by Ted Dekker
My heart was lead in my chest. My face felt like it might fall off my head. Each step felt like a step farther into hell.
I didn’t bother to shower on Sunday—I just couldn’t. I couldn’t listen to music. I couldn’t prepare food or clean. I could hardly think.
So I sat on the stuffed leather chair in the living room and stared out at the ocean for most of the day, clinging to a fading hope that at any moment the door would fly open and Lamont would crash in to rescue me as he had once before.
He didn’t.
Monday morning was like Sunday morning in every way except this one: I accepted that I was alone. Not just in the house, but in the world. Someone had taken Lamont from me, and I would have to go on without him.
The thought was overwhelming. For four days, I’d focused on Lamont, on my concern for his safety and on my loss of him. Now I was forced to start thinking about Renee.
What was I to do? How could I live? Would I have to leave the house? Who would buy the groceries? Who would pay the bills? Did I have any money?
Was Lamont really dead? Would there be a funeral?
I paced in front of the big window overlooking the ocean, hands on my cheeks. Think, Renee. You have to pull yourself together. You have to figure out what to do.
The house wasn’t in my name, I was sure of that. To my recollection, he’d never mentioned anything about a will or arrangements other than how to get out of the house, and I couldn’t even remember the details of that conversation.
I stopped pacing and made my first decision. I had to find a way out of the house. I couldn’t stay cooped up in here forever, could I? The food would run out eventually. What if I knocked over a candle and set the place on fire? How would I get out then?
I had to get out!
Frantic with this new problem, I ran to the front door, quickly unlocked all the latches, and tugged. It didn’t budge. I screamed at the door and jerked as hard as I could, but I might as well have been tugging on a solid concrete block.
I flew to the other doors and found them no more responsive, as expected. Without functioning doors, the most obvious way out was through a window, but they were all welded shut and I wasn’t about to break a window. Lamont would have an absolute fit.
I would have a fit if I had to break one of those beautiful windows that I’d shined so dutifully all these months. Besides, the glass panes were thick, I wasn’t even sure I could break one if I had to; besides, Lamont had said not even a shotgun blast could blow one out.
Still, I ran through the house, checking every window just to be sure that none of the welds had cracked. There weren’t many because, except for the wall facing the ocean, the rest of the outer walls were made of solid brick.
The doors were locked. The windows were sealed. I was helpless!
There was a pull-down attic ladder at the end of the hall. I’d poked my head up there once, saw nothing but insulation, and made a hasty retreat. But now I wondered if there could be a vent in the space.
A shower of debris fell to the floor when I pulled the ladder down, and I ignored the temptation to sweep it up. I climbed the ladder, found a light switch on the frame at the top, and studied the attic by the dim light of one incandescent bulb.
Past mounds of pink insulation, through a maze of cross members, in the attic’s farthest wall, rays of light angled through the slats of a square vent.
I stared for a while, considering the challenge of navigating my way to the vent. Maybe I was light enough to walk on the ceiling without breaking through. No. No, I couldn’t risk that. If I crashed through to the floor below and broke my legs I might die in the house, alone.
Getting to the vent wasn’t the only challenge. I had to get it open, and even then I didn’t know how far it was above the ground.
What else could I do? I had to pass through the darkness ahead if I wanted to reach the light beyond.
Teetering on one of the main beams, I made my choice. The wood was solid and several inches wide, so I moved quickly and crossed the attic with surprising ease. I reached the square attic vent, gripped the slats with my fingers, and peered out, feeling elated.
I could see the driveway and the bushes on either side, but the ground looked too far down for me to jump. A large palm tree swayed in the wind ten feet away. I couldn’t jump ten feet!
The slats bent in my hands, so I tugged at one and was rewarded with a crack. Like a woman clawing at the face of a thug in a dark alleyway, I attacked the thin wood with both hands and tore the slats away, one by one, until I was panting and dizzy enough to fall.
A heavy metal screen protected the vent from the elements, and the moment I put my hand on it, I knew there was no way I could break through the barrier. But I could see the screws that held the screen in place. If I could unscrew them, I would have a clear escape path.
Rope.
If I had rope, I could climb down. Then I could unlock the dead bolts on the front door. Once the house was open, I could come and go as I wanted, which would only be when I was absolutely desperate for food or supplies.
I had to find a screwdriver and some rope. There was only one place where those might be.
I scurried back to the attic door like a wheezing rat, lowered myself into the hallway, and took the stairs at the end of the hall down to Lamont’s bedroom.
I ran into his room, hit the overhead light switch, and hurried to the trophy room door. Locked. Naturally. But the key was on the dresser. I knew it well.
Thirty seconds later, having unlocked both dead bolts, I stood in the doorway to his inner sanctum. I hadn’t had this much exercise in over a year, and my arms were trembling.
Hold it together, Renee. Don’t collapse now. Find a screwdriver and some rope and get out of the house. That’s all you have to do.
I nearly turned around and ran back to my room then, because I really didn’t want to leave the house. I was lost without Lamont, a ghost without a home. All of this was pointless.
