deck, she leapt off the boat and stumbled onto the dock. She heard him scream again. “Go away!” he yelled. “Mommy…Mommy!”
Susan raced up the hill toward the house and the sound of his voice. The sunroom door was open, just as she’d left it. Inside the house, she stopped suddenly. She couldn’t hear him anymore. The place was deathly quiet.
She rushed toward the front of the house, where the door was closed and locked. “Mattie?” she called, running up the stairs two steps at a time. “Mattie? Sweetie?”
Stopping in his doorway, she froze. His bed was empty.
“Mattie?” she screamed again, panic-stricken. She swiveled around and checked the bathroom—empty. Then she hurried down the hall to the master bedroom. He wasn’t in there either. But she noticed the closet door was ajar. She heard a quiet whimpering.
“Mattie, honey?” she asked, trying to catch her breath. She moved toward the closet. “Sweetie, are you in there?”
“Mommy?”
“Oh, thank God,” she whispered. She opened the door and found him sitting curled up amid Allen’s and her shoes. Knees to his chest, he clutched Woody against the side of his face. She crouched down and reached out for him. “Sweetie, what happened?”
He threw his arms around her neck. “I woke up and you were gone!” he cried. “There’s a monster in my room. I’m hiding from him. He—he—he’s under the bed….”
“It’s okay, Mattie,” she said, hugging him and patting his back. Finally, she lifted him up and carried him out of the bedroom. She headed for the stairs. “Everything’s going to be all right,” she cooed reassuringly. “We’re leaving here now. Okay, sweetie? I’ll make sure this monster doesn’t get anywhere near you….”
Susan meant every word she said.
It didn’t work worth a damn.
Moira gave up trying to manipulate the lock with the flimsy, bent barrette clip. She moved away from the door and blindly felt around the shelves of the metal bookcase for something else she might use to trip the lock. The tall shelving unit had been put together with thin perforated metal pieces and screws. She found a discarded bracket lying in the back corner of the second-to-top shelf. The perforated piece was a bit longer than a nail file and only slightly thicker.
She slipped it in the door hinge by the lock, wiggling and maneuvering it while she twisted the knob. “C’mon, please, God,” she whispered.
Suddenly she heard a click, and the knob turned.
With a grateful little cry, she pushed at the door with her shoulder. But it didn’t budge. She couldn’t understand it. She’d tripped the stupid lock. She kept twisting and turning the knob. What was going on?
Then Moira realized what was going on was the door must have another lock, probably a dead bolt.
“Goddamn it!” Moira cried, her voice raspy. Frustrated, she almost threw the metal piece across the tiny room. But she thought better of it. She might need the metal bracket as a weapon against that man when he came back for her, and he almost certainly would. Of course, she might as well defend herself with a butter knife. But it beat nothing.
Moira told herself that she wouldn’t become one of his victims. That photo of her and her pink bra—they would be the last in his collection. She would survive this. She’d have to crawl or hobble, but she would get out of this cold, stinking little dungeon.
And stink it did. She was probably contributing to the foul smell herself after all her time in that dirty pit and then here in this little closet. Not much fresh air passed through the fan box near the ceiling.
Moira squinted up at it. She saw by the slivers of daylight seeping through those slats. There was no other light source. She wondered if she could fit through that opening. Maybe, she thought if she could pry or unscrew the slat covering.
A while ago, she hadn’t been able to see her hand in front of her face. But Moira’s eyes had adjusted to the darkness, because she could now see the thin metal bracket in her grasp. She probably had a snowball’s chance in hell of clearing that opening and making it through to the outside. But she had to try.
And she had to work fast. Any time now, her abductor could come for a second visit. Another concern was that the light through those slats was starting to dim. It was getting dark out.
Pretty soon, she wouldn’t be able to see anything—except blackness.