Tracking Time

Fifty-five

Maslow stripped off his T-shirt and gently put it under Allegra's head. He probed her skull with his fingers. Some lumps and bumps. No tears in her scalp or face that he could feel. Without a wig, her head was much smaller than he'd thought, and her own hair was very short, like a pixie's. This surprised him. He couldn't imagine why she'd worn a wig or what she looked like without it, but none of that mattered. Keeping her alive was his concern right now. Her pulse was strong. She moaned as he struggled with the laces tied around her swollen wrists.

"How are you doing?" he asked.

"Ahhh."

"Sorry, can't help it." He picked at the knots, ignoring her groans, and finally worked the last one loose.

"Oww. That kills," she sobbed, sucking in her breath as her arms were freed.

"Hang in there. Good girl."

"I'm dying," she whimpered. "I don't care."

"Uh-uh. Don't die. I can't lose you now." He chafed her hands, then gently rubbed her wrists to get the circulation going. She made crying noises.

"Don't."

"You're doing okay," he assured her.

"Oww."

"How's that, better?" He rubbed life back into her arms and hands.

"It kills. My leg!"

"We'll get it out. You'll be fine," he assured her.

But in the dimming light, she didn't look so fine. Her body was curled in an awkward position and her nose was badly smashed to one side. She yelped when he touched the leg caught under the gate.

"Owww."

Hunger gnawed at Maslow, but he was moving now, his body beginning to obey his commands. He felt nauseated and needed water, but knew that Allegra needed it more. She was dehydrated, and he was afraid she was going to go into shock. He was shivering pretty badly himself and had to get them out of there.

Beyond the bushes, the light was fading. He feared their captors got active at night. He didn't want to be there when they came back. He crouched in front of the mouth of the cave. It wasn't very big and now he saw how they were trapped inside. The gate blocking the entrance was about thirty-six inches wide and had bars at four-inch intervals. The smell of rust was strong in the damp air. The gate was clearly very old.

He called, then listened. Nothing. Called again. Then he felt the bars one by one. The sharp, scaling metal cut his fingers. The bottom and sides were still sturdy, but the vertical bars were thinner and he could feel that many of them had rusted nearly all the way through. The gate itself was no higher than three feet, but there were only a few inches of space above it, not enough to climb over it. Inside the cave, sand was still falling from above. More of the ceiling might collapse at any time. Maslow was worried about the circulation in Allegra's ankle. Soon she would lose her foot. He tested the gate. If he could lift it a few inches, he could ease the weight on her ankle. He could move her foot out.

"Oww," she screamed.

"If you can bear just a little more, I think I can get your foot out."

"Stop!"

"Just a little more."

Her voice croaked. "No. I have to tell you something."

"Sure, as soon as we're out."

"No! Now!"

"In five minutes, I'll have you out of here. I promise."

Her voice was angry and tearful. "I'm going to die in here, and you won't listen."

He kept working. "You never listen!"

"Allegra-"

"I'm not Allegra. I'm Dylan. I'm your sister."

Silence. Maslow was trying to lift the gate and save the girl's foot. He didn't want to argue. "You're my sister." Whatever. She was very good at stories.

"Owww. Stop! Your father is my father." She took a few gulping breaths of air. "I wanted to meet you. That's all. It was like a hunger I can't even explain."

Stunned, Maslow sat back on his heels. Pain blasted through the muscles and torn skin of his calves.

"What?" He stared at her dirty, battered face, nausea sucking at his gut.

"Jerome Atkins is my daddy."

Maslow's brain swirled back four months. In her written biography, she'd described a father unwell and crippled who'd needed help going to the bathroom. In great detail, she described the outhouse behind the modest house where they'd lived and how her father had abused her there from the time she was five or six.

"He didn't want you to know."

Maslow shook his head as if he had water in his ear. "How do you know?" he asked softly.

"I saw a newspaper article about him when I was ten. Some award he got. It mentioned your mother and you. I was-it was horrible. After that, there hasn't been a day of my life that I didn't think about you." Allegra was having trouble breathing.

"Shh. You don't have to-"

"I want to tell you. I wasn't supposed to know you. Daddy was with you on holidays. He was with me and my mom the day before or the day after. Sometimes you went away on vacation, and we'd wait for him to come home. We were shadows. I felt like a shadow person." She panted. "I was always a shadow person."

Maslow felt the nausea rise and water fill his mouth. He could hear the rats scuffling nearby, waiting for another chance at them. He didn't want to retch.

"I kept trying to tell you the truth about Daddy, but you wouldn't listen."

Maslow closed his eyes. No more confessions. He had to get them out of there. He didn't want her to use up her energy and die, didn't want to throw up and be useless because of what she was telling him.

"That day I called you-well, I'd called you before. At first I just called to hear your voice."

"How did you get my phone number?" he asked.

"I got it from information."

Of course. He was a doctor, anyone could find him.

"I listened to your voice on tape. And one day, you answered."

Maslow remembered it well.

"You thought I wanted to be your patient. And then before I could say anything, you were giving me times that you were available."

"Jesus." Maslow was rubbing her hands furiously. Small hands, like his.

"Owww."

Bites. She had rat bites on her hands. Maybe one on her cheek, too. Her nose was a mess, she was going to lose her foot soon; and she wouldn't stop talking.

"I'd wanted to meet you for so long, and there you were inviting me to come and see you. Just like that. It was like God coming down from heaven and making my dream come true. You didn't ask who I was or what I wanted. You just gave me a time and told me where to go. And when I met you, you looked like Daddy, like me, but you didn't see it. You asked me what my name was. I don't know, I just said the first thing that came to mind."

"We have to get going." It was too terrible. Maslow didn't want to hear any more.

"And then we made another appointment for a few days later. I was so excited. I had planned to tell you that first day. But you were so nice to me. You asked me all kinds of questions. How could I tell you I was just a nobody, with a nothing story. Nobody ever hit me or hurt me in any way. I wasn't starving. I went to school. It wasn't like I was deprived at all. What could my complaint be? Last year I took a course on domestic abuse, so I made up a story like that. I wanted to tell you the whole truth, everything. But I liked being with you. I liked the interest you took in me. It was your idea that you analyze me. I never would have thought of it."

"Oh God!" He was such a jerk. Maslow could see just how it happened. His nausea overwhelmed him. The subway rumbled and a clump of dirt fell from the ceiling behind them. What if she was right and they were going to die in there? He turned away and gagged. A little sour acid came out of him, nothing more. His head spun, and she was still talking.

"I knew, as a patient, I could see you five days a week, every week. But if I told you I'm your sister, who knew what you would do? I felt really bad. On Tuesday I was going to tell you no matter what, but you brushed me off."

"I have to lift this gate, Allegra," he said. "So we can get out of here."

"My name is Dylan Rodriguez and I don't care that I'm dying."

"Oh God." That was what Chloe had said.

Dylan stopped talking. She'd told him what she wanted him to know and now she was finished. The gate was wedged in such a way that he couldn't get it up. Frustration at so many ruined lives made him howl like a dog at the rats in the corner, the shadows in the night.