by Morgana Best
He dragged me past a canvas swag and clothes flung over a wool sorting table. A coffee mug, thermos, and a half-eaten sandwich lay next to the swag, which was rolled up. A laptop sat nearby. This must be where he had been hiding out.
I was greatly relieved when he shoved me roughly into a small room. “You can stay here until…” His voice trailed away. “Who knows how long you will stay here? Anyway, scream all you like; no one will hear you.” He slammed the door and I heard the bolt slide home. After a few moments, I heard him drive away.
I tried the door, but it wouldn’t budge. I looked around my prison. It smelt of lanolin and red dust. The walls were all old wooden slabs. The floors were of wood, and there were no windows. The walls did not extend all the way to the roof—there was a sizeable gap between the top of the wall and the pitched roof, but the walls were far too high for me to scale. There was a wool sorting table, complete with pieces of wool stuck to it, in the corner of the room, I sized it up, but it was apparent that even if I stood on it, I would not be able to reach the top of the wall.
The air was still; there was not a sound to be heard, not even a magpie. Presently, I heard the familiar twang of a kangaroo’s tail hitting a wire fence as the kangaroo leapt over it.
I shivered, whether from cold or fear, I do not know. Some lengths of iron were missing from the roof. I noticed some old woolpacks thrown in a corner, and I figured I could use those for warmth if I was still here by nightfall.
I walked around the little room a few times, and then sat in the corner on the wool packs, after I had shaken them several times to make sure there were no spiders, snakes, or soldier ants in them. “Look on the bright side,” I said aloud to myself. “It wasn’t Lucas. It was his evil twin.” That afforded me more than a small measure of comfort. Despite the fact I was imprisoned in a remote shearing shed in the middle of nowhere, and might never be found, I was hugely relieved that Lucas, my Lucas, hadn’t been consorting with other women, after all. He had not undergone a personality change.
Despite my dire circumstances, I wrapped a woolpack around my shoulders, and smiled. After basking in the happy thought that Lucas was the same old Lucas he had always been, I began to grow afraid. The optimist in me figured that Lucas could force Lorcan to tell him where I was, but what if Lorcan kept away from Lucas entirely? I’m sure he fully intended to do so.
I had to find a way to escape. What would MacGyver do? I had no idea.
CHAPTER 21
I screamed for help until my throat was sore. Sure, Lorcan had said that no one would hear me if I screamed, but how did I know he was telling the truth? It was likely that he was, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.
I finally gave up. I tested every single floorboard to see if any boards were loose, but they were not. There was nothing lying around that would help me loosen a floorboard, not even an old teaspoon. I walked around the walls, pushing my fingers behind any boards I could, and trying to pull them off. That didn’t work either.
I looked up at the roof again. Surely there was a way to reach the top of the wall. If I could, I would be free. I dragged the wool sorting table over to a wall and climbed up on the table. I jumped up and down, trying to reach the top of the wall. It was well and truly out of reach. If only there had been a chair in the room. I could have put it on top of the table.
The sun was rising in the sky, and the day was getting warmer. I didn’t want to be sitting under a tin roof in the Australian sun without water. I had to get out. I looked at the wool sorting table again. It was a typical wool sorting table, the top comprised of narrow slats. I wondered if I could get one of the slats loose, and use it as a lever to wedge one of the planks out of a wall.
Then I had another idea. I took off the cord around my kimono, and threaded it through a plank in the wall that had a gap above and below it. I put my fingers under the lower gap and tried to catch the cord, but it wouldn’t sit flat. The wind was blowing through the shearing shed moved the flimsy, silken cord out of reach. Still, the wind couldn’t last forever. I left the cord dangling there and walked around the room one more time looking for something I could put through the gap to hook the cord to me. I had already looked through the room, but I was desperate.
