“No, ma’am.” Was I imagining the judgment on her face? “We were looking for hidden cameras.”
Hidden cameras? I realized who they thought Tim might have been filming. I tried to keep my voice steady. “And did you find any?”
“Not so far.”
I closed and locked the bathroom door. I barely made it to the toilet in time to be sick. How could I have been so blind? What had Tim done to my Savannah?
Ten minutes later, when someone tapped on the bathroom door, I had thrown up so much all that was coming out was yellow bile.
“Lorraine?” It was Amy. I had only met her a few hours ago, but now she knew more about me and my messed-up life than anyone. I was too paralyzed with fear and guilt to feel shame. How could she even stand to talk to me, the woman who had been obliviously living with Tim for months? “Lorraine, can you come out here for a second? Detective Diaz wants to talk to you.”
I flushed the toilet, rinsed out my mouth, and unlocked the door. Amy didn’t say anything, just took my arm. As we walked down the hall, I felt like a prisoner being led to the electric chair. Had they found Savannah’s body?
But the reason was laid out on the dining room table. Two handguns and an assault rifle. All of them a dead, flat black.
“Did you know that Mr. Hixon had these?” Detective Diaz asked.
1. Learn the rules.
2. Keep to the rules.
3. Dissolve the rules.
—BRUCE LEE
SAVANNAH TAYLOR
Jenny was right. Even if our situation seemed impossible, it was wrong to embrace death. So what would Bruce Lee do if he were the one stuck in this motor home? If I had learned one thing about him, it was that he was always seeing things from a different angle. Unlike Sir, he had disdained rigid rules. Rules. Something about that idea nagged at me.
I leaned toward Jenny. “What were those stupid rules of Sir’s again?”
She took a deep breath and rattled them off. “Always call him Sir. Never look him in the eye. Dress attractively. Keep things picked up. Don’t make noise. And be grateful that he keeps you alive.”
“Only he’s the one who’s breaking the last rule.” I got up and started pacing. The space was so small I was almost walking in circles. “Maybe we need to break all the other ones. What would happen if we did the exact opposite of them?”
She tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“Take the one about not making noise. What if we opened the door as far as it goes and started yelling? Then Rex would start barking. And if Sir came back to tell us to be quiet, we could attack him.” An even better idea bloomed. “Or, wait a minute. Technically, this is a vehicle, right? Which means it has a horn. What if we started honking it?”
Jenny’s broken mouth smiled. “Oh, Sir wouldn’t like that. Not at all. He’d get nervous someone would hear and start asking questions.” Her expression changed. “But couldn’t he just cut a wire or something, like how he went underneath and opened up the water valve?”
“I don’t think he could open the hood without releasing a latch. And to do that, he’d have to come inside and pull a lever or something under the dash.” I leaned over and grabbed up the tights/SpaghettiOs nunchucks. “Once he unlocks the chain, I’ll hit him with the can, just like we planned. And then we’ll run for the fence.”
Jenny’s hand rose to her scars. “But what about Rex?”
Another piece of the plan fell into place. “When we start making noise, Rex will start barking, right? And when Sir yells at Rex, we can listen to the commands and then use them ourselves after we escape.”
“But Rex will know we’re not Sir.”
“If it doesn’t work, I can always hit Rex with the can, too.” I actually felt worse contemplating hurting the dog than I did the man.
“Rex moves so fast, though.” Jenny winced. “What if you miss?”
An answer hovered just out of reach, until I thought back to the rules. “Instead of dressing attractively, we’ll put on all your clothes. Layer them up. That way, if Rex tries to bite us, he’ll just get cloth instead of skin.”
“That might work.” She looked at my sling. “But how are you going to put layers over that?”
In my excitement, I’d forgotten about it. “I’ll take off the sling, but not the splint. Do you have some sweaters or something that would stretch over it?” I figured the magazine would protect my forearm.
Jenny began pulling clothes out of boxes and plastic bags and from the tiny closet and along the walls. Some were simply impractical, like short skirts and dresses. The rest we laid on the bed, making piles of tops and bottoms that went from smallest to largest, trying to figure out which order to put them on in and who would wear what.
She ended up in two pairs of leggings topped with a pair of pants. I could only fit a single pair of leggings under my pants. It was easier to layer tops. With my splint, I was able to get into three, while Jenny wore five. For a final layer, I managed to squeeze into my shredded puffer coat. Jenny didn’t even have a coat, just a pink and white kimono. We both looked lumpy and misshapen, like we were going to a crazy costume party.
“We should do something more about your neck,” I said, gesturing. I still had my kung fu shirt and the remains of my jacket to provide some protection, but all of the clothes he’d brought her had deep V-necks. We’d both tied hand towels around our necks, but a single layer didn’t seem like enough. I snapped my fingers. “Bruce Lee!”
“There’s another saying?” she asked.
“No, I mean the actual book.” It was a heavy oversized paperback. I handed it to her. “Try sticking it down your front.” Shoved down the layers of shirts and sweaters and held up by her bra, it shielded the top of Jenny’s chest and most of her throat.
Jenny looked around the RV, now strewn with stuff. “Well, we’ve certainly broken the rule about keeping things picked up.” She managed a smile.
My eyes fell on her plastic boom box. “Wait! What if we used the boom box to record his commands and then play them back after we escape? Rex might believe it’s Sir. At the very least, it should slow him down.”
We spent the next half hour experimenting. I stood at the driving end of the RV while Jenny stationed herself just inside the bedroom door and held out the silver plastic mic. Even when I switched from a half shout to my normal voice, the attached microphone still did a good job of recording my words.
Finally we turned off all the lights and took our stations. I was standing on one side of the door, while Jenny was sitting in the driver’s seat.
“Ready?” I said.
You have to create your own luck. You have to be aware of the opportunities around you and take advantage of them.
—BRUCE LEE
SAVANNAH TAYLOR
Instead of answering when I asked if she was ready, Jenny just pressed the horn. It was so loud it hurt my ears. She leaned on it over and over. Blatt-blatt-blatt. Then she switched to a pattern. Blip-blip-blip, blatt-blatt-blatt, blip-blip-blip. Three short beeps, three long beeps, three short, and then a pause. When she repeated it, I recognized the pattern. SOS in Morse code.