Hostage (7 page)

My hope died quickly, though. The thieves had probably already been in there and cleaned out everything of any value. If they'd taken all the other phones, they'd probably swept that one up, too.

Knowing that I couldn't call from next door was a bummer. What was the next best thing to do? Would I be in terrible trouble if I ran to one of the other houses and smashed a window to get in to reach a phone that was still working?

I wondered if that was how the men had gotten into our house. Around in back, maybe, where they'd be out of sight if anyone came
along, had they broken a window and then opened up the front door from inside?

It didn't matter. What mattered was that I had to get out of there as soon as possible. But I couldn't do anything as long as the three men were in the lower hallway.

They were wrangling now about the piano. Buddy, too, thought it was too heavy to move. The deep-voiced one, who seemed to be the leader, was emphatic. “I'm telling you guys, those things are worth a lot of money. It'll be worth the effort. We all work together, we can move it. That's why we got a truck with a lift on it.”

“Well, whatever we're gonna do, let's get at it. I don't like working in a cul-de-sac like this place. If you want the confounded piano, let's get it loaded. It's gonna be hard to hide until we can unload it, though.”

“We gotta wrap it up, remember? So it won't get scratched. Nobody's gonna pay big bucks for one that has scratches on it.”

“So get some blankets or something,” the deep, surly voice responded.

Blankets. All the bedrooms were up here.
I was around the corner from them, so I quickly stood up and headed for the nearest open doorway. No, not a bedroom, this was where they'd come. Unless I hid in a closet.

I ducked into Mom and Dad's room, running across the carpet and sliding open the mirrored doors. They made a little sound as I squeezed inside and closed them behind me, praying again. Please, God. Please, don't let them catch me, or hear me. I was wheezing as if I'd been running hard.

I wouldn't even have been able to hear the thief enter the room if he hadn't been grumbling about being the one sent to fetch the blankets.

I waited after the grumbling stopped, wondering if it was safe to come out yet. Finally, very slowly, I slid open the door and emerged. The man had stripped the spread off the bed and the blanket that had been under it, leaving sheets trailing on the floor.

Forcing myself to breathe slowly and as normally as possible, I made my way out into the hall.

I turned toward the stairs, hoping they'd all go outside at the same time to load things, so I
could run for the kitchen door into the backyard.

The voice behind me was unexpected, as was the rough hand that slammed me against a wall, bruising my arm.

“Hey, guys,” the voice said, “we got a little problem up here.”

He was big. Over six feet, and thick through the chest and neck. The hand that gripped my arm was huge and rough. His dark hair was longish and didn't look as if he'd washed it recently, and there was a smell about him of sweat and tobacco.

He yelled to his conspirators downstairs. “Hey, guys! Come up here! We got a problem!” he informed them again.

“So take care of it,” the leader shouted back.

For a few seconds I stared into those dark eyes, wondering if I'd faint in terror at what I saw there. I started to sag, and he slammed me against the wall for the second time.

“You want me to kill her, or what?” my captor demanded loudly.

There was a startled silence, and then both
of the other men appeared at the bottom of the stairs. “Her?” one of them echoed. “What the . . . ?”

I'd never heard some of the words that came out of their mouths, but I didn't have any difficulty interpreting them as profanity.

They stared at me in disbelief.

“There wasn't supposed to be anybody here,” the leader said. “What are you doing here, kid?”

It was a wonder I could speak, my mouth was so dry. “I . . . I live here,” I stammered.

I could see them evaluating that, and the expressions on their faces were unnerving, to say the least. “You want me to kill her, or what?” Had he been serious when he'd asked that?

“How long you been here?” the leader demanded.

I swallowed hard, and my throat worked, but I couldn't speak as cold terror worked its way down my body, making me weak all over. I didn't even know the answer to his question. Had I been home for an hour, ten minutes, what? I couldn't tell.

The one holding my arm gave me a shake, his big fingers pressing painfully into my arm. “How long?” he asked harshly.