Another scan of the room found nothing, as I had expected. I went back to the cord and stuck my fingers through the gap under the wood again. I reached for it, but the wind was still blowing it out of my grasp. I pulled the cord back through and doubled it over. That proved to be just as unsuccessful as my first attempt. I pulled it out of the gap once more and this time tied knots at intervals to weigh it down. I pushed my fingers through the gap, but the cord was still a little out of reach. I pushed harder and harder until the palm of my hand hurt. Finally, I grasped it. I pulled the bottom of the cord through the gap and then looped the top of the cord through it. I pulled and pulled with all my might, trying to loosen the end of one of the boards.
The kookaburras outside appeared to be mocking me, laughing at my efforts. I put in one more strong effort, and one end of the board came out of the wall. I grabbed the board and pulled as hard as I could, trying to get the other end out of the wall. There were two long nails holding it in place, so I pulled the board towards me as far as I could in an attempt to make the nails on the still-attached end pop out. I could see they were rusty nails, but they must have been in a long way, a very long way.
“Ouch!” A splinter impaled me. I pulled it out at once. I didn’t like splinters, but a splinter was the least of my concerns. I then moved my kimono cord down to the fastened end of the board. I looped it around the plank and pulled with all my might, but the nails would not budge. Finally, I took the free end of the board and stood behind it, and then pushed it into the room as hard as I could. It was flexible, and fought against me, pushing me back.
I made several attempts, and finally, the board itself fell free, the nails still in the wood frame of the wall. I peeked through the gap. Lorcan’s laptop was still there, which meant he intended to come back. At first I was relieved, thinking that I wouldn’t be stuck here for ever, but then I was terrified, because I thought he might come back to kill me.
I had to get out of here in a hurry. Now that I had one board out of the wall, I realised that my best bet was to lever the boards off the wall, leaving the nails still in the framework. Those nails were in a long way, but the wood of the boards was starting to rot, and I figured that was a better option.
The problem remained that I didn’t have anything to use as a lever. My eyes fell once more on the wool sorting table. I walked over to it and looped my kimono cord around one of the slats, right down one end. I pulled it with all my might, but it seemed to be more firmly fixed than the walls of the shearing shed. I gave up after a while and decided to have a rest. Perhaps if I sat down and thought about it, something would occur to me.
That seemed to do the trick. Although I wasn’t able to budge the slats in the wool sorting table, I figured I could push the table really hard onto the floor. The impact might make one of the slats fall out. If not, the impact might loosen one or more.
It wasn’t as easy as I had first thought. The table was heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. I struggled with it, but finally had it sitting on its short end. I gave it a huge push, but just as I did so, a searing pain shot through my shoulder causing me to push it in the wrong direction. It landed against the wall at a forty-five degree angle.
I groaned. This just wasn’t my day. “Don’t stop now. You have to keep going, Pepper,” I said to myself aloud. I went to wrestle the table back to the floor but then did a double take. If I could somehow climb to the top of the table, I should be able to make it from there to the wall, and then I would be able to get out.
I was pleased with my plan, but for the fact that the table was quite long. I took another look at the slats. They were close together, but not so close that I shouldn’t be able to get my toes through them. New hope filled me. I might be able to climb up the lon
g table, using the slats as something of a ladder.
I took off my runners and stuck my socks inside them. I was about to push them through the hole left by the plank I had pulled out, but then I rethought that. What if I wasn’t able to get out? I would want my shoes and socks in with me. Finally, I tied a knot in the laces and hung my shoes over the plank immediately under the gap. That would hedge my bets—I would be able to reach my shoes whether I got out, or stayed inside.
I gingerly climbed onto the upright table, worried that it would fall, but it seemed steady. I stuck my fingers and toes through the slats and very carefully climbed up the ladder, bit by bit. It seemed to take forever to reach the top, but when I did, I saw the wall was still above me. I would have to stand on the edge of the table and jump to the top of the wall. It wasn’t far—that wasn’t my concern. I was afraid that my whole weight on the top of the table would upset its balance and it would fall down, and then I would have to start all over again.
