He was leaving.
I was alone. And not dead.
Two big pluses. Two extremely big pluses. And if I wanted to add more items to the positive side of the column, I wasn’t in a pit, buried alive, or even injured if you didn’t count the bruises I was sure were forming on my back.
So . . . now what?
Much depended on what he was going to do. If he was headed for the house to find his killing weapon of choice, I was pretty much out of luck. Maybe I’d be able to work my way out of my bonds, get out of whatever room I was in, and run for help, but each of those things could take hours and he might be back in minutes. If that was his plan, the best I could do was to . . . to what? Make my death as hard for him as possible? Wouldn’t that mean I’d be inflicting even more pain on myself, with the same eventual result?
I debated the point with myself, then decided that since the thought of giving in was making me angry all over again, one issue was resolved.
Of course, I still had no idea who this guy was. I knew it was a guy, because when he’d been pushing me around, I’d felt arms too hairy to belong to a female. So Caroline Grice was out, unless she’d hired her gardener to follow me. Was it Gunnar? Was it Larry, aka Kyle? Was it another of the Larabee relatives? I still didn’t know.
The rumble of a engine starting made me blink. I hadn’t seen a vehicle; it must have been parked on the other side of the barn. One point off Minnie’s score for a poor job of reconnoitering.
I tilted my head, listening, trying to ignore the fear that was growing and spreading fast.
The car made its way down the gravel drive and onto the narrow gravel road I’d seen coming down the hill. It didn’t take long for the noise of the car to fade away completely.
It took a lot longer for my sobs to stop.
Chapter 19
When I ran out of tears, I started thinking. That didn’t work very well at first, because I kept thinking that the most likely possibility for my future was one of two options. Either the bad guy would come back and finish me off, or I’d die from dehydration and starvation. Years from now, someone would come across my desiccated body. Dental records would eventually reveal my identity, my parents would get a chance to say good-bye, Tucker might see my name in the paper and spare a thought for a woman he barely remembered, and the mystery of how I’d come to die in a barn would go forever unsolved.
Unsolved? The thought brought me to some semblance of sense. The mystery of my death wouldn’t go unsolved, not if I could help it. I had too much to do before I could even consider dying. I wanted to see the house of Green Gables, to track down the equivalent of St. Mary Mead, to find out if there really was a Zebra Drive in Botswana. Besides, if I died now, I’d never find out how the tangled love lines in the boardinghouse got untangled.
Time to stop thinking and start doing.
I shuffled over to a wall and put my back up against it, then slid down its rough surface until I hit the floor. Relax, I told myself. The only way you’re going to get out of this is to stay calm and loosen those muscles. Breathe deep. Center yourself.
My wish to relax was complicated by the fact that I could die soon, but I did my best to forget that singular item.
I rolled onto my side, my arms behind my back, arms that desperately wanted to be in front of me.
Loosen. Relax. Lengthen.
Don’t think about the odds of getting free, don’t think that he might come back any second, don’t think about the strong, sticky tape around your wrists, don’t think about the bag over your head—which smells as if it has been sitting on the floor of a barn for fifty years—and don’t think about how thirsty you are. Definitely don’t think about that.
Relax. Loosen. Lengthen.
The words of that long-ago ballet teacher came back to me. Long line, Minnie. Make yourself into a long line. Don’t you see?
Finally, I did.
I let my arms lengthen into a line of the longest kind. Let my spine grow long. Made it into an arch. And, just like that, the twin changes in my body let my wrists slip around my hind end and up under my knees.
Gasping, sobbing a little again, I rolled to the floor. Managed to pull one leg through, then the other.
I tucked my hands under my chin and held them there, relief singing in my ears. My hands weren’t behind my back anymore! I’d won! A battle, not the war, but the small victory thrilled me more than all my Christmas and birthday presents put together.
Then I got over it.
Hands in front of me were well and good, but I still couldn’t see, my hands were still tied together, and I was still trapped in a barn.
But though my wrists were strapped together tight, my fingers were free. I felt the bag that covered my head. Burlap, judging from the thick weave of the fabric. I felt around some more. A lined burlap bag, cotton on the inside, with a long length of twine sewn into the edge as a drawstring.
Twine that was tied tight with multiple knots.
I pictured a farm wife cutting a piece of cotton from an old shirt or dress, sewing it into the bag, cutting a length of twine for the drawstring, and giving it to her husband to use for carrying his . . . lunch? His spare socks? City girls don’t spend enough time on farms to know these things. What I did know was that small fingers are good at picking out knots.
Shifting around a little, I sat up and used my heels to push myself over to the wall. I was good at picking out knots, but it was a slow business. It’d be even slower because even if it were full daylight, I couldn’t see anything except the inside of the bag, but perseverance was my middle name.
Well, my middle name was actually Joy, but that wasn’t the point.
I don’t know how long I spent poking and picking at those knots. It could have been twenty minutes; it could have been four hours. Every so often, my hands would start tingling from a lack of blood flow and I’d have to let them rest.
Break periods I spent breathing lightly, trying to hear for car noises, for footsteps, for voices, for anything. When my fingers stopped tingling, I started in again.
The last knot was the tightest. Two, three, four, five times I had to rest my hands. Each time I rested, I wondered if I’d ever get out of there, wondered if I was wasting my time. Then I’d take a deep breath and start in again.
There wasn’t much choice. No one knew where I was. If I wanted to get out of here, I’d have to get myself out.
Fatigue was seeping into my bones when that horrible tight knot released. In a flash, my fatigue vanished. I ripped the bag off my head—and saw nothing. Panic flared hot. I shot to my feet and spun in a circle, searching for light. Any light, it didn’t matter, the merest speck would be fine, please, just let me see something, I can’t be blind, please . . .
I turned in a circle, starved for sight, scared beyond measure . . . and then I saw the merest speck of brightness. High up on the wall, through a gap in the siding, I spotted a star. I froze, staring at it, drinking it in, loving it.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
At least that’s what I tried to do. In my happiness at being unbagged, I’d forgotten that he’d taped my mouth shut.
With my hands in front of me and my vision assured, I was feeling strong and very, very angry. Fiercely, I worked at the tape. Hooked my thumbnails under the tight edge, pushed, didn’t get anywhere, used my fingernails, thumbnails again, pushed, felt a searing pull and clean air on an infinitesimally small portion of my face, felt exhilaration, scrabbled frantically at the tape, pulled, pushed, pulled . . . got a good grip a very good grip PULL!
The hot rush of pain was eclipsed by my gasp of relief. “Off,” I said, putting my head on my knees and panting. “It’s off.”