do you need it for? I can’t overpower you, and even if I could, I don’t know the codes to get out. I’ve done nothing since I’ve been here to make you not trust me. You could cut me a little slack and get rid of the gun.”
Ethan seemed to be listening. He slipped the gun back into the waistband of his jeans. “I’ll think about it.”
“Think harder.”
He chuckled. “You sound like my mother.”
“I thought your mother was dead,” she said, taking advantage of the opening. The tension had passed. They were okay again.
“She is.”
“Did you kill her?”
Ethan didn’t blink. “Ha. Right. I was just a kid when she died.”
There was a minimum age requirement for monsters? “Sorry,” she said, attempting to sound sincere.
“I know you don’t give a shit. That’s okay. Neither do I. She died in a house fire.”
“What happened?”
He snorted and settled back into the sofa. “You want to know this stuff? Fine. My father left us when I was five and my mother went batshit crazy. She died when I was ten. Burned the house down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
“Why not? The death of a parent is one of the most damaging things that can happen to a child.” Or an adult. Her father’s face flitted through her mind. She pushed it away.
“You trying to headshrink me, Dr. Tao?”
“Just making conversation. Were you in the house?”
“Yep.” His voice sounded robotic. No anger, grief, or bitterness. His jaw stayed relaxed. “I was locked in the closet, as usual. Neighbor smelled the smoke, heard me screaming, pulled me out. It was all very dramatic. Would