I pulled myself onto the top of the table, and sat there, straddling it. I carefully reached out for the wall, but it was too far. There was nothing else for it. I would have to stand on the edge of the table. There wasn’t much of a foothold and the edge of the table was uneven. I shimmied over to where it met the far wall, the higher wall. Pressing my hands against the wall for balance, I somehow managed to get myself to a standing position. I sized up the wall in front of me, and jumped. As I did so, the force of my weight pushing from the table made it fall back down to the ground.
I landed over the wall awkwardly on my stomach. It was uncomfortable, digging into my stomach as it was, but I was free—almost. Now I just had to get down to the floor without breaking any bones.
It always looked easy when people in movies did it, but it wasn’t easy for me. I swung one leg over the wall and then ended up stuck on the top. I fought the hysterical urge to giggle. My breath was coming in short bursts, and the top of the wall dug into my stomach. I put both my elbows over the wall and then lowered the other leg over. So far, so good.
It was still a long way to the ground. I lowered myself as far as I could until I was hanging on with just my fingertips, and then I let myself go.
I landed with a sickening thud, the force of my landing rolling me over. A wave of nausea hit me, I suppose due to the shock of the impact. I moved my limbs one by one. Nothing seemed to be broken. I felt quite sick to the stomach, but there was no time to sit down to recover. I walked, hunched over, to fetch my shoes from the gap in the wall. I then walked over to Lorcan’s rolled up swag and used it as a chair to put on my shoes and socks.
That was when I noticed the mobile WiFi device. I looked at his laptop. It was still open. He must have been in such a hurry that he hadn’t shut it, which meant I would not need a password to use it. I turned on the WiFi, and within seconds, the laptop had internet. Just as well there was service to this remote location, although given the way the Australian internet works, there was probably far better service to this remote location than there was to a city.
I opened up a new tab and logged into my email account. I sent an email to Lucas’s phone, and copied it to the Mugwort Manor email address. As the header I typed, Help! Lucas’s twin brother kidnapped me.
In the body of the email, I wrote, Lucas’s twin brother kidnapped me. I’m in a disused shearing shed at the end of that old sandy track that runs along the coastline and doesn’t go anywhere. Hurry! He’ll be back soon. I was about to press Send, when I thought of something else. I added, P.S. He says he didn’t murder Collier and Barnabas. He might be lying, but watch out in case he has an accomplice.
I pressed Send, and none too soon, because I heard a car engine outside.
CHAPTER 22
I closed the tab I had opened on the computer, and turned off the WiFi, and then looked around for somewhere to hide. At first glance, there seemed to be plenty of choices. There were numerous sheep pens and plenty of cupboards. While Lorcan wouldn’t see me unless he specifically searched there, those would be the first places he would look when he discovered I was missing.
The car engine stopped, and I heard a car door slam. I sprinted across the room and dived face first out the gap in the wall that served as a window. This time I landed roughly, although it wasn’t as far to the ground. Once more, a wave of nausea hit me.
I rolled onto my knees and crawled under the shearing shed. It wasn’t a scary place. The soil was sandy, and I wasn’t afraid of snakes hiding under there as it was light and airy. After all, this was the place where sheep were kept to keep them dry before shearing.
I suddenly realised I hadn’t mentioned in my email the fact that Lorcan’s car was the white car with Victorian plates. Still, I was confident Lucas and the aunts would be able to figure that out for themselves. I crawled along the sandy floor under the shearing shed as quietly as I could, heading for Lorcan’s car. If he had left his keys in it, then I was safe. I would be able to get away.
I didn’t know how much time I had before he discovered I was missing. There was an old woolpack on a stand blocking his view of the board I had pulled from the wall, if I remembered correctly. I figured he would have no reason to check on me, that is, unless he had returned to kill me.
My breath caught in my throat, and I crawled a bit more quickly. When I was outside, I carefully peeped over to look at the shearing shed door. To my dismay, it was wide open. I looked at the car. It was in his line of sight, but only just, parked as it was under the only shade tree in the vicinity. I skirted around, running bent over, making an arc to the car to keep out of Lorcan’s line of sight.
