Piece of My Heart (Under Suspicion #7) - Mary Higgins Clark Page 0,33

these overheads on full blast all night or you won’t get any sleep. You probably need some rest after that car ride.”

Johnny said nothing, and the man’s voice softened. “Not very comfortable, was it, Danny?”

Johnny wanted to scream, Stop calling me Danny! That’s not my name!! Instead, he simply shrugged. The man kept looking at him, waiting for a different response.

“That’s enough light,” Johnny said.

The man was still staring, waiting.

“Thank you.”

The man smiled slightly, appearing pleased. “There’s no bathroom in here, as you may have noticed. Do you need to go again before you go to sleep?”

“No, thank you.”

“Can you make it through the night?”

“I don’t have accidents anymore.”

Another pleased smile. “Of course not. Such a good boy, Danny.”

Then he left. The clicking sounds from the door sounded like locks tumbling into place, confirming what Johnny had suspected.

Now Johnny was locked in the room all by himself, and he could use the dim light to try to figure out where he might be and why he was here.

He pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. The white wooden rails of the headboard of the bed pressed into his back. That’s how hard he was leaning away from the bedroom door, as if he might just disappear into the wall itself. He tugged at the front of his hair. It was so short. He shivered at the memory of the man standing so close to him, clipping away with those shiny scissors.

He hadn’t seen much of the rest of the house—just the kitchen during the haircut, and then the bathroom across the hall. But what he’d been able to take in as the man marched him from one spot to the next was almost as messy as the garage.

Not this room, though. This room was clean, he thought. No, it was more than “clean,” at least by his parents’ rules for stars on the chores chart. At home, a tidy room meant making his bed and picking up his toys and returning everything back to the drawers and shelves and cubes where it belonged.

This room was… empty. And lonely. It contained this bed he was sitting on and a dresser over by the window, and that was all.

He let go of his knees and allowed his feet to swing over the edge of the bed. As he stepped to the floor, he tried to make himself as light as possible. He made his way over to the sole piece of furniture other than the bed. The dresser was lightly stained wood, and the handles were all in different colors—red, yellow, blue, green. He couldn’t imagine the mean man who brought him here owning such a thing.

He tugged the top drawer ever so gently. It slid open easily. Inside were stacks of neatly folded T-shirts. He was afraid to touch them, but they looked like clothes for his size. A little boy. Him.

BAM!

Johnny flinched and automatically slid the dresser drawer shut at the sound of the loud noise coming from somewhere else in the house. Upstairs? Down the hall? He couldn’t tell. It was loud, though. So very, very loud. Something crashing to the ground.

He heard the man’s voice yell one of the bad words Mr. Norton who lived next door wasn’t supposed to say in front of Johnny and his sisters. The man’s voice sounded angry and ugly.

Johnny scurried back to the bed, climbed beneath the blankets, and pressed his eyes shut tightly. I didn’t do it. He never said the words out loud, but in his head, Johnny was screaming. Please don’t blame me. I’m here, trying to sleep, just like you told me to.

He lay in silence, praying that the man wouldn’t return to his room in such a furious mood. Minutes passed, and then Johnny heard what sounded like footsteps on the floorboards above him. He also heard the man’s voice again, but this time it was lower and calmer. Whatever had made that BAM sound was over. The moment had passed.

Johnny let himself wonder what his parents and Chloe and Emily were doing right now. Try to go to sleep, Mama and Daddy. Maybe they would all dream about each other and it would feel like they were really together.

Johnny thought maybe he had actually fallen asleep and was having a dream when he suddenly heard a new and different sound above him. A voice, but gentler. Higher pitched.

Mama?

No, he was still in this stupid house. He was fully awake, and the