She returned the book to the shelf and tucked the
Playboy
back in its hiding place. Then Bridget wandered over to the window. Past the interior screen and the outside bars, there was a sweeping view of the grounds. She thought about Sonny in his old bedroom with its view of Gorman’s Creek. How much had he seen from that window?
Bridget heard the door creak open behind her, and she swiveled around.
Staring back at her was an unshaven, gray-haired man in a pale blue cardigan sweater and dilapidated madras slacks that hit him at the ankles. He was wearing a pair of beat-up tennis shoes. He smiled at her. His milky blue eyes appeared a bit vague. He wasn’t wearing his hunting cap or his old merit badge. But Bridget recognized Sonny Fessler.
Zach’s hands and wrists were bleeding.
For the last fifteen minutes, he’d picked and scratched at the tape around his ankles until he’d managed to shred a section of it. He didn’t dare tear it off all at once, because that would have made a ripping sound, and the creep in the front seat would have heard. Zach still hadn’t spoken a word to him. But the guy kept taunting him every few minutes: “I know you’re awake back there, asshole . . . You aren’t fooling me . . . Don’t you want to know where we’re going? C’mon, fuck-face, talk to me. . . .”
So Zach tore the tape off his ankles a little section at a time. It hurt like hell—slowly pulling the hairs off his lower legs. But he kept thinking that he wasn’t going to die somewhere in these woods. He wasn’t going to let that malignant little creep put a bullet in his head and call him “
fuck-face
” or “
asshole
” while he was doing it. Those weren’t going to be the last words he’d ever hear.
Zach was able to break the heavy-duty electrical tape around his ankles. Some of it still clung to one ankle, but it didn’t matter as long as he could move his legs.
He was working on the tape around his wrists now—and it was a far more delicate and painful task. Because the guy in front was so short, he’d pulled the car seat up close to the wheel—leaving the back part of the runner-grooves on the floor exposed. The edges were sharp. Zach tried to slice at the tape by rubbing against those grooves. But he kept cutting his hands and wrists in the process. Blood covered the tape and ran down his arms.
The road was rough and full of potholes. He got thrown around the minibus’s floor several times. “Hey, feel that last one, numb-nuts?” his driver asked, over the sound of gravel and rocks deflecting off the underside of the vehicle.
A section of the tape was in tatters, and he kept wiggling his wrists and trying to pull his hands apart. He could feel it loosening. But he also felt the minibus slowing down. Zach looked up at the window, and saw the trees looming overhead. They were deep in the forest, driving on a dirt road now—he could tell. He worked frantically to tear the tape apart.
The minibus came to a stop.
“What the hell are you doing back there?” his driver asked. He switched off the engine.
Zach kept trying to slice at the tape. Sweat was running down his forehead—into his eyes. He heard the front door open. The little creep was humming.
The tape broke. Zach turned and twisted his wrists to free them.
The door opened behind him. Zach looked up. From his perspective, the ape-faced man was upside down—and slightly out of focus. But Zach could see he had a gun in his hand, and he was smiling.
“C’mon, asshole,” he said. “You and I are going for a walk.”
“Hi, Lon. I don’t know if you’d remember me, but I’m Bridget Corrigan—from McLaren.”
Sonny stared at her with a dazed, childlike smile frozen on his unshaven face.
“I—I came to visit you,” Bridget continued. She stayed by the window screen. She didn’t want to step toward him—for fear she might scare him away. “I hope you don’t mind visitors. I wanted to talk with you.”
“You’re the lady they’re looking for in the hallway.”
Bridget swallowed hard and nodded. “Could you close the door? I don’t want them to spoil our visit. I—I came such a long way to see you, Lon.”
“It’s against the rules to close the door—unless we’re in our rooms with a doctor or nurse.” He glanced over his shoulder, suddenly distracted.
“Is someone coming?” Bridget whispered.
He nodded.
