Terrified (32 page)
“Give him the newspaper!” the knife-wielding man yelled, holding the blade to Josh’s throat.
The other one thrust a newspaper in his hands. From the size and shape of the second person, Josh guessed it was a woman.
“Hold it out! Hold it out!” the man barked.
Josh obeyed, extending his arms in front of his chest to display the newspaper. Two flashes went off—one after another, blinding him.
He barely realized they’d just taken his picture when the man swiped the newspaper out of his hands. Then he heard the door slam shut, and the lock click. He still had spots swimming in front of his eyes when the light had come back on.
He still wasn’t sure how long ago that had happened—four hours ago? Six hours ago? For a while, he’d sat on the floor in a daze. He might have even nodded off. Then at some point, he’d decided there had to be some way out. Inside the toilet tank, he’d found a rusty six-inch metal rod connected to the flusher on one end and chained to the stopper on the other. He’d managed to unfasten it, and for the past fifteen minutes he’d been trying to maneuver it through the tight crevice along the top of the drawer. All his kicking hadn’t been in vain. It must have dislodged the little trapdoor enough for him to fit the metal piece into the crack. If he could only find a latch or something so he could unlock the damn thing.
Josh listened carefully to make sure no one was approaching. There hadn’t been any activity up there for a few hours. He hadn’t heard a peep. Maybe they were sleeping. Maybe it was nighttime.
He still had no idea what had happened to his mom. Josh figured even if his mom was all right, she was probably so worried about him. He’d never realized what it was like to be homesick. He’d had dozens of overnights at Darren’s house, but he’d never been away from home for more than one night. He’d never been so scared and lonely in all his life. He had a feeling he’d never see home or his mom again.
Tears came to his eyes, and he quickly wiped them away with the back of his hands. His fingers and palms were filthy with rust and slime from handling the old metal piece that had been in the toilet tank for God only knew how long.
He sniffled and went back to work on the drawer—until he felt the thin rod catch against something. Was it a lock or a spring that might open the drawer? He wiggled and rattled the rusty piece against the mechanism on the other side of the door. With his fingernails he tried to pull at the lip of the drawer while applying more pressure to the rod. He could tell it was pressed against a latch of some sort. He tried to force it.
The rod snapped in two.
“Shit!” he whispered. He threw down the broken piece. It made a loud clank as it ricocheted off the metal door and hit the wall behind him.
He couldn’t help it. He started crying again.
But then he heard a sudden noise from above. Josh put a hand over his mouth and held back his sobs. He got to his feet. One of them was moving around up there. Floorboards creaked, and then it sounded like footsteps on stairs. Whoever it was, they were coming closer. Outside, a lock clicked, but it wasn’t for the bathroom door. Josh figured there was another room beyond this one, and his capturer kept it locked. He could hear someone approaching the bathroom. He wondered if they’d notice the dents in the drawer.
Suddenly, the light went out, and he was in the dark once again.
Josh wanted to yell out, but he resisted. Maybe if he was totally quiet, the guy would think he was dead and then he’d open the door for a look. Josh backed up, bumping into the toilet. Clenching his fist, he figured he could charge the guy. All it would take was one good swing, and he’d knock him down. But he had to stay quiet.
He could see a strip of light at the threshold of the metal door—and along the top of the built-in drawer, where he’d been trying to get at the outer latch. A shadow passed over it.
“Josh?” the man called to him.
He didn’t answer. He stood there with his fists at his sides.
“Josh? I heard you in there,” he said teasingly. “I know you can hear me. Are you going to answer me? Or should I just walk away and never come back? Should I leave you in there to rot? Is that what you want?”
His heart racing, he didn’t respond. He didn’t make a sound.
“Josh, are you hoping your daddy will come and rescue you?” the man asked.
He hesitated, and then finally answered, “My father’s dead.”
“Really?” the man replied.
“He died before I was born.”
“Is that what your mother told you?”
Josh swallowed hard. “Yes… .”
“Then your mother’s a lying bitch.”
What the man said barely sunk in. All Josh could think was that the guy wanted to screw around with his head. “Where is she?” Josh asked. “What have you done to her?”
There was no answer.
“Is she still alive?” he asked, a little tremor in his voice.
Again, the man didn’t respond. Josh stared down at the shadows breaking the thin strip of light at the threshold. He heard a loud click—like a lock turning.
