As she began to feel physically better, she admonished herself for this attitude. The welts were healing well. She had torn some strips from her blankets and even dared to wet them in order to wash the wounds and keep them clean. No one came in to punish her for using the spigots; maybe they weren't watching her anymore.
She liberally applied the antibiotic cream several times a day. Eventually she got up and started to do her exercises again. She could at least keep up her strength. She ate all the stale cookies and other food she had stashed, along with whatever Robert brought her. She sang songs to herself, trying to remember the words to all her favorite tunes.
If she ever got out of here, she would spend an entire day just listening to music. She would learn to play an instrument. She would go to concerts. She would read literature, not just the fashion magazines and romance novels that in the past had always ended up making her feel bitter about her own wretched and lonely life. She would get out and meet people! Maybe make some actual friends. She would join clubs for activities that interested her, like gardening and maybe even scuba diving!
She realized with a start that she was lonely, even for Robert. Not for Brenda. Never would be soon enough to see Brenda, but Robert had been tender with her. Robert had been kind to her. Robert had made love to her. She missed him, in a strange way.
When he came in the next morning, she tried to engage him in conversation, something she never did. He seemed surprised to hear her speak. She was usually little more than a toy to him; a doll to play with in his own perverted way. Today she spoke, saying, "Good morning, sir. How are you?"
"What? How am I?" He stared at her for a minute. She was kneeling submissively in the center of the room; she had been waiting for him. "Oh, I guess I'm fine. How 'bout you, frog?"
"As well as can be expected, sir. Thank you for asking." She wanted to say more, but didn't know what to say. She tried, "I really appreciate the food and what you do for me." She flushed slightly, thinking about the waste removal which still humiliated her so.
"Oh, sure. No problem. Listen, I really can't stay. Brenda's got breakfast going and…" He trailed off, glancing at the ever-present camera in the corner. Jane realized that he thought Brenda was monitoring them through the closed circuit T.V., and of course, she probably was.
Jane bowed her head, hoping she hadn't earned another visit from the vengeful wife. She didn't try to stop Robert as he set her food down and disappeared, locking the door behind him.
Robert came in carrying two large grocery bags. Jane looked up and then away again, afraid some new and terrible instruments of torture awaited her inside those bags. But in fact there was only food. Robert looked troubled, but he smiled at her, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Frog, we are going away for the weekend. Here's some stuff to eat and drink. We won't be coming in for a few days, but guess what? I've slipped you a magazine. And here's a disposable container for your, ah, for when you 'use the bathroom' as you like to say."
Jane was stunned. Going away for the weekend? Two whole days without the tormentors? And a magazine! Something to read! How she hungered for something to read; something to stimulate her bored and tortured mind!
"Oh," she breathed, without stopping to remember she wasn't to speak until spoken to. "Oh, thank you so much! A magazine! Thank you, thank you!" Robert smiled benignly, like a king bestowing a fortune on his subject.
"Well, don't go counting on it happening again. We'll be back in two days. Behave yourself and we'll, uh, see you when we get back." Robert turned away, something almost like sorrow flashing over his features before it was swallowed in his callousness. Had Jane known where they were going, she might have died simply from fright. They were going to bring their favorite hit man from the Bahamas to take the prisoner out. Usually Brenda went alone. But this time she said she was afraid of terrorists. They both knew the real reason was Jane. This would be her last weekend alive, if they had anything to say about it, and they had plenty.
And then it happened.
As he turned to leave something fell from Robert's pocket. It fell just as he was shutting the door, so that the click of the lock obscured any sound of metal hitting wood. Jane sat very still for several moments. He did not return. She stared at the pile of silver and gold fallen by the door. Still she didn't move. It was as if time had slowed,
or even stopped. She wasn't sure she could get up. Her legs felt like jelly and her heart was pounding like a freight train in her ears.