My lips trembled, but nothing came out of them. I'd prayed only a few minutes ago, but now I was too numb even to do that.

“She couldn't have called the cops. The phones are all gone. I put 'em in a box with the other little junk that I carried away in the first load.”

“So who knows you're here?” the deeper-voiced leader asked. He was standing a few steps below me, now, and his eyes, a very pale blue, were boring into mine. Blue eyes ought to have been friendly, but these weren't. They were icy, mean.

I tried once more to speak. What would they do if they thought someone else knew and would rescue me very soon?

“My school nurse knows,” I managed to croak desperately. “And my mom. She's . . . supposed to pick me up in a few minutes. . . .”

They were communicating something with their eyes. I couldn't read them for sure, but I didn't think they believed me.

“She's lying,”
my closest tormentor said. “Nobody's coming to get her.”

The leader licked his lips, glaring as if he really was ready to strangle me with his bare hands, right there in the upstairs hall. “Well, we don't want to take any chances. Let's get the rest of the stuff loaded and get out of here.”

“What are we gonna do with her, then?”

“Tie her up. It'll take all three of us to load that piano. The rest of the stuff won't take long, but let's move it. Just in case somebody does show up.”

I wasn't prepared to be shoved suddenly forward onto the stairs. I went down on one knee and was jerked upward as if my captor didn't care how much he hurt me getting me where he wanted me to go. “Buddy, get me some of that clothesline we're gonna use to keep the blankets on the piano.” He was propelling me down the stairs, and it took all the effort I had to stay on my feet. If I fell he'd probably drag me or walk on me, and I was already hurting from the pressure of his hand. He was strong enough to make me do anything he wanted; there was no point in struggling and getting hurt even worse.

“Where'll I tie her? We'
re taking all the chairs out of here,” he said as we reached the main floor.

Our dining room set was as old as I was, and I didn't think it would be worth much if they sold it, but it was the only one we had. I was sagging again, but the man held me up with one hand, as if it were no effort at all.

“We're not taking the kitchen chairs,” the leader said. “They're just junk.”

Under other circumstances I'd have been insulted to hear our possessions described as junk. Right this minute I was too scared to care.

“Hurry up, Bo,” Buddy said, and the one called Bo thrust me ahead of him along the hallway to the back of the house, banging me against the walls as we went.

“It won't do you any good to resist,” he told me angrily as he used one foot to pull a chair out from the table and forced me to sit on it. “If you don't behave, don't think I won't hurt you.”

I had no doubt about that at all. I collapsed into the chair, glad to sit down, because I wasn't going to be able to stand, anyway. The
backpack was a bulky weight between me and the chair, but he didn't take it off.

“Put your hands behind the back of the chair,” he ordered. I obeyed, feeling him looping the rope around the crossbars so that even if I stood up I wouldn't be able to free myself of the chair. I wondered frantically if they'd just take our goods and go, leaving me behind. I'd have to sit here until someone came home and found me, and by then they'd be miles away. It no longer seemed to matter so much if they took Dad's picture and Jeff's piano. What mattered was still being alive when my parents came home.

He pulled a wicked-looking knife out of a scabbard on his belt and cut off a length of clothesline. I yelped when he tightened the rope around my wrists. “It hurts!” I protested, but he didn't loosen it.

“Tough,” he said. “Get used to it.”

He was close enough to me so I could smell him more than before, an acrid, sour smell of nervous sweat.

“Come on, Bo!” one of the others shouted, and he gave me a threatening look as he
wound the rest of the rope around a table leg so it and the chair and I were secured together.

“Don't try anything or you'll get hurt,” he threatened before he left me there.

I didn't have any confidence that I wouldn't be hurt no matter how cooperative I was. From where I sat, I could see the broken glass in a window over the sink, confirming my guess about where they'd broken in. The table wasn't heavy; I could have dragged it with me toward the sliding doors onto the rear deck, but then what? I couldn't get loose, and I couldn't get untied to be free of the chair.

