Cheyenne thought it was just her and Griffin. In the house, for sure. Maybe, if she was lucky, the rest of them were gone from the property, too. However many there were. She had heard four voices while she was in the car, too terrified to move – Griffin, his dad, and two other men. Of course, it was possible there were even more but they just hadn’t spoken. She hoped the vehicle that had been driven away as they were walking into the house meant the other two men had left, too.
So she was pretty sure she and Griffin were alone. But how long would it be before one of the other three men came back? This might be her only chance.
She popped the last bite of hot dog into her mouth. Trying to sound casual, she shifted the food into her cheek and mumbled, “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“All right. Just a second. I have to untie you.”
He knelt beside her. For a second, Cheyenne wondered if there was a knife on the table. Did she have the strength – emotional and physical – to bury it between his shoulder blades? Could she kill a person if her own life was on the line? And was her life on the line? Maybe these men would ask for ransom and then let her go. But wasn’t it just as likely that they would take the money and never give her back?
Griffin finished untying her ankle, then helped her to her feet and led her down the hall. He opened a door. “The sink’s to your right, the tub’s on your left, and the toilet is all the way back on your right.”
“I’m going to turn the water on in the sink a little bit,” Cheyenne said. “Just for some privacy.” She emphasized the word privacy. Hoping to embarrass him a little. Hoping to push him farther away from the door.
As Griffin closed the door behind Cheyenne, she put her hand on her side of the knob. Her fingers pushed in the lock button just as it closed. If Griffin heard it, he would think she just wanted to be sure she was alone, and she did. But not for what he was thinking. Even the lock wouldn’t buy her much time. No more than a minute or two. But maybe a minute would be enough.
Then Cheyenne walked straight back, hands outstretched, kicking her feet a little ahead of her so she wouldn’t stumble over a dirty towel or the sink pedestal. On her left, her fingers brushed a plastic shower curtain. When she found the sink, she paused for a second to turn on the water. Not full blast, but enough to hide small noises.
Griffin hadn’t said anything about a window, but even before she reached it she could feel the air change. When she touched it, the pane was cold. She could tell it was made of those honeycomb panels that blurred but did not entirely hide what was behind them. Was someone on the other side right now seeing her hand, broken into pieces like a kaleidoscope? She turned her head, her left eye straining, but all she could see was the blurry starfish of her fingers.
What was on the other side of this window? She traced its outlines, stopping when she found a divide in the middle at about eye level. And, her fingers told her, a lock shaped like a half moon. Something inside her loosened a tiny bit when she tried the lock and it swiveled. She had hoped for this and feared it in equal measures.
In her head, Cheyenne reconstructed the twists and turns they had taken since leaving the car. It was a skill she had learned in the last three years. Before she had lost her sight, she could barely be counted on to remember left or right. After the accident, one of the first things the orientation and mobility instructor had taught Cheyenne was to always, always, always orient herself using cardinal directions.
Now it was second nature, like a computer program running in the background, there when she needed to know whether she was facing east, west, south, or north. She had gotten out of the car and felt the sun at her back. So that had been east, because at that point the sun was still rising. They had walked more or less due west to the house. A bedroom was at the back of the house – so even farther west – and next to it was the bathroom in which she now stood.
On the other side of this window, there was – what? Not the men, not the power tools, not the driveway. That was all on the other side of the house. Probably no neighbors, or Griffin wouldn’t have let her walk around outside with her hands tied behind her. The air ahead of them had been silent and still. No sounds, no smells except the scent of pine needles.
Who knew if anyone was watching her now or if a bush covered the window? Who knew that even if she managed to get out, she wouldn’t immediately find an obstacle – that out-of-control dog, a barbed-wire fence, or a man with fists or even a gun? Who knew that Griffin wouldn’t just break down the door, run to the window, and shoot her in the back?
There was no time to think, no time to hesitate. Cheyenne took a deep breath and slid the window up, praying that Griffin wouldn’t hear the faint rattle over the water gurgling down the sink’s drain. At the base of her throat, she could feel her heart pounding. She fought back the urge to cough. She tucked the trail of cord into her sock, so that it wouldn’t catch on anything. Moving fast, Cheyenne put down the seat and lid on the toilet, climbed up, and braced her hands on the windowsill.
RUNNING AFTER A FIGMENT
Cheyenne had been in the bathroom for a long time. But Griffin didn’t want to hover outside. He didn’t want to look all pervy. Instead, he paced back and forth in the hall.
