by Sara Rosett
I wasn’t in bed at all. The surface under me was carpet, I realized.
The memory of what had happened hit me like a physical blow. Simon. And Marie. Where were they? Cautiously, I moved my head and felt okay—a bit like I’d just had a serious bout with the flu—shaky and tender. So, no sudden moves. I touched my temple, then winced. A lump was already forming. I reached out, my fingers exploring the prickly carpet. Before I could extend my arms fully, my hands hit solidness, a wall. My legs, folded at the knees, bumped against another wall when I tried to extend them. I carefully rolled from my side to my back and rotated my head. Now that I was on my back, I could see a strip of light cutting through the black, just above the carpet. I remained still, listening, straining to hear something. No sounds at all.
I inched up onto my elbows. My head felt okay, so I shifted into a sitting position and a swath of heavy cloth fell over my face, blotting out the strip of light as effectively as a blackout curtain. I swatted the fabric away with probably more force than was necessary and then had to pause while my stomach settled down. I ran my hands over the fabric and encountered buttons and more fabric suspended in the air. I was in a closet, Marie’s hall closet, I thought. I patted the air until my hands connected with the door frame. Lightly, I traced along it until I found the light switch I remembered was inside the closet. The light clicked on, dimly filtering down through the coats and scarves above me. I recognized the coats, Marie’s special scarf rack, and the box of toys for her nieces.
I sat, listening. The complete silence unnerved me. Hearing Simon moving around on the other side of the door would have been frightening, but at least I would know where he was. Was he still in the house? Did he have Marie with him? Was she okay? Was she out there, maybe on the other side of the door, unconscious like I had been? I shook my head. It was no use, sitting here making up scenarios in my head. He and Marie could be out there, but he could be long gone, too, and that would mean I could walk out of here. I stood up cautiously, alert for any dizziness, but I felt okay, so I turned the door handle gently, pressing against the door, prepared to open it just a sliver.
The door didn’t move. I put my hand against it and shoved. Nothing. I braced my feet and leaned into it with my shoulder. It didn’t budge. I dropped back, became entangled with the coats, and bumped my shoulder against the coat rack. I grabbed the hangers, stilling the clattering they were making. I paused. If Simon was near the closet, he’d know I wasn’t unconscious anymore, but I didn’t hear anything from outside the door. No creaking floor, no slamming door, no voices. Nothing.
I released the coats and hangers and dropped back to the floor since it was easier to sit than to stand hunched over below the coat rod, and I suddenly felt a bit woozy from all that exertion. I rubbed my head and studied the doorknob. It didn’t have a lock on it, so Simon must have put something against the door—a chair?—to make sure it stayed closed.
I shifted my feet around, stretching my legs out as far as they could go, thinking it was rather absurd that I was locked in this closet. A few weeks ago, it had been hidden by piles of stuff. If I hadn’t helped Marie organize and clear out her hall, Simon would have never known the closet was even there.
The quote about being hoist by your own petard was echoing in my mind as I gave the door another go, using the shoulder that Simon hadn’t twisted like a pretzel, but it was clear that because of whatever he’d put in front of it, it wasn’t budging. In my mind, I upgraded the blocking item from a chair to the heavy tallboy from Marie’s living room.
I sat back against the wall, catching my breath. I’m trapped. How long would it be before Simon came back? I was pretty sure he’d come back. And he had a gun. What would I do then? How long would it be before Mitch questioned the text Simon sent him from my phone?
The nausea was fading and with it the rather hazy pain-laced view of my situation was dispersing. Everything was coming sharply into focus and I was scared.
I checked my watch, almost unable to believe that it was barely past six. I wasn’t sure what time Simon had arrived, but the whole scene from him marching me back into the house to Marie throwing the lamp couldn’t have taken that long. It had felt like it went on forever, but it was probably only ten minutes or so. I’d told Mitch not to expect me until six-thirty or seven, figuring on my normal three-hour session with Marie, so it would probably be at least an hour, probably longer, before Mitch began to worry.