The keys. He had dropped his keys. The keys to her jail? She didn't know, but she was going to find out. Prayers began spilling from her lips, sent up to a god she didn't know she believed in. She sidled toward them and her hand shot out. Snapping them up, she hurried to her cage and hid them among the old smelly blankets. Forcing herself to be calm, she sat quietly against a wall and laid out the provisions the jailers had so thoughtfully provided her. Thank God for Robert. Brenda would have starved her to death by now, she was certain.
The food that he had left her normally would have sent her into spasms of ecstasy – there were plums and grapes, a loaf of bread and a jar of peanut butter, a six pack of Dr. Pepper, a large bottle of spring water, two packages of cookies and a package of salami. Food of the gods, she thought, smiling. But who cared! She had keys!
Jane forced herself to wait. She waited for a good half hour past when she heard them leave and heard the car drive away, crunching along the graveled drive. She kept expecting Robert to retrace his steps to find his keys. But somehow luck stayed with her. She remembered the one time she had been in their car. It was Brenda who had driven. Perhaps Robert hadn't even missed his keys yet.
She waited just a little while longer for good measure. They seemed to be well and truly gone. Gone! And she had keys! She silently admonished herself. They might be keys to his club, to his fishing tackle box, to anything other than her prison. She was foolish to let this rising hope pound through her veins like wine.
Well, she would stop hoping, stop wondering and get up and find out. She fished the keys from their hiding place in her cage and went to her prison door. There was a car key, yes, definitely. And two small keys that must fit boxes or something. And two more keys that looked like door keys. She tried the first one. No, it wasn't right. Damn. "Please, God, oh please, oh please, oh please," she begged aloud. She tried the second one, her hand shaking so hard that she
was forced to hold it still with her other hand to get the key into position.
She felt as if her heart were literally breaking – the key didn't fit. None of the keys fit. She slid down against the door and sobbed until her tears dried up and nothing was left but dashed hopes. She looked up at the patch of sky outlined in the square of her window. It was growing dark. She was alone in her prison with keys that didn't free her. All she had was a view out her window. Her window.
The words seemed to split and splinter in her mind, as if she were having a hallucination. She heard the words, slowly intoned,
the window
. The window. The small keys. One of them might – she didn't dare finish the thought. For several moments more she simply sat, naked, her face still streaked with tears, staring up at the window, the keys clenched in her hand. At last she stood, hope soaring like a bird though she tried vainly to quash it down. Slowly, slowly, she walked to the window. She peered at the little lock, a small circle set neatly into the molding, barely visible. Even on tiptoe, she couldn't reach it. She remembered that Brenda had used a stepladder. But that ladder wasn't here. Brenda brought it in with her when she was going to secure Jane to chains hanging from the ceiling for some new and horrible torture.
What could she use? She scanned the room, her mind in a fever. Nothing here! They took it all away with them. Nothing but her cage. Her cage. Surely it was moveable? She had never tried to move it! But why not? How heavy could it be? Just bars and blankets? She could climb on it. What if they came home? What if they found her climbing on her cage to the window? She would be tortured within an inch of her life! Fear kept her still for some minutes more. She was so used to their constant presence, to the constant surveillance of the camera and the little microphones she had found hidden about the room. She still couldn't quite grasp that they might truly be gone! And so sure of themselves and her captivity that they let her know they would be gone!
She
must
try it. She must, or she was damming herself to a life of bondage and hopelessness. A life that would surely end in murder
when they tired of her, and she never knew when that day might come. Screwing her courage to the sticking point, Jane began to push her cage across the floor. It moved rather easily, to her delight, though it scraped and scratched along the wood, making a terrible sound. Her heart pounding high in her throat, she continued until it was under the window. These keys might not work, and her effort would have been in vain, but not to have tried would have been to give up. And Jane wasn't about to give up now.
She climbed up on the cage. The bars hurt her bare feet, but she hardly noticed, balancing so that she could get the little keys into the lock. The first one didn't fit and she almost cried with frustration. Again a whispered prayer. She inserted the second key and–
It fit.
