Blind Pursuit

23

Erin spent long minutes of sweaty effort prying the dead bolt out of the socket again. Twice the taped-up comb threatened to snap. Perhaps her prayers held it together.

She pulled the door toward her until the chain was taut. The half-inch opening was too narrow for her hand. The comb fit through and easily snagged one of the links, but the chain resisted her efforts to lift it.

Frustrated, she pocketed the comb, then considered the problem more carefully.

It did her no good to hook the chain at its midpoint. The end of the chain was what mattered-the end soldered to the sliding bolt that held it in place.

She had to find a way to hook one of the end links, then lift the bolt free of its slot in the door jamb.

To do that, she needed a flexible tool, which could be angled sharply. Wire would be ideal.

Wire…

In her purse was a memo pad, spiral-bound.

Her fingers trembled with barely controlled excitement as she worked the wire free of the punched holes. She pulled it straight, then bent it at a ninety-degree angle and curved one end into a fish hook.

Now all she had to do was tease the chain out of its slot. She guided the hooked end of the wire through the opening, then rotated it, probing blindly for the jamb plate.

The hook seemed to catch on something, but came free when she started to lift it.

Keep trying.

For a second time the hook caught. She drew the wire toward her, seeking to give the tool a better grip, then slowly raised it. The chain rose also; she heard a faint rasp of movement, the scratching of the slide bolt in the slot The hook lost its grip, and the chain fell back in place.

Disappointment stabbed her. Teeth gritted, she tried again.

The hook clawed at air, scrabbled at wood, and then, with a faint metallic jangle, snagged the chain once more.

Careful now.

She drew up the chain slowly, heard the dull scrape of the bolt sliding along the slot.

Higher. Higher.

The chain stopped abruptly. At first she thought it had caught on some obstacle. Then she realized that the bolt must have reached the top of the slot.

Ease it free. Gently…

On the other side of the door, there was a soft chink, then a louder rattle, and the chain fell away.

The wire dropped from her hand. She grabbed the door, pulled it toward her, and this time nothing prevented it from swinging fully open, exposing the flight of concrete stairs that led upward into darkness.

She was free.

Gulping air, she emerged from the cellar room, planted a foot on the staircase, almost fell-her knees were weak, her head spinning-then mastered her emotions and climbed the stairs, gripping the wooden banister.

The light from the cellar receded. The stairs dimmed. She had to feel her way, one arm outstretched to grope in the dark.

Her fingers touched wood.

A smooth sheet of wood directly before her, stone walls on either side.

A door.

She found a knob. It would not turn.

Locked.

At the top of the cellar stairs, a locked door, another locked door.

“No, that can’t be right.” Her voice quavered dangerously close to hysteria. “Can’t be, just can’t be right.”

She had never heard her abductor shut this door or open it. Had never suspected its existence.

Desperately she jiggled the knob, determined to make it turn; but her hand merely slid over the smooth, rounded brass.

Fingering the knob, she felt a small button of metal at its center, like the bull’s-eye of a target.

The latch’s manual release. Of course.

She pressed it, then tried the knob again, but still it wouldn’t respond.

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded of the stubborn mechanism, raw anger shredding her self-control.

She punched the button a half dozen times, but the lock remained frozen.

The latch release, goddamn it, had been disabled somehow.

Well, it didn’t matter. There had to be some way to open the door. She couldn’t be stopped now. Not now Engine noise. Outside.

He had come back.

A moan warbled up from the pit of her throat. “ No…”

Had all her efforts been wasted for a second time? Would she have to retreat to the room, lock herself in once more?

Lock herself in…

But she couldn’t. There was no way she could secure the chain lock from inside the room. Working blind, she could never guide the slide bolt into the slot. Lifting it out had been difficult enough; dropping it back in would be impossible.

Panic seized her. She was stuck, trapped, unable to advance or retreat.

The engine was silent. Or maybe she simply couldn’t hear it over the hammer-and-anvil racket of her heart.

Either way, he would be here in seconds.

Her hand dived into her pocket, found the driver’s license and credit card she’d transferred there after changing out of her pajamas and robe.

