the four-poster bed. She glanced at her watch and saw that it was six fifteen. There was no way to know if it was morning or night; no way to know how much time she had lost.
The door opened. A man in a violet-colored rubber mask entered, a tray in his hands. He was silhouetted against a murky daylight emanating from windows elsewhere in the house.
That answered one question: It was morning.
“What day is it?” she said. She was startled by how thick the words sounded.
The man in the rubber mask did not answer. He set the tray down and left. She caught a glimpse of the heavy bolt on the other side of the door. Despair threatened to overwhelm her. With luck and the proper tool she might be able to pick the lock on the manacle, but she didn’t stand a chance against the bolt. It could be unlocked only from outside the room.
She pushed herself to her feet and looked at the tray. More hotel breakfast rolls and another pitcher of tea. This was the third food delivery so it was most likely the third morning of her captivity. It was hard to keep track of time because the drugs had left her confused and disoriented. She was hungry because yesterday, in addition to dumping the tea down the sink, she had crumbled the poisoned rolls and flushed them down the toilet. But the drug had exacted a heavy toll. It had been difficult to think clearly, and in the end she had slept for most of the day and night. The result was that she had not been able to put together a coherent escape plan.
This morning she was a little light-headed from lack of food but she could finally focus. She disposed of the food and the tea, drank a couple of glasses of water, and tried to take stock of her situation.
She was still properly dressed, although her clothes were badly rumpled. Her hair had been in a chignon when she had collapsed in the hotel room. Now it hung in tendrils. There were, however, a few pins left. She removed them carefully and gripped them as if they were more precious than gold.
She went back into the bedroom and studied it carefully, noting details and filing each piece of furniture, every architectural feature, and every object under one of two categories—useful or not useful.
The furniture was expensive, heavy, traditional. The patterns on the faded wallpaper and curtains were at least a decade out of date. There were a couple of elaborately framed but decidedly insipid paintings featuring bowls of flowers. A handful of items was scattered on the small dressing table. An empty perfume bottle—not Violet—and an old hairbrush.
She clanked her way to the dressing table. Methodically she opened drawers. There wasn’t much left inside. She found a couple of tubes of used lipstick. The shades were out of date. There were an empty pack of cigarettes and a book of matches in the center drawer. The matchbook was violet. labyrinth springs hotel & spa was stamped on the cover.
For the first time it occurred to her to wonder what had happened to her clothes and toiletries. The kidnappers must have packed them up. They could hardly afford to leave them in room two twenty-one for the housekeeper to find.
There was a closet at the far end of the bedroom. The doors were closed. There was no way to know if her things were inside.
She sat down on the bed, propped her chained ankle on the opposite knee, and went to work on the manacle with one of the hairpins.
Chapter 37
The rumble of a vehicle in the drive shattered the oppressive silence of the big, empty house. Raina stopped pacing and checked her watch. Panic sparked. It was mid-morning. The drugged food had been delivered hours ago. Why would the kidnappers return now?
The pattern that had been established yesterday had been broken. That was not a good sign. Her plan, such as it was, had been built around what she assumed to be the food delivery schedule.
She heard the door open on the ground floor. Voices. Two men, not one. Another break in the pattern. Yesterday and today the man who had delivered the food had arrived alone and never spoken.
“I’ll get her,” one of the men said. “With luck she’ll be semiconscious or maybe asleep by now because of the rolls and the tea.”
“Hurry,” the other man said. “The boss says they’re