tell them. That was the good scenario. The bad? I didn’t even dare entertain.
I stared out the window at the obscured view. Cliffside seemed to be weeping. Torrents of rain smashed against the glass, gushing down through her gutters and out to sea. Juan’s death was pounding down on me, more than ever. I reflected on my precarious situation, yet again, the possibilities and consequences spinning round and round in my head.
Even if the triplets did let me out, by all accounts, and from what I gathered from the news on TV, getting anywhere fast would be near impossible. Because of the geography of the surrounding territory, Highway One was the only route out, unless you had a helicopter. Serpenting above the ocean and sandwiched in between the road and the ocean, as Cliffside was, the only means of escape were steep trackless hills bordering my estate, now flowing with oozing mud, rendered useless. Even with my Land Rover. I don’t know why the roads closing in on me was something I had never imagined happening, because now that it was upon us, it seemed so obvious. We residents were living in some of the most expensive real estate in the world, yet my neighbors were also virtual prisoners in their homes, even without the doors and windows locked.
Nobody could drive south past Big Sur anymore. The roads were shut off. Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge was threatening to collapse and was too dangerous to cross with a vehicle. Everything revolved in and around the house, even for the triplets, now. The highway, due north, was still open, but treacherous. The three braved it out nonetheless. For groceries or whatever they needed. And to work.
But Jen could no longer drive to her hotel. She had to take the car to Pfeiffer Canyon Bridge, park, hike, then get a lift from someone on the other side. The result was that she ended up staying for long periods at the hotel without coming home. My plan of getting her alone and appealing to her better side stymied.
If I thought I felt isolated before, it was even scarier now. A giant landslide cutting Big Sur off from the south, since the imminent collapse of the bridge, had really changed things and was dominating the news. Children going to school had to be dropped off on one side of the bridge and picked up on the other. Kate, being a guide, was getting more work than ever helping people find their way, even carry their groceries. Old trails were being used again, simply to get from A to B. The fancy hotels had become even more exclusive: guests were being flown in by helicopter from Monterey. It made me appreciate how vulnerable we all were, living on a precarious coastline that had fallen victim to fires and drought, and now this relentless flash flooding. Everyone was trapped. However much money they had.
Mother Nature wielding her power.
Even with so much danger out there, nothing compared to the fear I felt locked up here. I had to get out but was running out of ideas. I feigned an epilepsy attack one time, pretending I’d suffered as a child in hope someone would take me to the hospital or call 911. I dribbled and foamed at the mouth. It turned out that Dan was the only one home and didn’t give a damn—left me on my bed, legs kicking in spasms, eyes rolling. Either he knew I was lying or genuinely wished me dead. I was being locked up for reasons other than the triplets’ paranoia about me being a murderer. If they were so suspicious of me why hadn’t they called the police?
No, they had other, more sinister plans for me.
I had to get back into the laundry room, however claustrophobic. It was a risk; they may have already discovered my pillowcase there, but it was the last glimmer of chance I had left. If the spare front door key was still at the back of the kitchen drawer under that pile of linen napkins (which I knew the triplets never used), I’d be a free woman.
Jen, whenever home, was the only one of them who was still friendly to me, not that her “friendship” was worth much, but still, it gave me hope. She brought me a box of chocolates she’d pilfered from her hotel, whispering to me in a hiss not to let the others know about her gift. Inside the box, she’d stashed my reading