Aristotle.
“Does it have to be that black-and-white?” I asked.
He laughed. It was a harsh sound in the almost-empty cabin. “You’re one of those people who see shades of gray, aren’t you, Kathleen?” His long, strong fingers were beating out a rhythm only he could hear on the chair back.
I swallowed, my mouth suddenly very dry. “Not always, but a lot of the time.”
“That’s what’s wrong with the world; too many shades of gray and not enough black and white. Not enough clear decisions. Not enough absolutes.” He shrugged, swung his leg over the chair and got up.
“I have to do what’s best for the most people. I’m sorry about Ruby and Agatha. I’m sorry about Eric. Hey, I’m even a little sorry about you.” He bent down and hauled me up by my elbow, yanking my arm up behind my back so hard that I whimpered as the pain shot from my elbow to my shoulder.
“Justin, what you doing?” I said, as he dragged me into the kitchen.
“I’m doing what I have to do.”
There was a trapdoor in the kitchen floor. I hadn’t noticed it.
Still holding my arm with one hand, he bent and lifted it. Crude wooden stairs disappeared down into the darkness. The hairs rose on the back of my neck and for a second the room whirled around me. Tight, dark places and I were not friends.
Justin patted the pockets of my coat and pulled out my cell phone. “I’m sorry, I can’t let you keep this,” he said. He dropped the phone and then stomped on it with the heel of his heavy boot. Then he pushed me on to the first step.
“Please . . . please don’t put me down there,” I stammered. “I . . . I . . . I’ll help you with the police. I’ll help you with Ruby. I don’t . . . I don’t like small spaces. Please just don’t put me down there!”
He studied my face, looking at me with something close to pity and regret. “You shouldn’t have come out here. You really shouldn’t. There are so many kids who need help.”
He sighed. “I can’t let you ruin that. I don’t have a choice.” He let go of my arm and at the same time gave me a shove. I tumbled down the stairs, instinctively holding Owen in the messenger bag close to my body.
The trapdoor slammed shut over my head.
And I couldn’t breathe.
I was sprawled on the steps, about two-thirds of the way from the bottom, as far as I could guess. I couldn’t tell for sure because it was so dark.
My chest was tight and my breath came in ragged gasps as my lungs tried to suck in air. There was a rushing sound in my ears, as though I were trapped under the tumbling water of a waterfall.
Owen twisted in the bag and pushed his head out the top. He laid it against my chest, over my racing heart. I slid my hand up the bag and onto his fur. He kept his head against me, and slowly I could breathe again.
I was in a small, dark basement but I wasn’t alone. I had Owen. He was fierce, he was loyal and he had claws. I knew from past experience that when something bad happened Owen would fight back.
“We have to get out of here,” I said. “I have to see if I can get the trapdoor open.”
I worked my way up the stairs, step by step, bumping from one riser to the next, holding Owen with one hand and feeling my way with the other.
A couple of steps from the top I stopped and reached over my head for the outline of the trap. “Okay we have to get you out of the bag.” I said.
Owen started to pull himself up, and I remembered the flashlight. “We have a flashlight.” I fished it out of the bag, held on to the cat and let the bag fall over the side of the steps. I turned on the light with my free hand.
Owen blinked his golden eyes at me. “We’re going to get out of here,” I said. He meowed softly. “I’m going to put you on the steps so I can use both hands on the trapdoor.”
I set him on the step below me, shrugged out of my jacket, braced both feet on the wooden stair and pushed the trapdoor over my head with all my strength. The muscles in my neck and shoulder strained and sweat popped up along my hairline.
The hatch didn’t move.
I dropped my arms, hung my head and caught my breath. And muttered a couple of swear words. Then I took a deep breath and tried it again. I leaned back and the edge of the step dug into my back as I pushed with everything I had.
It wasn’t moving. My best guess was that Justin had latched or locked the trapdoor in some way.
I edged up another step and turned on the flashlight. The hatch was a solid piece of plywood and it fit flush into the hole. We weren’t getting out that way.
My throat squeezed shut and the darkness began to blacken. Justin wasn’t just holding me in the basement. He’d left me there to die.
I pressed my head between my knees and put my hands over the back of my head. I wasn’t going to die in this damp, dark basement in the middle of nowhere. Neither was Owen.
I felt behind me for the papers I’d managed to get out of the envelope. They were still safely tucked in my waistband. And they were the only shot Harry had of finding his daughter.
“Okay, puss,” I said. “We have to figure something else out.”
I looked down at the stair below my feet. Owen was gone. He wasn’t on any of the stairs below either.
“Owen, c’mon,” I called. Now that my eyes had adjusted to the darkness, I could see the steps went down to a dirt-floor cellar. I couldn’t see the cat at all. In fact, nothing moved in my range of vision at all—both a bad thing and a good thing.
“Owen,” I called again, leaning forward. This time I got a faint meow in return.
“Come back here.”
He meowed again. That meant I was going to have to go get him.
I eased down a couple of stairs. My skin crawled as I concentrated on not looking at how close over my head the floor beams were.
The basement smelled musty with a sweet, fetid odor, like something had started to rot. I made myself think of rotting apples or rotting potatoes with dark mold and soft white patches. I didn’t let myself think of all the other things that might be decomposing down there.
I worked my way to the bottom. The dirt floor was cold even through my heavy socks.
“Owen, where are you?” He meowed from the back wall of the cellar. “You had to pick a spot over there,” I said as I made my way over the cold ground. “What are you doing? Did you find some way out of here?”
I kept talking because there were things I didn’t want to chance hearing, and as long as I was talking, I wasn’t screaming. And there was no way that could be bad.
I kept my eyes fixed on where I’d heard the cat’s meow. I didn’t look at any of the boxes or discarded piles of junk. If I didn’t look at it, it couldn’t scare me.
Owen was sitting on a discarded metal bedspring, probably from an old bunk bed. “This is what you wanted me to see? Why?” He pulled at one of the coiled metal springs with a paw. I could feel tendrils of panic creeping up the base of my skull.
I took a couple of deep breaths. “I’m going to have to drag this over to the stairs,” I said. “You think we need it, okay with me.”
The spring framework wasn’t as heavy as I’d thought. It wasn’t that difficult to pull it over to the bottom of the steps, where I felt more secure—relatively speaking.
I dropped onto the second step and wiped my hands on my snow pants. And then I saw it, above me in the cement-block walclass="underline" a small, grimy window almost completely boarded over. A window with just a small sliver of light showing. For a moment it felt like I had two Slinkys for knees.
I grabbed Owen and hugged him in relief, a tad too hard, and he squeaked his objection. “I’m sorry,” I said. “But there’s a window. We can get out of here.”
I scrambled up the steps and got the flashlight from where I’d left it and grabbed my jacket, too, because I was cold.