And yet I walked into the trophy room and looked around. The room smelled like Lamont. His desk sat on the near wall, an ornate wooden antique that had three drawers on each side. His papers were neatly stacked on the surface, everything in its perfect place, screaming his name.
Two of the walls were lined with mounted heads, like those in my own pink-and-white room. These were my protectors when he was gone, Lamont said. I knew the ones down here well: a water buffalo that was too large for the room, two gazelles, a zebra, a boar, and a fox, all from Africa.
I saw their glassy eyes staring at me now, filling me all over again with the weight of my loss. He’d always meant so well for me. However quirky all his compulsions were, he was the only one who loved me.
Move, Renee. Get out before they come.
The new thought sharpened my sense of urgency. If Lamont had been killed, wouldn’t the men who’d done it come to his house to clean up anything that might point to Bourque’s illegal activities?
The rope was easy to find. Three lassos hung from a hook on one of the walls. I took down the thickest one, though the thinnest would likely hold my weight.
The screwdriver was a different matter.
I’d never been through Lamont’s desk and I didn’t want to do it now, but if I were him that’s where I would have put a screwdriver. So I pulled out the drawers one by one and rummaged through their contents.
I found paper clips, several old cameras, files and empty notebooks, binoculars, various electrical cords and adapters, rubber bands, a pocketknife—which might have worked, though it looked too flimsy—and other assorted items, but no screwdriver.
The bottom right drawer was locked. Having run out of places to search for a screwdriver, I began to panic. I put my heels against the desk’s legs and tugged with a grunt.
The old wood around the lock crumbled and the drawer flew open.
Stunned by my success, I leaned in. There was no screwdriver in the drawer. There was, however, a large number of neatly bound
and stacked hundred-dollar bills.
Money. A lot of money.
Of course, this made perfect sense. Lamont was the kind of wealthy man who, not trusting any system but his own, would keep a stash of money for emergencies.
The ceiling above me creaked, and I caught my breath.
There it was again: the soft shuffle of a step and another soft creak.
My first thought was that Lamont had come home.
My second was that I had just broken into his desk.
I shoved the drawer shut without making any attempt to hide my breach of his privacy and flew from the room like a bird from a cage.
He called out when I was halfway across his room. “Hello?”
It wasn’t his voice. I pulled up sharply and listened without daring to move a muscle.
The feet padded softly above me again. Whomever they belonged to, they were not Lamont’s. The police, maybe? Or a friend of Lamont’s who’d come to get me and take me to him?
Or the people who had killed him.
Four days of wild imaginations sliced through my mind again, severing the nerves that told my muscles to move.
If they were the police, wouldn’t they have identified themselves? If they had come on Lamont’s behalf, wouldn’t they have called my name? I had left the ladder to the attic down, and the floor was littered with evidence that someone was or had been in the house.
The vent in the attic was broken.
Terrified I would be discovered, I acted without any plan whatsoever. I ran back into the trophy room, pulled the door closed behind me, and slid both dead bolts home. The key was in my pocket.
Feet continued to walk overhead, more than one pair, I thought.
I turned off the lights, groped my way into the corner behind the desk, slid to my seat, drew my legs close to my chest, and waited for them to force the door open and kill me.
9
MY WAIT DID not last long. I could hear the soft mumble of voices as the people above moved around on the main floor, and with each step they took, I imagined new scenarios, all of which ended badly for me.
When the sounds finally stopped, I was sure it was because they had left the main floor and were descending the stairs to Lamont’s room.
I was right.
“It’s empty,” someone said.
“Check the closet.” Another muffled voice.
The knob on the door rattled. “It’s locked. Framed in steel with a dead bolt.”
“Look for a key.”
I could hear them opening and closing drawers, and I held my breath, praying they wouldn’t find a second key that I didn’t know about. If I knew Lamont, they wouldn’t be able to bang the door down. I clung to that hope. A rotting desk inside a locked room was one thing. Getting into that locked room without a key was another.
“Nothing. Try the door again. Use force.”
They spoke in the mechanical voices of men who used force for a living. But after a few hard crashes into the door, the man applying that force backed off.
“Not gonna happen.”
“Make it happen! Bourque says everything, he means everything.”
“It’s gonna take a torch. Two bolts deadheaded into a quarter-inch steel plate.”
The other man swore. “I’ll get it. Check the rest of the attic.”
They left, padding up the stairs.
Crouched in the dark corner, I no longer had to guess at my predicament. Lamont’s instincts hadn’t betrayed him. Bourque either had him or had killed him, and he somehow learned that Lamont wasn’t living alone. They’d come here to eliminate me.
I had two choices that I could see, and both were terrifying. One: I could try to sneak out now, leave the house with nothing but my pajamas to my name, and wait for Cyrus to hunt me down.
Two: I could take the time to grab the money and then sneak out, hoping my delay didn’t give them enough time to get the torch from their vehicle and return.
I didn’t want to see Cyrus’s face ever again, not unless it was at the end of a long shotgun firmly in my grasp. So I stood and hurried toward the light switch, banging into the desk as I went.
Ignoring the pain in my thigh, I dropped down by the bottom drawer and pulled it open. Now I had another choice to make. How much?
