After I finished my drink, I stood up.
“What?” Stoat didn’t even look away from the TV.
“Bathroom. Potty break.”
“Sit down. Hold it.”
“I can’t anymore. I’ve been holding it all day. Listen, Stoat—I promise I’ll be right back. You don’t really think I could climb out of that little window, do you?”
He made a show of studying the width of my hips. “No, I guess not,” he drawled. “You ain’t no skinny little kid.” But then all humor left his voice. “Don’t shut the door. If I hear it shut, I’ll break it down. Go ahead.”
Yes!
Maybe, actually, I could have fit through the bathroom window on a diagonal if I had tried, but I had no intention of doing so. I’d won victory enough; Stoat had let me out of his sight. And oh, what a relief it was to use the toilet without supervision. First, I nipped into my room and grabbed some dry clothes. Then, in the bathroom, I put on the dry things, including socks and sneakers, before I flushed the john. I even combed my hair. When I felt I was ready, I checked myself in the mirror. This time I had my guard up against a captive’s irrational shame. I looked levelly back at my own bruised eyes in the mirror, pressed my lips together, and nodded.
When I reported back to my chair in the living room, Stoat, as I had hoped and expected, barely looked at me. He appeared not to notice either my dry clothes or my shoes. I made myself nibble some more cheese and crackers, leaning back in my chair, hiding, I hoped, any sign of how high my adrenaline was running.
It was the middle of the day. Cars passed occasionally. Strangers were still parked at Stoat’s place; I’d checked on my way back to the living room from the bathroom. If Stoat had any sense, he wouldn’t harm me once I got where people could see. To reach the front door, I would have to run straight past him, and he’d stop me before I could get there. But the back door . . . I measured the distance with my eyes. Much shorter. But farther from where Stoat sat.
Taking a deep breath, I stood up.
“What?” Stoat barely stirred from watching the “warriors” on TV, barely even sounded annoyed.
“I’m going to get some napkins.”
“What the hell for?”
Already halfway to the kitchen, I catapulted into a run, darted to the back door. Quickly—I’m not sure I had ever moved faster in my life—I twisted the dead bolt and grabbed the doorknob—
It wouldn’t turn.
I tried again, wrenching at that knob as if I wanted to tear it loose, but to no avail. I couldn’t open the door.
Although the door was not locked, the latch wouldn’t budge no matter how I turned the knob. I rattled it—
Behind me—not nearly far enough behind me—Stoat laughed. Laughed! The bastard, he’d been playing me all the time. He had probably disabled the doorknob while I had been taking my good old time in the bathroom. “Something wrong with the damn door, huh?” he drawled as one of his wiry arms clamped around me from behind, pressing my upper arms to my sides, and something dreadfully sharp nudged the front of my neck.
• • •
“Forrie.” Quinn sat on the sofa next to his tough kid brother who was coming undone. “Like you said, this place is sicko. You want to get out of here, go somewhere, have something to eat?”
Forrest looked up at him wild-eyed and addressed a completely different, unspoken question. “If he killed her, then what’s her purse doing here? Wouldn’t he have gotten rid of the evidence?”
Quinn found he couldn’t meet his brother’s stricken gaze. He studied his own Italian leather shoes.
“Quinn?”
He had to clear his throat twice before he spoke. “According to TV, sometimes criminals keep items from the victim.”
“You think that handbag is a trophy? A souvenir?” Forrest sounded squeaky, almost hysterical.
Quinn didn’t trust his own voice to speak. He nodded.
“But he’d be crazy not to get rid of her ID!”
Quinn stood up and went around the sofa to where he had found Mom’s purse in the first place, checking the floor for an object he had just hazily remembered. But Forrest had kicked stuff around so much that he didn’t see it anywhere. He got down on his hands and knees to search under the end table and the sofa.
Forrest asked, “What are you looking for?”
“That pad of paper.”
“Huh?”
“When I picked up Mom’s bag, there was a tablet of cheap paper, the kind they give to kids in school, lying on top of it.”
“On top of it?”
“Yes, as if it had been placed there for some reason.”