He stood frozen with his back to the bathroom wall and his fists clenched.
The shadows under the door moved and now the strip of light was unbroken. The man had walked away. Josh heard another lock click, but it sounded like the outer door. He listened to the sound of footsteps on the stairs—and then nothing.
In the darkness, he waved a hand in front of him and made his way to the door. Had the man actually unlocked it?
Josh found the door handle and gave it a twist. He couldn’t believe it. The door wasn’t locked. He couldn’t help wondering if this meant his time here was finished. Was he being freed? Or was he about to get killed? It felt like he was being set up for something.
He pulled the door open, and squinted a little at the light. He stood in the bathroom door, gazing at the bed with a brass headboard and pale green, brocade-patterned spread. On the wall behind it was the framed print of a palm tree on Nassau beach. The cushioned chair with the same sea-foam brocade pattern on it was where it should be. The dresser, the drapes, the beige shag rug, and the lamp on the nightstand were all exact matches.
Someone had duplicated his mother’s bedroom.
He moved over to the drapes and moved one curtain aside to find just a blank wall behind it, no window. The closest thing to a window was the wide mirror on the wall, perfectly reflecting the bed. His mom didn’t have a mirror like that in her bedroom. Nor did she have a TV set on brackets up near the ceiling in the corner of her room. In the opposite corner—on the other side of the mirror—was a door. It looked like it was made of the same kind of thick metal as the bathroom door.
Josh rushed to it and tried the knob—locked, of course. It had a built-in drawer, too, just like the other one.
He checked his half-naked reflection in that mirror. He looked horrible—dirty, pale, and sleep-deprived. He glanced over at the nightstand again—at the clock radio, which was the exact model his mom had. The red digital numbers showed it was 12:00. Was that a.m. or p.m.? Josh didn’t know. He went to pick up the clock, but it was glued to the table—and there was no cord. He realized the numbers had been painted on the clock face.
“What the hell?” he murmured. He grabbed the lamp, and it didn’t budge. It was glued to the table, too.
He moved to the dresser and tried the top drawer. It was glued shut. Frustrated, he tried the next drawer down. It opened only halfway. There were a few pieces of women’s underwear and hosiery in there. He tried the next drawer down. It was glued shut—as were all the other drawers below it.
He looked up at the blank TV screen, just out of his reach. He didn’t notice a remote anywhere. He figured the power was controlled by someone on the other side of that mirror. He was also pretty sure the mirror was the one-way type allowing his captor to study him from the other side.
Josh glanced back at the palm-tree print above the bed. It was just like the one his mother had, but the frame was slightly different. He could tell none of the stuff in this place was actually from his mother’s bedroom. But someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to duplicate the room. They’d made it into a comfortable, familiar little prison—but not for him.
Josh had no idea what was going to happen to him in here. But he had a horrible feeling he was just temporarily occupying this cell—until his mother was brought in.
This was all for her.
Once she turned off the lights in her room at the Lamplighter Inn near the Space Needle, she could try to forget where she was and what had happened. She didn’t have to look at the hotel’s decrepit Mediterranean-style furniture or the turquoise and brown paisley bedspread.
Megan lay in the queen-size bed, listening to the traffic noise and knowing sleep wouldn’t come easy. Her first-floor room had a sliding glass door, “for easy access to and from your car,” the skinny, slightly nerdy twenty-something desk clerk had told her. Megan had abandoned her rental car seven blocks away—closer to Destination Rent-a-Car than to the motel. She’d kept the keys, hoping to give the car back to them later.
While filling out the registration form at the hotel’s front desk, she’d told the clerk she didn’t have a car, but apparently it had slipped his mind when he told her about the amenities of her room—which included cable TV, Internet access, and a hair dryer.
Wow, a hair dryer!
she imagined Josh responding in his usual wiseass fashion.
Wow, a hair dryer!
she imagined Josh responding in his usual wiseass fashion.
It was fine with Megan that the poor clerk wasn’t the sharpest guy around. He didn’t seem too concerned when she paid cash in advance. She explained her credit cards had recently been stolen. If he were a little bit more on the ball, he might have noticed the Indiana driver’s license she showed him for Rachel Porter had expired in April of 1998.