Finally, I was behind the car. I stood up a little more and looked through the window. The windows were tinted, so I couldn’t see any keys in the ignition. I shot a look back at the shearing shed, and then opened the door as quietly as I could. My heart sank. The keys were not in the ignition. Clearly, Lorcan was from the city. No one from a small country town would take their keys with them when parked in a location as remote as this. I put my hand under the driver’s seat, feeling around for keys, but came up empty.
Just as I slowly backed out of the car, a heavy hand landed on my shoulder. “How did you get out of that room?” A rough hands grabbed my other shoulder and spun me around.
Lorcan’s face was bright red. He muttered some angry words, and then grabbed me by my elbow, dragging me none too gently back into the shearing shed behind him. When we reached the middle of the shearing shed, he pulled me to him. “What will I do with you now? I have to find some rope.”
He was facing the door as he spoke, and I was facing the cupboards. He stopped speaking and froze, a look of horror on his face. He let me go at once.
I spun around.
“Pepper, come over here,” Lucas said.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I hurried away from Lorcan, but he made no attempt to restrain me. I hurried over to Lucas, and flung my arms around him. He held me close, and kissed the top of my head. “Pepper, did he hurt you?”
“No,” I managed to say. I was shaking with relief. Lucas took off his coat and wrapped it around me. It was only then that I realised that my kimono had come off in my jump from the wall, and I was only wearing the clothing Aunt Dorothy had bought for me. I was aghast. I looked up to see the kimono waving in the breeze from the top of the wall. Oh well, maybe I would look back and find it funny one day. Maybe if I lived to be five hundred.
Lucas kept his arm tightly around me and addressed Lorcan. “You’ve never been political. What changed?”
Lorcan eyed his brother warily. “I don’t know what you’re on about. Oh, political? I get it. No, I don’t have a political bone in my body, as you well know. You’re wondering why I’m working for the faction?”
Lucas didn’t respond, but I felt him tense beside me.
Lorcan was still talking. “I’m not political; I have no biases. I work for anyone who pays me.”
“Someone is paying you to do this?” Lucas said through gritted
teeth.
“Well, obviously they’re paying me a lot of money or I wouldn’t do it,” Lorcan said. His tone was menacing, and I was worried he might have a weapon concealed on his person.
“How much did they pay you to kill two people?”
Lorcan frowned. “I didn’t kill anyone. That wasn’t my doing.”
“Yes, but you were an accomplice.”
Lorcan’s face turned red again. “I don’t have to explain myself to you. You always were sticking your nose into my business. You control freak! Your little girlfriend won’t put up with you for long. She’s a good kisser, by the way.” He winked at Lucas.
Lucas tensed even more.
“I didn’t kiss you,” I said angrily. “You tried to kiss me, and I pushed you away.”
Lorcan laughed harshly. “Sure, you say that in front of him now. We both know what really happened.”
“Who are you working with?” Lucas’s voice was steely with anger.
“Yes, you’d like to know that, wouldn’t you? I’m not going to tell you.” Lorcan bent down to pick up his laptop. He held it to him, and then all of a sudden, he threw it.
The edge of it hit my head so hard that I saw lights. I fell to the ground.
I looked up to see Lucas bending over me.
“You’re bleeding!”
“He’s getting away,” I said in a shaky voice. “In his car,” I added for good measure, as I heard the sound of a car leaving.
“You’re my main concern,” Lucas said. “I’ll deal with him later.” He carefully helped me to my feet.
I put my fingers to my head and pulled them away gingerly. I expected them to be covered with blood, but there was hardly any. “My head isn’t bleeding much?” I said hopefully.
“No, just a little. Does it hurt?”
“It hurts a bit, but I hurt a bit all over.” Relief washed over me in waves, loosening my tongue. “Oh Lucas, I thought you’d gone quite strange. I never suspected you had a twin brother. You never told me.”