Trying to get out the door had been instinctual. That wasn’t going to happen. A sense of hopelessness filled me. I’d never thought I was claustrophobic, but I felt like an animal trapped in a crate. There was nothing I could do to get out. I had no phone or purse. My phone was probably still turned off in Simon’s pocket and I’d dropped my purse when Simon shoved me into Marie. My purse was either out there in the hall or he’d taken it . . . somewhere. Not that the purse itself would do me any good, but there might have been something I could use . . .
I took a few deep breaths, lecturing myself about staying calm. Throwing a fit, or dissolving into tears—which actually sounded pretty good—wouldn’t help things. Better to assess the situation and keep trying things.
I squished down until my eye was level with the opening below the door, but it wasn’t wide enough for me to see anything or work my fingers more than a few inches through the carpet. I sat back on my heels and felt through the pockets of my coat, but all I came up with were my car keys, one chocolate kiss, and a wrinkled grocery list. Not exactly the mother lode.
I ate the chocolate, which made me feel a tad better—chocolate always has that effect on me—and switched to going through the pockets of the coats hanging in the closet. I found enough spare change to buy a Diet Coke, but nothing else. I went through the box of toys. No help there, not even a toy gun. Next, I checked the shelf above the coats. “Now we’re talking,” I said, pulling out a large golf umbrella. I remembered it. It had been one of the first things Marie and I had sorted through. She’d put it away in the hall closet, just as we’d discussed. It wasn’t much, but it was better than the mittens and boots I’d found so far.
When I was absolutely sure there was nothing else useful either to get me out of the closet or to possibly use as a weapon against Simon, I dropped back to my knees and looked at my pitifully small pile of potentially useful items. I picked up the keys and considered the door speculatively. Only two screws held the doorknob in place.
Maybe I could remove the knob and then use the umbrella to push away or tip over whatever was in front of the door. Not much of a plan, but it was all I could come up with. Using the keys and my fingernails, I set to work, trying to loosen the screws. I scratched and scraped, scarring the wood as the large car key repeatedly skittered out of the small grooves of the screw head. Had Simon taken Marie away from the house? Why would he do that? It didn’t fit with the plan he’d outlined. Unless he intended to stage some sort of suicide scene away from the house . . . a car crash? But how would you guarantee someone would die in a car accident? What if she survived? He’d have to kill her first, then stage the accident. I grimaced as the key slipped and I forced myself to cut off those thoughts. I had to focus on something else. Something that didn’t get me any more worked up and scared than I already was.
I stripped off my coat. The air was stuffy and smelled of wool and leather. I switched to using my fingernail and millimeter by millimeter I made progress. Okay . . . something else to think about besides what will happen when Simon comes back and what could now be happening with Marie. Mitch and the kids might be finished shopping by now. Never one to linger in stores, I bet Mitch had guided the kids in and out of the mall as quickly as he could, especially since it would be crowded with holiday shoppers. They were probably having pizza or ice cream right now, completely unaware I was locked in a closet. I sniffed. This was no time to go maudlin. That train of thought was no good, either.
My hand was cramping up, so I switched to my other hand, but I wasn’t nearly as agile with my left hand a
nd it was slower going. Don’t think about the kids and Mitch. Or Marie. I smiled, thinking of how brave she’d been, throwing that lamp. What had Simon said right before that? It was something important. He’d killed Jean because of money. But what money? Was he talking about the house that Jean inherited? Surely he wouldn’t have killed her over that. And, Jean made the new will with Gabrielle as the beneficiary, so he wouldn’t have control of the house or the income unless he killed Gabrielle, too, and wouldn’t that look just a tad suspicious?
I breathed out, a sigh of satisfaction as the tiny screw head rose above the housing. Quickly, I twisted it the rest of the way out and it fell into my palm. I felt like I’d won the lottery. I shifted to the second screw. What other money could there be that Simon would kill for? He would be receiving retirement income and had control of how it was invested.