“Please, don’t tell them I’m in here!” Bridget said in a hushed voice. She rushed toward the opposite corner of the room—so anyone poking their head in the doorway wouldn’t see her unless they actually stepped into the room and turned toward that corner. Bridget pressed her back against the wall.
“Lon?” Bridget recognized Mr. Jonas’s voice. “Did you see a lady around here? She’s wearing a black suit and a white blouse. She’s very pretty with brown hair.”
Sonny looked at her and giggled. Then he turned toward the doorway again. “No, I didn’t see any lady around here.” He turned toward her once more and grinned.
Bridget shrank against the wall.
“Okay, thanks, Lon,” she heard Mr. Jonas say distractedly. “Good Lord, I can’t believe this . . .” His voice faded—along with his footsteps as he moved on down the corridor.
“Thanks for covering for me, Lon,” Bridget whispered. “Only—I think they’ll be coming back. Do you know a place where we can sit and talk, where no one will disturb us?”
His face lit up. “Like a secret place? I have a secret place where I go, and no one knows about it.”
“You do?” Bridget managed to smile. “Well, that would be good, Lon. Do you think we could get there without anyone seeing us?”
He nodded eagerly, then took hold of her arm. Bridget let him lead her toward the door. He glanced up and down the hallway. “The coast is clear!” he whispered. “Come on!”
He pulled her across the empty corridor to a stairwell door. It had a punch-code keypad by the doorway frame. Without hesitation, Sonny pressed four numbers, then pushed the door open. He chuckled.
Bridget ducked into the dim, cinder-block stairwell. “You knew the code,” she murmured.
Sonny nodded. “I’ve been here a long time. I know a lot of the codes. I peek over their shoulders when they don’t think I’m looking.”
Bridget glanced around—at the cement stairs, and the harsh pools of light at every landing. It was a gloomy, cold place. She backed away from the door and leaned against the banister. “Well, I guess we can talk here.”
Sonny shook his head. “Oh, but there’s a nice room down in the basement, and no one ever uses it. That’s my secret place. We can go and talk there. They have a candy machine and a machine that makes hot chocolate. Do you like hot chocolate?”
Bridget nodded. “Sure.”
He gave her a shy smile. “I—I’ll buy you a hot chocolate. Okay?”
“Well, thank you. That’s very sweet, Sonny—I mean,
Lon.
”
His face seemed to light up. “I like being called
Sonny
. It makes me feel like I’m back home.”
Bridget’s heart broke for him. “Then
Thank you, Sonny,
I’d love some hot chocolate.”
“Okay. I’ll just get some quarters I saved in my bank.” He turned toward the door.
She reached out and grabbed his arm. “Oh no,” she whispered. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll treat you.”
He scowled at her. “You said you’d let
me
buy it,” he said, raising his voice a little.
“But I don’t want to take any chances—”
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “I promise. Cross my heart.” Then he opened the stairwell door and stepped out to the hallway.
Bridget waited alone in the dismal, windowless stairwell. On the other side of the door, she heard footsteps in the hall—then a woman’s voice: “Lon, we need you in your room. The security people are looking for someone, and the hallways have to be cleared.”
Biting her lip, Bridget listened for Sonny’s response, but she didn’t hear anything. There were more footsteps. It sounded like a few people. “Well, she couldn’t have gotten out of C Ward without setting off an alarm,” she heard Mr. Jonas say. He seemed to be right on the other side of the door. “I can’t understand how she could just wander off like that.”
Someone mumbled a suggestion to him. Bridget only heard part of it: “. . . unless we check every room.”
“I doubt it,” Jonas replied, sounding annoyed. “Wait a minute. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this before. Let me borrow your cell phone . . .”
Bridget crept closer to the door. Now Jonas was muttering something under his breath. “. . . then maybe she can tell me where the hell she has wandered off to,” she heard him say.