For a person who'd read so many adventure stories about people who rescued themselves from dangerous situations, I was doing a terrible job of coming up with any kind of solution to my own mess. The rope was digging into my wrists, and I wondered how quickly the circulation would be cut off enough to do real damage. Tentatively, I tried to slide my chair across the vinyl floor. It made a horrible screeching sound, and I stopped, heart pounding, afraid Bo would hear it and come back.

For a moment or two I heard their voices,
and then I figured they'd gone out the front door and were either too far away or were being quiet to avoid attracting attention.

It was very quiet in the house. I tried to control the hammering of my heart, tried again to think clearly. There must be something I could do that would help.

A shadowy movement at the sliding door that opened onto the back deck brought my head around so fast that my neck cracked painfully.

There was a figure out there, small and in a flowered dress. The woman pressed her face against the glass, her hands up on each side so she could peer into the kitchen more easily.

Mrs. Banducci!

I sucked in an excited breath. “Help!” I called out, hoping she could hear me. The sliding door wasn't the glass that was broken, however, and I didn't think I'd caught her attention. It was shadowy in here, and bright sunshine outside, making it hard for her to see into the kitchen.

Then I realized she hadn't seen me. She tried the slider, which of course was still locked. I was afraid to yell any louder for fear
of attracting the attention of the thieves. “Run for help!” I urged, unsure of whether or not my voice could reach her.

The old lady pulled back from the glass with a scowl on her face and turned away with no indication that she'd spotted me there, tied to a chair. I didn't dare yell any louder. I could hear the men coming through the house. I could even make out their words.

“What are we going to do with that kid?” one of them asked. “She's seen our faces. She can describe us to the cops.”

I shook my head at Mrs. Banducci, hoping the movement would make it easier to see me. “Run!” I said, but softly because I didn't want them to hear me. “Get help!” But I knew she didn't hear me or see me, either one.

She withdrew from the sliding-glass doors and disappeared, leaving me ready to fly apart in all directions.

The voices were coming nearer. “Are we going to have to shut her up permanently?”

My throat closed, and I was begging silently,
Please, God, please God, let her have seen me! Let her get to a phone!

“
Nobody has a gun,” the reply came, just outside the kitchen door. “How you want to do it? Drown her in a bathtub? Burn the house down around her?”

I'd been gasping for breath. Now I stopped breathing at all.

“Starting a fire's the quickest way to get somebody here in a hurry. There may not be anyone left in the subdivision, but there are plenty of people only a few blocks away who would report smoke.”

“So what do we do, then? Strangle her with our bare hands? You want me to do it?”

I forgot my wrists were hurting. How quickly could Mrs. Banducci locate a phone? Would she be in time? And all the time I was thinking, she didn't even see me.

My chest was burning, and I finally thought to take a gulp of air before my lungs burst. They were here now, two of them, staring at me as if I were a pig they were about to butcher, and with no more emotion than if that were the case.

“We'd better ask Cal,” Buddy said, and now I knew all their names, or at least their nicknames.
For all the good it was going to do me. They weren't planning to give me a chance to tell anybody.

“Where'd he go?” Bo asked, turning to look behind him.

“I don't know. He was right behind us.” Buddy was studying me in a way that made my skin crawl.

“Well, we've already been here longer than we expected to be. If we want to get this stuff unloaded and get back to another house yet today, we've gotta move.”

The one called Buddy wiped his arm across his mouth. “This place may be full of good houses, but it's beginning to spook me. We weren't supposed to run into anybody during the day, and I don't like it. Cal said there wouldn't be anybody in the whole subdivision.” He continued to glare at me as if I'd deliberately upset their plans and deserved to be punished for it.

Far off in the distance, we all heard the sudden wail of a siren.

Hope leaped in my chest. Had Mrs. Banducci managed to get to a phone after all? Were the police on the way?