This second screw was set tight in the housing and my fingernail broke off as I tried to turn it, but I barely noticed. “Helping Hands,” I murmured to myself, falling back on my knees. He was on the board of the charity. Hadn’t Jean told me he was the financial advisor? I chewed at my broken nail, thinking back. I’d talked to Jean after the white elephant gift exchange. Yes, I was sure she’d said he handled the finances. And she’d mentioned a big donation. A donation so large that they would be able to build two new houses.
I returned to trying to loosen the second screw, but my thoughts were racing. At the squadron Christmas party last night, I’d overheard Hannah and Simon talking about the cancellation of the home construction. At the time, I’d thought their big donation must have fallen through. Simon had said something about contributions being down, but what if they’d received the donation and Simon was skimming money from the charity? If that was true, it would have to be a significant amount to force the cancellation of two scheduled home builds. If Jean had figured it out and she threatened to expose him . . .
I paused, sucking in my breath as I remembered the list of numbers Jean had in her date book, the two columns of numbers. They were financial figures. Jean must have found them . . . the real financial figures for Helping Hands and the set of fake numbers. She must have written down the main figures, just enough to show what Simon was doing. She’d written “printouts” on her list of things for that day. Maybe she also had hard copies of the financial figures.
Jean wasn’t meeting with someone else after she had lunch with Diane. Diane was her business meeting. Jean and Diane did meet occasionally for lunch, but Diane was the food bank manager and she was on the board of Helping Hands. Jean was going to reveal to Diane what Simon had been doing. Jean didn’t wear her normal casual clothes because it wasn’t a relaxed meal between friends. In her mind, at least, the lunch was a business meeting and Jean wore a power suit, probably thinking that if she dressed seriously it would help her be taken seriously. And it was quite a charge she was laying out against Simon—embezzling from the charity. Jean had probably figured she needed all the ammunition she could get and a serious suit might help. Had she told Simon what she was going to do? Given him an ultimatum? Had she demanded he turn himself in, or else she would tell everyone what he’d done? I shivered in the stuffy closet. Gabrielle had said that Jean was a rule follower and from what I knew of Jean, she didn’t seem like a person who’d turn a blind eye to her husband’s embezzling money. I thought back to those lists of numbers in her date book, then my hands stilled as I remembered what else had been tucked into the back of her date book . . . brochures for apartments.
Gabrielle thought they were left over from when Jean helped her search for an apartment, but one of those flyers had a border of holly—those flyers were current. And there was the gap I’d seen in the closet where a rolling suitcase would fit. What if it wasn’t Kurt who’d packed the suitcase, but Jean? Had Jean planned to leave Simon? Maybe spend a few nights with Gabrielle after her meeting with Diane, and then look for an apartment for herself? But if Jean had packed the suitcase, where was it?
I returned to working on the screw, thinking that whether or not Jean was leaving Simon, he couldn’t let her tell anyone—that was why he engineered his alibi at the gym. He had to make it home and kill her before her lunch meeting, when she was going to reveal what he was doing. It only took a few minutes to drive from the gym to his house. By changing the clock in the gym, he gained about five extra minutes. I thought back, trying to remember the group of people I’d seen leaving their class when I went to talk to Paige. They had been in workout clothes, but weren’t toweling sweat off their faces, so the Hula-Hoop class was a low impact workout and Simon could leave without showering. He would take a minute or two to change clothes, but he could still be in the neighborhood behind his house to see Marie leave the garage by five after noon. Then, he would have been in and out as quickly as he could so he could make the short drive back to Helping Hands and be at his desk around twelve-fifteen.
I attacked the doorknob with renewed vigor. I worked fruitlessly for ten minutes, breaking and snagging every fingernail. The screw was set too tightly. It wouldn’t budge. I went back to using the keys, but they kept slipping away, gouging deep scars in the housing and the door.