Once she’d registered, Megan’s only excursion from her turquoise and brown lodgings was a quick trip to a nearby Walgreens, where she bought some Neosporin, cotton balls, hydrogen peroxide, bandages, scissors, and a kit of Clairol’s Nice ’n Easy.
She was back in time to catch the local news. Candy’s murder was one of the top stories.
“Police are searching for Megan Keeslar, a resident in the Eastlake neighborhood and a ‘person of interest’ in the case,”
announced the pretty, forty-something auburn-haired news anchor. On a screen behind her was just about the only picture Megan had posed for in the last fifteen years, her driver’s license photo. It wasn’t too flattering. More important, it didn’t look much like her. “
Keeslar is believed to have some connection to Candy Kruger Blanco’s uncle, Dr. Glenn Swann.”
the news anchor continued in voice-over while they showed muted footage of Candy’s TV interview in Pioneer Square.
“A Chicago-area surgeon, Dr. Swann was wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife and recently pardoned after serving fourteen years in prison. When she was a teenager, Candy Blanco testified in her uncle’s trial.”
The picture switched back to the news anchor, looking very sober. “
Candy Blanco lived in Seattle for the last two years. She was thirty-one years old.”
“Police are searching for Megan Keeslar, a resident in the Eastlake neighborhood and a ‘person of interest’ in the case,”
announced the pretty, forty-something auburn-haired news anchor. On a screen behind her was just about the only picture Megan had posed for in the last fifteen years, her driver’s license photo. It wasn’t too flattering. More important, it didn’t look much like her. “
Keeslar is believed to have some connection to Candy Kruger Blanco’s uncle, Dr. Glenn Swann.”
the news anchor continued in voice-over while they showed muted footage of Candy’s TV interview in Pioneer Square.
“A Chicago-area surgeon, Dr. Swann was wrongly convicted for the murder of his wife and recently pardoned after serving fourteen years in prison. When she was a teenager, Candy Blanco testified in her uncle’s trial.”
The picture switched back to the news anchor, looking very sober. “
Candy Blanco lived in Seattle for the last two years. She was thirty-one years old.”
Candy’s killer had played Megan that tape of her niece’s phone conversation with a coworker. She’d heard Candy—probably with a knife to her throat—telling her friend that Megan Keeslar was her long-assumed-dead Aunt Lisa. Either the coworker hadn’t quite understood her, or the police and press weren’t ready to go public with it. There was no mention on the news that Megan Keeslar had a son. She wondered if the police assumed Josh had gone on the run with her.
Megan had a pizza delivered, but could eat only a slice and a half before feeling sick. She felt even more nauseous changing the dressing on her finger—which looked slightly gray from the stitchwork to the tip. As she cleaned it with the peroxide and Neosporin, there was no feeling in the finger at all. The doctor had said it would take a while for the nerves to reconnect.
Once Megan replaced the bandaging on her finger, she went to work on her hair, cutting it from its near shoulder-length down to just a few inches from her scalp. Then she slipped on some gloves from the Nice ’n Easy kit, and transformed the blond color to ash brown. It was a few shades darker than her true color. Strangely, she really appreciated having a blow dryer in her room as she finished up.
In the movies, whenever women cut their own hair, they always ended up looking gorgeous. Megan thought she looked awful with the close-cropped brunette style—as if someone had randomly hacked away at it. But she really didn’t care—as long as no one recognized that person of interest, Megan Keeslar.
She caught the local news at eleven o’clock, and saw her driver’s license photo on TV again. She wondered if the nerdy desk clerk, the cashier at Walgreens, or the pizza delivery guy were watching the same broadcast.
By the time she’d crawled into bed at a little past midnight, Megan had figured no one knew she was here. The cops wouldn’t be knocking on her door—at least, not tonight. The only thing on her mind was Josh.
So of course, she couldn’t sleep, even though she was exhausted. She desperately wanted to drift off for just a few hours. Then maybe she could think straight and come up with a plan for tomorrow. The only thing she had in mind was checking that tall, eighties-style apartment building near the duplex. She wished she could remember the name of the place. She wanted to track down the manager and ask about any new male tenants on the upper floors. She had to do it quickly, too; because the man who had been watching her would be moving out soon—if he hadn’t already. The place was of no use to him anymore, now that she was on the run. She wasn’t there for him to spy on.
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