I thought about taking the whole drawer but rejected the idea immediately. I could make a sling of my flannel shirt front and carry as much as it would hold. Anything I stuffed into my waistband would only fall through my pant legs when I ran.
I glanced around the room for a bag or anything I could use but saw nothing. I had wasted valuable time; if I waited much longer it wouldn’t matter how much money I took.
Standing, I slid my long flannel pajama pants off and then quickly tied a knot at the bottom of each leg. My top was long enough to cover most of me. I would have rather run outside in an oversize shirt than go topless.
I feverishly stuffed all the money packets into my makeshift bag, slung it over my shoulder, and, hearing no creaking or walking above me, unlocked the door to Lamont’s bedroom.
Not until I was on the bottom step did I consider what might happen if they returned to find the door unlocked. They would hunt me down before I managed to get off the property.
I flew back, locked both dead bolts using the key, then ran up the stairs. It was now a race—either I’d get out the front door without being seen, or I was dead.
My heart was weak from the lack of exercise, and it was flopping like a waterless fish. I was sure they’d opened the doors from the outside, so I sprinted for the side door leading into the garage, thinking I could slip out the back of the garage and then…
I didn’t know what then. I only had to get out of the house before they saw me.
The door was open. I yanked it wide and for the first time stepped into Lamont’s garage. Light streamed in through two small windows near the ceiling. I closed the door behind me and allowed myself to breathe.
Lamont’s BMW was gone. A white Audi sedan sat in the third bay. As much as I would have liked to zoom away to safety in a car, I wasn’t sure I could still drive well enough to navigate busy streets. Or, for that matter, lead a chase through those streets—they wouldn’t just let me drive away. Besides, I didn’t have the keys.
I tiptoed to a door that led out the back, twisted the lock, and pulled it open a crack. I recognized the terrain leading down to the rocky beach. No one blocked the way that I could see.
Now the challenge of getting away from the house unseen confronted me. My tender feet couldn’t exactly blaze a trail through the underbrush, and running down the street in nothing but a flannel top, with a sack that look conspicuously like pajama bottoms stuffed with hundred-dollar bills, was hardly the way to slip into obscurity.
I stood with the garage door opened a foot, frozen by the thought that I had come so far only to go nowhere.
The Audi was there to my left. The Audi had a trunk. What if I hid in the trunk until they left?
I heard the solid clunk of a door closing inside the house, and that got my feet moving in the direction of the car. I only hoped that there was a way to open the trunk from the dash. And that the Audi wasn’t locked. What if the Audi was locked?
The driver’s door came open when I pulled the handle. Thank God. Thank God, thank God. I dropped my two-legged bag on the ground by the driver’s door before slipping into the front seat. I pushed buttons and pulled levers, praying for the right one. The hood popped halfway; the steering wheel tilted up. Where was the trunk release?
I muttered something nasty in a raspy voice.
The lever that opened the trunk was located to the left of the steering wheel. I learned this when I jerked it and was rewarded with a solid pop behind me.
Elated, I dipped out, grabbed my makeshift moneybag, and ran to the rear. I threw the stuffed pajamas into the trunk and was starting to climb in when I saw that I’d left the driver’s door open. Nothing I did was smooth, but at least I was thinking on my f
eet.
It took me five seconds to close the door.
It took me fifteen to get into the trunk, because when I had one leg inside, I realized I couldn’t lock myself in. How would I get out? I pulled my leg out and stared dumbfounded until I saw the cord with a handle marked TRUNK RELEASE.
Of course! All cars must have a simple means of escape for stowaways. Moments later, I was in the dark trunk with my back to the money-filled pajamas, sweating profusely and breathing hard but otherwise alive and safe.
For the moment.
Hidden away in the trunk, I could hear nothing but my breathing, which gradually slowed until I was able to draw air through my nose. Then the real wait began. A dozen times I was tempted to pull that cord and see if Bourque’s men had gone. How would I know?
I would wait until dark, I decided. Once it was dark, I could climb out and sneak around unnoticed. Then again, legs as white as mine would likely be noticed half a mile down the road. Maybe I could sneak back into the house and get properly dressed.
Or I could stay in the house until I figured out what to do.
A rumbling noise made my decision for me. It was pitch dark in the trunk, but I could not mistake the sound of the garage door opening.
“I’ll lock up.”
I blinked in the darkness. The voice was muffled, but I thought that’s what I heard. They were leaving!
The car shifted with the weight of a driver climbing in. With a single beat, the engine purred to life and my heart nearly stopped. They were taking the car!
I groped for the trunk release and found it but stopped short of pulling the cord. Popping the trunk now would be the worst thing I could possibly do. They would see the skinny white girl tugging a two-legged bag from the trunk and then running across the driveway. Once they got over their shock, they would either gun me down or run me over.
The car was moving. Backing up.
Rock music blared from speakers behind me. I was trapped with Led Zeppelin singing “Stairway to Heaven.”
It took me only a few seconds to conclude that my life was as good as over. I should have sneaked out to the beach and hidden behind a large rock. I could have hidden in the corner of the garage with a blanket draped over my head. I was a fool not to dig a hole in the sand and bury myself until they had left.
