would faint but she didn’t. “I’m all right. Stay hidden. It’s some
kind of small dart. Just a moment.”
She looked at the shaft she’d pulled out of her shoulder. There
was something rolled tightly around it. Paper. She pulled it off, unrolled
it. Her fingers were clumsy, slow.
She was still alone, still sitting by her car. No one had come out
of the gym.
She managed to make out the black printing on the unrolled
piece of paper in the dim light. It was in all caps:
GO HOME. YOU’LL FIND THE BOY
YOUR BOYFRIEND
“It says that Sam’s at home. Nothing more. He signed it ‘Your
Boyfriend.'”
What was going on here? She didn’t understand, and doubted
that any of the others did, either. She wanted to drive like a bat out
of hell to get back to Jacob Marley’s house, to find Sam, but she
couldn’t, she was too dizzy. Waves of light headedness came over
her at odd moments. She drove home slowly, watching for other
cars, headlights behind her. But nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
She knew they had to stay low. No one wanted to risk Sam’s
life by showing themselves too soon.
She was clearheaded by the time she reached Jacob Marley’s
house. She turned off the engine, sat there a minute, staring at the
house. Everything was silent. The sliver of moon shone nearly directly
overhead now.
There were lights on only downstairs. She remembered she hadn’t
even gone upstairs, hadn’t wanted to, and then the phone had rung.
Had Sam been locked in her closet upstairs all this time where
Krimakov had hidden himself waiting for her to get into bed?
She was into the house in under three seconds, racing up the
stairs, picturing Sam tied up, stuffed in the back of her closet, perhaps
unconscious, perhaps even dead. She yelled at the wristband, “Is
everyone still there? Oh God, of course you are! I think you’d better
still stay out of sight. I don’t know what he’s up to. You don’t,
either. Stay hidden. I’ll find Sam if he’s here.”
She dashed into her bedroom and switched on the light. The
room was still, stuffy, closed up for too long. She pulled open the
closet door. No Sam. She knew they could hear her footsteps
pounding up the stairs, hear her harsh breathing, hear her curse
when she didn’t find Sam.
She went into every room, opened every closet, searched every
bathroom on the second floor.
“No Sam yet. I’m looking.”
She called out to him again and again until she was nearly hoarse.
She was in the kitchen, pacing, when she saw the door to the
basement. Oh, Jesus, she thought, and pulled it open. She flipped
on the single light switch. The naked hundred-watt bulb flickered,
then strengthened.
“Sam!”
He was sitting on the concrete floor, propped against a wall,
bound hand and foot, a gag in his mouth. His eyes were wide, dilated
with terror. How long had the bastard left him sitting in the dark?
“Sam!” She was on her knees next to him, working the gag
loose. “It’s all right, honey. I’ll have you loose in just another second.”
She got the gag off him. “You okay?”
“Becca?”
A thin little voice, barely there, and she nearly wept. “It’s all
right,” she said again. “Let me get you untied, then we’ll go upstairs
and I’ll make you some hot chocolate and wrap you up in a real
warm blanket.”
He didn’t say anything more, not that she expected him to. She
got his ankles and wrists untied and lifted him in her arms. When
she got back into the kitchen, she sat down with him and began
rubbing the feeling back into his wrists and ankles. “It will be all
right now, Sam. Do you hurt anywhere else?”
He shook his head. Then he said,”I was scared, Becca, real scared.”
“I know, baby, I know. But you’re with me now. I’m not going
to let you out of my sight.” She carried him into the living room
and wrapped him in an afghan. Then she went back to the kitchen,
sat him down in a chair, the blanket firmly wrapped around him.