Quickly I reach into the toilet tank and grab the half-dissolved tablet. It’s toilet cleaner and deodorizer. Our housekeeper at home uses them in all our bathrooms.
It’s made of some kind of disinfectant, and it will pack a wallop if I can get it in someone’s eyes.
How? I have no idea. But it’s a hell of lot better than nothing.
Do I really think I can beat King with a toilet cleaning tablet? Fuck it all. I suppose stranger things have happened.
Now, what to do with it. It’s wet, so I wrap it in toilet paper as best I can and shove it into one of my front pockets.
And I hope like hell it doesn’t seep through the toilet paper and give me away. At least it’s blue and my jeans are blue. Maybe it’ll just look like I pissed myself a little.
I turn off the water, making sure I leave a little of the tablet on my fingertips. If I can get near the driver’s eyes, perhaps I can get him.
A paperclip would be better. A nail file. Tweezers. A razor blade would be great.
But all I have is a toilet cleaning tablet that looks like a large blue Alka-Seltzer.
I leave the bathroom and close the door.
“Took you long enough.”
“Did you want me not to wash my hands?”
For a moment I fear he may actually want to see my hands. But he doesn’t. Good. I don’t need him to see the bit of dried tablet powder.
“Now what?” I say.
“What makes you think you can ask questions?”
“You just did.” I’m being a smartass. Not my best move, but I’ve been on the other end of this so often that I’m used to being a smartass. “What’s your name?”
“I think that’s a question.”
I say nothing more as I follow him back through the hallway to the kitchen.
“You need anything else to eat?”
“No.”
“You may want to reconsider your answer. I don’t know when I’ll be able to offer you food again.”
“In that case, sure.”
He heads to a kitchen cupboard and pulls out a couple of granola bars. “Here.”
“What am I supposed to do with these?”
“Hold onto them. Or put them in your pocket.”
Pocket? I’m not putting anything that may be going into my mouth in the pocket with the half-dissolved toilet tablet.
“My pockets aren’t big enough. I’ll just hold onto them.”
“Suit yourself.”
He doesn’t tell me to follow him, but I do. What else am I supposed to do?
“Where’s King?” I ask.
“You keep thinking you can ask questions here.”
“We both know why I’m here. We both know you have Katelyn. We both know King wants me dead.”
“If we both know, why are you asking me so many questions?”
“Look, I don’t care about myself. Do what you want to me. Make me suffer all kinds of horrible stuff. Just let her go.”
“It’s not up to me, dude.”
Dude? Strange. I wonder if this guy could potentially be a friend.
“What are you doing here, man?” I ask.
“My job.”
“Take it from someone who knows. You’re going to live to regret this.”
“That’s not for you to say.”
“Hey, we both know it’s too late for me. But you can still get out.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I chuckle at that. Seriously chuckle, even in my current circumstances. “Man, I’m the one guy who does know.”
He doesn’t reply. Why should he? He and I both know I speak the truth.
We head down a spiral staircase to what I assume is a basement. Still, I’m amazed I’m not blindfolded. Just further evidence that my fate is sealed. King and I both know I’m not getting out of here alive, so it doesn’t really matter whether I know where I am and can describe what I’ve seen.
I follow the driver to a locked door. He opens it with a combination.
35742.
I learned a long time ago to memorize numbers quickly.
Even so, I know it won’t matter. I won’t be able to access the lock from inside the room. Still, I keep the numbers in my head. You never know when they might come in handy.
He shoves me through the door. “Wait here.”
“For what?”
“That’s all I know. I do as I’m told. Just like you do.” The driver closes the door and clicks it locked.
As I suspected, there’s no way to unlock it from the inside. Such a fire hazard. Of course that doesn’t matter to King.
Oddly, there is a window well. No bars.
An escape route. One I won’t use.
King knows this. He knows I won’t go anywhere because he knows that I know he has Katelyn.
He’s dangling these carrots in front of me, daring me.
I’m not that stupid—something he also knows.
In the room is a bed, a door leading to a toilet and sink, but no shower. Also a chair and a desk. Even a pen. Yup. He knows I won’t try anything.
Or he’s betting I might, and the first thing he’ll check when he comes to get me is whether the pen is still sitting there.
So I don’t touch the pen. I go into the bathroom, and to my surprise—or to my non-surprise—I find a nail file and a razor blade sitting right on the rim of the sink.
He’s given me a means to try something on him or even to off myself with the blade.
As long as he has Katelyn, I won’t do anything. Both he and I know this.
I’m not even slightly tempted.
But then I realize he’s done something else as well. He’s given me these means as a way to test me. He’s going to test how loyal I am to Katelyn. How strong my feelings are for her.
I’m betting he thinks I’ll choose myself in the end.
He thinks wrong.
Nothing to do now except wait. Though I do check the inside of the toilet tank. There’s another tablet, this one even more dissolved than the first.
Makes me wonder if the tablets are there for a reason other than disinfecting toilets. Does he know I’ll try to use it as a weapon?
Or are there tablets in every toilet, just as there are in my own home?
Could go either way, but I’m betting on the latter. I have to. I have to stick my faith in something. I have to believe I have some way of helping Katelyn.
I’m toast. No way will I get out of this alive. But I have to get her out before they harm her.
And they will harm her.
It’s part of the way he plans to torture me.
A big part of me even believes I deserve the torture.
I’ll take whatever he has to give.
But before I do that, I have to get Katelyn out of here.
She’s here in this house. Somewhere.
And she’s scared. She’s so very scared.
I will get her out of here. Doesn’t matter what happens to me at this point. I’ve accepted my fate.
But I have not yet accepted hers.
44
KATELYN
“He’s a monster.”
Buck’s words cut through me like a dull knife. No, this isn’t a clean cut. It’s jagged and raw, leaving my insides open and sore.