If the latch was a spring mechanism, and if the beveled end faced toward her, she could loid it with one of the cards.

Had to work. Had to.

She tried the credit card first. No good. The clearance between the door and jamb was too narrow, the fit much tighter than that of the door below. The card wouldn’t go in.

Driver’s license, then. Thinner, more flexible.

She jabbed the license into the crack in the doorway, found the bolt, pressed hard against it.

Nothing.

She withdrew the card slightly, tried again to slip the latch. Still no response.

The ragged chuffs of her breath, the sweaty strands of hair dipping into her eyes, the ache in her wrists and fingers-that was all there was for her-that, and the card’s fitful probing.

From somewhere close by, the groan of a door.

He had entered the house.

Little time left. He would be at this door very soon.

With a last furious effort she drove the laminated card forward, flexing it at a sharp angle, prying madly at the bolt, and this time-thank God-the latch sprang back.

She jerked the knob, and the door swung away from her.

If the hinges creaked, he would hear and come running.

The door opened as silently as a door in a dream. No wonder she’d never heard it from the cellar.

Nearby, footsteps on hardwood. Approaching.

She slipped out of the doorway and found herself at the end of a narrow hall, dimly illuminated by a wash of ambient light from the front of the house.

To her right, the tramp of shoes.

To her left, a single door, two yards away.

She padded to it, gripped the knob, turned. The door opened an inch, letting in a rush of night air, then stopped.

Jesus, what was it this time? Another chain?

No, not a chain. A padlock, fastened to a steel hasp.

The footsteps, closer.

She shut the door again. No getting out that way. The original lock must have been faulty, so the paranoid son of a bitch had padlocked the door from the outside.

Turning, her eyes wild, heart racing, she stared down the hallway and saw no exit, no hope. She was trapped in a dead end. The only escape route would bring her face to face with her abductor when he turned the corner five seconds from now.

Think, Erin. Think or die.

The cellar door. Hanging open at a thirty-degree angle to the corridor wall.

The space between door and wall could serve as a temporary hiding place, the kind of nook a child might use in a game of hide-and-seek.

In three quick, soundless steps she ducked behind the door.

He turned the corner. She felt the floorboards quiver with his approach.

Hugging the wall, straining not to breathe, she waited.

His footsteps quickened, then stopped abruptly a yard away in time with a grunt of surprise.

He was standing at the top of the stairs, on the other side of the door. An inch of wood separated her from him.

He’ll hear my heart, she thought insanely. Hear it knocking in my chest.

She remembered childhood nightmares, dreams that had visited her after the summer of 1973, terrible dreams in which she would flee through a labyrinth of darkness, pursued by some shapeless horror. Always the dreams would end with her huddled in a cubbyhole, breathless and rigid, while the beast prowled close by, snuffling nearer, ever nearer, the odor of gasoline on its breath.

This was like that. Except tonight there would be no waking up. And in this nightmare, unlike the others, the beast would not wear the face of her father.

“How could you do this?” he breathed, his voice impossibly close. “How could you leave me?”

Fury in his words, and something more-a threat of tears.

Then a cold click of metal, the release of a pistol’s safety catch.

He had the gun with him. And this time he would use it.

She waited, grimly certain he was on to her, sure that at any moment he would slam the door shut and reveal her pinned helplessly against the wall.

Stamp of feet on the stairs.

He was descending to the cellar.

Relief weakened her. He hadn’t thought to look behind the door, after all. He wasn’t omniscient, wasn’t infallible. He could be beaten at this game.

All right, time to quit the congratulations and get going. No, hold it.

Balancing first on one foot, then the other, she removed her boots. Clutched them in her left hand, the leather warm against her fingers. Her footsteps would be muffled now.

“ I’ll kill you!” he shouted suddenly, his voice more distant than before. He had entered the cellar room.

She eased the door away from the wall and stepped out from behind it.

Do it. Now, while he was preoccupied.

She took a breath, then darted past the doorway. Dared a glance toward the bottom of the stairs, saw his huge, distorted shadow crawling on the brick wall.

Then she was beyond the doorway, padding barefoot down the hall and out into what had to be the main room of the house.