Slowly, he sat up, ice crackling across his clothes and falling from his hair. His hands and feet tingled, but he could move them.
He checked his watch. It read 9:51. Amazingly, he’d been adrift for only a couple of minutes.
With effort, he got up and approached the shelves. He peered between the rear of the rack, and the wall.
There it was-a rectangular panel perhaps three feet long and a foot wide. The crevice was too narrow for him to fit his arm back there. He retreated a few steps, to get a full view. The shelves were stuffed top to bottom with frost-wreathed, cardboard boxes, frozen foods of all kinds.
He began to pull the boxes off the shelves and heave them onto the floor behind him. His breath plumed in front of him as he worked, and blood pumped hard through his veins, warming his limbs again, alleviating the tingly sensation, warding off the numbness.
Once he had cleared away most of the boxes, he had a complete view of the wall panel. It had a small knob in the upper right corner, and a sign hung in the center, a white background with ice-crusted red letters:
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY USE FIRE AX
Hope rose in him. He grasped the knob of the panel, and pulled it. It was stuck.
“Don’t play with me,” he said.
Two more hard pulls, and it squeaked open. A gleaming ax with a red head, sharp steel blade, and shiny yellow shaft stood inside, held in place with a clip.
The ax was heavy, and felt good in his hands.
He turned to the door and started swinging.
51
At 10:16, Corey hacked his way out of the freezer and stumbled onto the warehouse floor, ice crumbling from his shoes.
He let the ax drop beside him. Hunched over, hands on his knees, he sucked in the blessedly warm air, and felt waves of heat spread through his lungs and muscles. Latent ice crystals fell off him and melted on the concrete, and behind him, the ruptured freezer door bellowed cold mist, like some mortally wounded beast.
He’d spent nearly an hour trapped inside, but because he’d kept in almost constant motion, he didn’t think frostbite had affected him. Except for the bruise on his temple, he felt good-rejuvenated, even, though this had to be the longest, most grueling day of his life.
He found the cell phone and BlackBerry sitting on a small table against the wall. He holstered them both.
Todd was nowhere to be found. Maybe he would return soon, but Corey was not going to wait around.
He believed he knew where his family was being held, and no one was going to stop him.
Part Four
52
When Jada awoke, Giant was sniffing her.
She’d fallen asleep sometime after she had seen the shaggy-haired man and the big dogs outside the bedroom window. She’d tapped her fingers against the glass, and the man had looked directly at her and shone a flashlight in her face-but then he’d run away, as if frightened by the sight of her, leaving her puzzled and alone.
Then, more darkness had steadily seeped into the room. Hugging herself, she’d lain back on the mattress and slipped her thumb into her mouth. She hadn’t intended to sleep, but she drifted off.
She’d dreamed of Mom. Her loving face, her gentle voice, her warm touch. Mom was whispering to her in the dream. It’s going to be okay, baby, everything’s going to be fine, Mommy’s going to come and take you away from this place. . Jada had been comforted.
And then she came awake to find Giant bending over her, his huge round face floating above her like a moon as he sniffed the front of her pajama top. He was so close she could see the dirt-packed pores on his pudgy cheeks, so close the awful stench of him made her stomach buckle like she was going to puke.
She screamed.
Eyes widening with alarm, Giant jerked up and crawled away from her. While she was sleeping, a small lamp had been placed near the center of the room, and he clumsily knocked it over with his big foot.
She was so scared she couldn’t move, and her throat had closed up with such terror she thought she had probably stopped screaming, too.
Giant plopped onto the floor near the mattress and put his finger to his lips. Smiling faintly, he lifted his T-shirt, exposing his hairy chest and bloated belly, his skin ghostly pale in the light.
Her mouth hung open in a frozen scream. She was breathing so hard her chest hurt.
Giant pointed at several crude-looking, heart-shaped tattoos spread across his stomach. There was a girl’s name printed in the center of each heart: LaTonya. . Ariel. . Kisha. . Ashley. .
As she stared, paralyzed with fright, he pointed at her, and then tapped his stomach. She read his lips slowly form her name: Jada.
He licked his lips, and grinned.
She broke her paralysis, leaped off the mattress, and ran. She went through the door nearest to her: the closet. Scrambling inside, she backed against the wall, knees knocking, fingers clenched and digging into her palms.
She screamed. Mom, Daddy, help me!
She didn’t know if they heard her, didn’t know if anyone heard her. This was like the worst nightmare ever.
There was an empty hole where the doorknob should have been that let a thin cone of light inside. Through the hole, she saw Giant shuffle toward the door, and she felt the floor trembling under his heavy footsteps.
Mom, Daddy, please, help me!
She pressed against the wall. A board brushed across the back of her legs, fell to the floor.
Giant stooped and peered at her through the hole in the door, eye shining, bulk blotting out the light.
She crouched on the floor and pulled her knees against her hitching chest, curling into a ball.
Giant began to open the door. Light sifted inside.
She shrieked hopelessly for her parents.
Giant stuck his head inside. He looked down at her. He licked his lips, and one of his hands dropped down to his private parts and squeezed.
She covered her head with her arms, wishing desperately that she could simply fold into nothingness, vanish.
Dear God, help me, she prayed, please, please, please. .
The closet suddenly darkened again. She looked up. The door had swung shut, and she felt Giant’s footsteps thudding away.
A painful, pent-up breath came out of her.
Maybe Mr. Leon had called Giant out of the room. Mr. Leon scared her, too, but he seemed to want to keep Giant away from her.
She didn’t dare get up to look and see. For the moment, she was safe where she was, and reluctant to move.
As she sat on the floor, trembling, she felt something rattle behind her. Turning slightly, she reached behind her and traced her fingers across it.
It felt like another door.
53
As Jada screamed upstairs, fear propelled Simone to the bedroom door. She beat her fists against it, shouting at Leon to get up there and do something.
Leon had left her alone in the room some time ago, to do whatever it was he did when he wasn’t in her presence. She’d thought she overheard him speaking to someone-his partner, presumably-and she thought she’d caught him saying Corey’s name and something about a freezer, but she was so weary, and his words so muffled by the rain, that she couldn’t be sure.
A couple of minutes after Jada began screaming, she quieted. Simone waited in front of the door, hands sore and throbbing, uncertain whether her daughter’s sudden silence was a good thing or not. Then she heard Leon’s quick footsteps approach, and she backed away to the mattress.