I heard the screech of heavy furniture being slid across linoleum. It screeched closer and closer until it thumped against the basement door. I was blocked in.
Now what?
I went up a step, then retreated a step. What could I do when I was virtually blind? The blanket over my head was so thick—
There are those rare days when a stroke of genius strikes you like a bolt out of the blue and you bask in the glow of smartness. This wasn’t one of those days.
I pulled the blanket off my head.
But even blanket-free, I was still surrounded by mostly dark. I felt around for the light switch, and brightness burst around me. Instantly, I felt better.
I listened to Iron Grip move around the house, opening and closing doors, and tried to figure out what he was doing. His movements didn’t make any sense—not at first, anyway. He had a mission; I was just too dumb to understand.
He’d been looking for the electrical panel. One loud click and I was plunged back into a deep and endless darkness.
Chapter 17
I went all the way downstairs, found a chair, and spent some time scolding myself. If I’d worn spike heels, maybe I’d have had the presence of mind to do a rapid double-stamp backward on Iron Grip’s insteps, send him into fetal-position pain, and run as fast as I could to Marina’s house.
For a moment I let myself dream that dream. Brave Beth, using her wits to escape her captor, bring a killer to justice, and return peace of mind to Rynwood.
Hah. Maybe men could maintain fantasies like that. Most women had a firmer grasp on reality. I recalled a bit from a long-forgotten comedian. Girls read superhero comic books as the stories they are; boys read comic books and consider the superhero’s job a career option.
I wondered what Iron Grip had in mind for me. Then, and only then, did I start wondering why he was here in the first place. As an amateur sleuth, I was making an excellent divorced mother of two.
If I made the mental leap that Iron Grip had killed Agnes, why on earth would he have come back to the scene of the crime three weeks later?
If he’d wanted to steal something, surely he would have done his thieving the night he’d killed Agnes. He wouldn’t have been trying to retrieve something he’d accidentally left behind at this late date, would he? What could he have been looking for? Or in the grammatically correct version of my thoughts, for what could he have been looking?
Heavy footsteps thudded over my head, and I was suddenly and fiercely glad I’d cleaned out the kitchen. He wasn’t going to be drinking or eating anything Agnes had bought. I made a mental note to call Gloria about turning off the water and electricity, assuming I got out of the basement, of course.
I spent a few unhappy moments speculating on Iron Grip’s plans. I imagined a flowchart. The oval at the top of the chart was the question, “Is he going to kill me?” The “yes” arrow went to the right to a diamond-shaped object around the question, “Tonight?” There should have been more diamonds and arrows leading away from the Tonight box, but even in my head I lacked the courage to draw them.
Going back up to the “Is he going to kill me?” oval, I drew a “no” arrow.
I liked this arrow a lot better.
It ran into a diamond with the question, “Is he going to let me go?” The “yes” arrow went to “When is he going to let me go? Like, tonight, before 8:30? Because the kids always call me before they go to bed.” A yes answer to that seemed unlikely, so I returned reluctantly to the other path leading away from “Is he going to let me go?”
Because, really, why would he set me loose? No one would think to look for me in Agnes Mephisto’s basement—not until it was much too late. I hadn’t left a note labeled “In case I don’t return by Thursday morning, look for me at Agnes’s.” If I were a character in a movie, viewers would have long ago labeled me as TSTL—Too Stupid to Live.
“Am not,” I said quietly, sounding like a nine-year-old.
Above my head and to the left, I heard the thumps and slams of drawers slamming and objects dropping. It sounded as if he were doing what I’d been doing—going through Agnes’s files. I almost wished Agnes’s ghost weren’t imaginary. I nearly smiled thinking of the tongue-lashing Agnes would have given the man who’d killed her.
After an eternity and a half, Iron Grip’s footsteps thumped into the dining area. I followed his path around the table and chairs; past the kitchen counter; through the kitchen; past the door to the basement; out the back door. After a small click as the door shut, there was silence.
Or, rather, relative silence. In the sudden stillness, my panting, frightened breaths sounded louder than Oliver’s raspy breathing the winter he’d had a bad case of the flu.
Was Mr. Grip gone? Or had he stepped out to his car for a weapon?
A shiver started deep in my bones. My teeth chattered as if the basement’s temperature had dropped below freezing.
“Being scared isn’t going to help you one bit.”
Agnes—she was back in her ghost form to taunt me. “The suggestion box is open. All ideas are welcome.”
“You have a brain, don’t you? Use it.”
“Not much of a suggestion,” I muttered, but the spasms of shivering diminished to mild rattles, and I started thinking.
He wasn’t coming back with a weapon; with a grip like that, he didn’t need anything else. If he wanted me gone, I would have been dead long since. Since I hadn’t seen his face and hadn’t heard his real voice, I was no threat to him.
Was he going to let me out of this basement?
“Why would he?” Agnes asked. “Any additional contact with you increases the chances of your being able to identify him.”
Even Agnes’s make-believe ghost was annoying. Everyone would be nice after death, wouldn’t they? I pondered this for a moment, thinking about mean Mr. Orton from my childhood. He’d been a cranky old man who yelled at the neighborhood kids if they so much as looked in the direction of his pristine lawn. What would he be like in the afterlife? If he wasn’t still mean, he wouldn’t be Mr. Orton any longer, would he?
I abandoned that path of thought as too philosophical for my tiny little brain. My time would have been much better spent trying to get out of here. Why had I hidden my car so well? If I’d parked in a more visible location, Marina would have seen it and ridden to my rescue.
I wouldn’t die here, would I?
And there it was again: the fear that made my breaths come fast and my stomach hurt, and undoubtedly shortened my life span.
Of course, I lived in constant fear. This was just on a higher plane. Once upon a time, Richard had started a list of the things that frightened me. He soon ran out of room on the kitchen notepad and went to the computer. I’d started with typical mother fears: that our children would meet with random accidents; that they’d be stricken with deadly disease; that a food I fed them would contain a toxic substance and cause irreparable damage, etc., etc.
Then I’d moved on to being afraid of tornadoes, of ice storms, of driving in heavy rain, of high winds, of global warming, of random asteroids ramming into our planet. Then came my fears of losing my children’s love, of being crippled by arthritis, of breast cancer, of macular degeneration, of dying alone, of heart disease, of diabetes.
Richard had looked at me with concern. “Do you have a family history of diabetes?”
“Well, no.”
He’d sighed, and I continued with the anxieties. That the Middle East would never know peace, that our country would be attacked by fanatics who’d cobbled together a hearty supply of nuclear warheads, that our children would inherit a world in which violence was the only realistic response.