“In the meantime, we’ll start a room-to-room search at the east end of C Ward, and we’ll work our way—”
Suddenly, her cell phone went off. Startled, Bridget bumped against the cinder-block wall. The phone was inside her purse, but the sound still echoed in the stairwell. She realized Jonas was just on the other side of that door—calling
her.
Hugging the purse to her chest to muffle the sound, Bridget quickly crept down the stairs to the next landing. Once far enough away from the door, she opened her purse and switched off her cell phone. The silence was glorious—but probably too late. They certainly had to have heard the phone go off. Bridget tiptoed down a few more steps until she was in the stairwell’s shadows. She gazed up, waiting to see if they’d come. She listened for the stairway door to open, but there wasn’t a sound—only a mechanical hum from some machinery in the basement, maybe the furnace or a boiler.
Bridget didn’t know how long she waited, but she began to get a crick in her neck from looking up toward the first-floor landing. Was it possible they hadn’t heard her phone? She was beginning to think they hadn’t, when she heard the stairwell door’s lock click. A shaft of light hit the gray cinder-block wall. Bridget froze. She saw someone’s shadow move across that wall—until the door closed again, and darkness wiped away the image.
“Hello?” Sonny Fessler called in a timid, quiet voice.
Bridget let out a sigh. “I’m down here, Sonny!” she whispered.
He peeked over the banister and smiled at her. “Hi. I’m coming down to meet you.”
Lon crept down the stairs. “There’s a couple of guards in the hall looking for you,” he whispered. “I had to wait until they were gone. C’mon, follow me.”
He opened the basement door, and a mechanical roar greeted them. Bridget wasn’t sure if they were in the furnace room or the boiler room—or both. There were several big contraptions that resembled hot water heaters, and they made a loud racket. The place was dimly lit and hot—at least eighty degrees.
Sonny took her hand and pulled her along a grated walkway. Following him toward a door at the end of the long room, Bridget was glad she had on her low heels today. She tried to ignore the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. Here she was in a dark basement with a mental patient. She kept having to remind herself that Sonny Fessler was harmless.
They stepped into a long, empty hallway with yellow walls. Sonny pulled her past a couple of janitor’s closets, then stopped at another door, put his ear to it for a moment, and slowly opened it. Except for a couple of lighted vending machines against one wall, the room was dark. One of the machine lights must have had a short, because it kept flickering. “This is the janitors’ break room,” Sonny whispered. “Only they don’t use it much.”
He switched on the fluorescent overheads, but one of them wasn’t working—so half of the room remained dim, except for that strange flickering light. There were two small, high windows—with no view outside because of some bushes. The furniture was old and broken down: a worn sofa, a tattered easy chair, and a portable TV with a bent antenna. Some Gary Larson
Farside
cartoons had been taped on the yellow walls—along with scribbled reminders that were posted:
KEEP THIS ROOM CLEAN, TURN OFF LITE WHEN THRU
! and
NO SMOKING
. A large table and five mismatching chairs were near the vending machines. Sonny gestured toward a chair, and then quietly closed the door behind them.
Bridget sat down near the head of the table, while Sonny fished a couple of quarters out of his pocket. “They have good hot chocolate here,” he said.
The
HOT COFFEE
! machine looked like something out of the sixties. It was the one with the faulty light. The other machine had Twinkies, chips, pretzels, and chocolate bars—all of which had to be beyond their expiration dates.
“You don’t want coffee or chicken soup, do you?” Sonny asked. “They have those too, but the hot chocolate is the best.”
“Well, I’ll have that then,” Bridget said. “Thank you, Sonny.”
He seemed to get a big kick out of putting the coin in the machine, making his selection, and watching the little cardboard cup fill up. Biting his lip, he carefully brought the hot chocolate to the table and set it in front of her. The cup had a playing card design on it—some tie-in with a
collect them all
poker contest.
“So, Sonny, you didn’t say whether or not you remember me from McLaren,” Bridget said, while he got some hot chocolate for himself. “I’m Bridget Corrigan. You know, Brad’s twin sister?”