She turned it slowly, feeling the lovely twist as the tumblers fell neatly into place. With trembling hands she pushed at the window. Smoothly it lifted, and a delicious breeze wafted in, blowing her hair gently from her face. The air was hot on this summer evening, but to Jane it felt like heaven. Freedom lay so close, like a promise; like a dream. If she could manage to get through this little window, she could escape! She had other keys. One of them was a car key. If she could get into the house, get some clothes, get into the garage... It was all so preposterous, so unlikely, that if she had taken a second to reason with herself, she would have been too daunted to attempt it. Luckily, she wasn't thinking at all now. She was only acting. She stuffed the keys into her mouth, the only safe place on her naked body, while she carefully fit her head through the opening. Good. Her head fit with room the spare. Now her shoulders. If she could get them through, she could get the rest of her body through as well. For once she was glad of her thin, scrawny frame.
Carefully she put one shoulder through, twisting to make herself narrower, and then the other. She was halfway out the window now. She was going to make it! She was going to escape! She fell with an ungraceful plop onto the soft lawn below, the keys jangling against her teeth. For a moment she was afraid she had sprained an ankle, but after a minute, she felt all right. Just a little twist. She stood
carefully, clutching the keys now in her hand, eyes darting, looking to see who may have seen her. What she saw was lush rolling lawn that melted down a slope into a forest of trees. There was no one about. This must be the back of the house. She walked along the wall, staying close to it, looking for a door. She found one and tried the various door keys. Luck was still with her as she opened what turned out to be the kitchen door.
She was in the house. She waited a moment, certain that an alarm would go off. The police would come and free her. Or arrest her, she realized, as a trespasser and burglar, charged with breaking and entering! A crazy naked woman with a bizarre story about being held prisoner by these millionaires who weren't even home. She could see it now, as they hauled her down to the station in handcuffs. She would exchange one prison for another with bars of steel and no way out.
But no alarm sounded. In fact, Robert and Brenda's security was located on the perimeters of the property and they didn't even need to lock their doors; it was that secure. If Jane had known this, she might have been a good deal calmer. As it was, she ran into the bedroom, looking desperately for clothing. Brenda was so much larger that she didn't know what she'd find that would do. Rifling through the racks, she finally pulled out a short sundress and put it on. It wasn't too bad, though a little long for her. The soft fabric felt strange against flesh that had been kept naked for so many weeks. She grabbed a sash to use as a belt and found sandals in the closet that would stay on if she buckled them tight enough.
Then she saw it. The lovely ruby diamond bracelet, just sitting there! She ran to it and grabbed it. Brenda owed her this and much, much more, for stealing her life, for using her for all these weeks and months. Jane slipped it over her own thin wrist. It sparkled and felt wonderfully heavy. She would have time later to admire it, she hoped. For now, what else could she take? She would need money. She could never go back to her little apartment, the address of which had been neatly typed on the driver's license in the purse they had stolen from her. There was no home there any longer, surely. Her
landlord would have gotten rid of all her things, written her off as another freeloader who had flown the coop.
Ah, if only she could find her purse! Have some identification. No real time to look. She did a quick search in their huge closet, but didn't see her clothes or purse. They had probably disposed of it all long ago. She did grab one of Brenda's many bags. A nice leather one, large. Going back to the vanity, she scooped more jewelry into it. She opened the drawers, looking for something else of value, something easily convertible to cash. Nothing.
She went to the other bureau. Robert's, she assumed. On a pewter tray lay a neat stack of business cards. She picked one up and read, "Robert Cassidy – Investments, with his address and phone number in small letters below it. For some reason she took one and slipped it into the pocket of her dress.
In the first drawer she rifled through his underwear and socks. And then she felt it. A wad of cash held in a money clip. She pulled it out, hardly believing her luck. There were fifties and hundred dollar bills! There had to be over a thousand dollars here! Jesus! Petty cash to these motherfuckers, but a fortune to Jane. A fortune that would buy her a plane ticket out of here. Then she could sell the jewelry at her leisure and begin her new life somewhere far, far away.