Frustrated, I threw the keys on the floor and sat back on my heels, blinking away tears. I couldn’t stay in here. I had to get out. The well of panic that I’d tamped down earlier began to rise. I dropped my face down into my hands, wanting to give up and have a good cry.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t lose it now. I wiped my nose on the back of my hand, then reached out for the keys, which had bounced behind me to the closet’s back wall. The key fob had settled into a slight groove between the carpet and the trim board at the base of the wall. I pulled the keys out and ran my fingers along the groove. The furrow ran almost the length of the wall, then made a sharp right angle and continued to the front of the closet. I quickly traced my fingers along the line that turned two more right angles to form a square. I hadn’t noticed it at the front of the closet because the carpet had been flattened and pushed down, covering the shallow indention, but at the back of the closet where there wasn’t any activity, it was more noticeable.
Eagerly, I clawed at the edge. I thought I knew what it was. I couldn’t get any purchase because I didn’t have any fingernails left. I worked one of the keys into the furrow, then angled the square of carpet up, exposing a patch of dirt a few feet below the surface of the floor.
“A crawlspace,” I whispered to myself, smelling the earthy scent. I’d been sitting on an escape route the whole time. I hadn’t seen one of these for years. We’d had one in the house where I grew up. They were handy if you lived in Tornado Alley. If you didn’t have a basement—and only a smattering of houses in our area had basements—a crawlspace under your house was the last refuge if a severe storm was bearing down. A section of the subfloor was cut out so there was access to the crawlspace under the house. Carpet had been attached to this removable square so that it blended in with the rest of the floor. There had been many times when we had sat on the floor in my parents’ closet on spring afternoons, the crawlspace open, listening for the shriek of the tornado sirens. Cut slightly wider than the opening, this piece of subfloor fit snuggly over it like the backing of a picture frame.
I dipped my head into the opening. It wasn’t completely dark. I could see dirt about two feet directly below. The ground sloped steeply toward the backyard, dropping away to create a space under the portion of the house below the deck, which was enclosed on all sides with lattice. The floor of the deck was about five or six feet above the slight bumpy layer of earth. I’d be able to stand up over there. Backyard floodlights filtered through the lattice, throwing a grid pattern onto the soil. I pulled myself back up and worked my arms into my coat, making sure I had my car keys in my pocket. I shifted my feet around and dangled them over the edge.
I didn’t really want to crawl through the dirt. I was trying not to think about what could be down there, but I couldn’t quite block out thoughts of spiders and bugs.
They had to be down there. I swung my feet and braced my hands, but still hesitated. The closet had seemed close and tight. The crawlspace would be even smaller. And dirtier. I steadied myself. You wanted a way out. Here it is. Take it.
A faint sound penetrated my mental pep talk, the creak of a door. It took a few seconds for it to register because it was such a normal, everyday sound. I strained to listen, slowing my breath. Yes, there it was again, the faint squeak of a door, the door from the garage to the house, I realized. I’d heard it only a few hours before when I snuck a look in this closet while Marie was in the garage. Was it Marie? Simon? But why would he come in the garage?
Undecided, I froze where I was, straining for some indication of who it was. My heart pounding, I suddenly decided I couldn’t afford to stay and see. If it was Marie, she’d call out for me, wouldn’t she? A pouf of dirt rose as I dropped through the opening. There was movement on the other side of the closet door, the sound of shifting and straining.
My eyes were level with the strip of light under the door and I saw shadows slowly move as something was pushed across the doorway. With a quivering hand, I grabbed the golf umbrella and dropped into the dirt on all fours. Like a crab scuttling through shallow water, I low-crawled, elbows out, belly and face to the ground, kicking up dirt.
Tasting earth, I paused, checked above me. There was more space, so I struggled up and ran, doubled over in a low crouch, to the lattice. Why hadn’t I put the subfloor back? That would have thrown him off. The ground dropped down and I was able to hit a full stride just before I came to the lattice, but it was fastened tight and only gave slightly when my left shoulder hit it.
I glanced behind me, hoping to see Marie’s head or hear her voice.
A pair of men’s dress shoes dropped through the crawlspace hole, then tan khakis.
I turned back to the lattice, gripped it with both hands. I shoved and pushed. I heard a rustle behind me as a body began furrowing through the dirt.