Finally, he knocked softly on the door. No answer. He called her name and knocked louder.
Only then did he think of the window in the back of the bathroom. Crap! He tried to turn the knob, but it was locked. Griffin remembered hearing the lock click into place, remembered thinking she was modest for running the water, and knew that he had been played for a fool.
He slammed his shoulder into the door. The impact made his teeth clack together, but the door held firm. Bracing himself in the narrow hallway, he turned and kicked sideways at the door like a kung-fu guy he had seen on a TV movie. He kicked it once, twice, and then on the third try, something snapped and the door swung open.
A blast of cold air hit him in the face. So cold it was a wonder it hadn’t seeped under the door and alerted him to what she had done. The bathroom window gaped open. He ran to it and looked out. Outside, everything was still. There wasn’t even a breeze to ruffle the pine needles. The woods began about twenty feet from the house. He hadn’t left her in the bathroom that long. Even in a worst-case scenario, even if Cheyenne had gone deep into the woods, he should still be able to hear her crashing through the underbrush. Instead it was quiet.
How could that be? But he had already noticed how sure-footed she was, placing each foot as carefully as a cat, drawing back whenever she felt something that wasn’t quite right.
Even if he couldn’t see her, she couldn’t have gotten very far. The quicker he went after her, the quicker he would catch her. His half-formed plan was to bring her back, tie her up again, and convince her not to say anything to Roy. If his dad found out, Roy would beat Griffin black and blue. And probably Cheyenne as well. And that was if Griffin found Cheyenne and brought her back. If he didn’t find her – well, he didn’t like to think about what would happen then.
He had to hurry and find her before she hurt herself. It would be harder to keep the whole thing a secret if she came back all scratched up. A branch could catch her in the throat or poke her in the eye. She could sprain her ankle on the uneven ground.
Right now she must be moving as fast as she could through the woods, knowing that the only thing she had on her side was a little bit of time. Griffin felt a grudging respect.
He stepped up on the toilet seat and grabbed the casement. He was just swinging his leg out when the faintest of sounds made him look toward the tub. Now that he was two feet off the ground, he could just see over the blue shower curtain with its faded green and yellow seahorses.
And what he saw was Cheyenne, crouched in the tub. Hiding behind the shower curtain.
Her hand was pressed to her mouth, and her face was tilted up. Her eyes seemed to be looking right at him, and it was the oddest thing to see her expression not change when he looked back at her. She wasn’t completely still. A fine
tremble was washing over her body, so that she almost looked as if she were vibrating. He could tell that she was listening with every fiber of her being. Waiting for him to leap out the window and go running after a figment of his imagination. While she did – what? Found a phone and locked herself in a room? Ran out the front door and tried to find the road? Even hid in the house, figuring they would never look for her there?
As he balanced, half in and half out of the window, staring at Cheyenne, Griffin heard the sound of two cars, one right after the other, cutting through the crystalline air. He identified them as the Honda and the pickup, which was almost as bad as if it had been Roy’s Suburban. TJ and Jimbo were back.
In a few minutes, the two men would be in the house, wanting to ogle Cheyenne, wanting to talk about what they had seen at the shopping mall, wanting to boast about their bravery in retrieving the Honda.
In a single movement, Griffin pulled his leg back in and jumped, not out the window, but into the tub. With a sound like firecrackers, the shower curtain rings popped as the curtain ripped away under his weight. Underneath the damp, sour-smelling plastic, Cheyenne twisted frantically. He wrapped his arms around her muffled form. While he still could, before the engines cut out and the two men made their way into the house, he risked shouting at her.
“Listen to me!” He shoved her back against the tiled wall. Her head made a hollow thunk. “Listen! In a minute, those guys will be in here. And if they know you were trying to escape, they’ll tell Roy. And he’ll make our lives a living hell.” He gave her another shake for emphasis. “Both our lives. Do you want to get beat up and hog-tied? Do you?”
The shower curtain slid down from her face. Her lips were pulled back in a snarl. “I know your name. It’s Griffin. And now I know for sure that your dad’s name is Roy. When I tell the police that, they’ll find you in a minute.”
He grabbed her upper arms, hard, and he didn’t slacken his grip, even when Cheyenne cried out in pain.
“Do you just want to die?” Griffin hissed. “Is that it? You start pointing stuff like that out to my dad, he’s not going to feel like letting you go.”
Inside, he was shaking. Every second it seemed like all the choices got worse and worse. And there was no way to undo what he had done. If only he had spent two seconds checking in the backseat! A two-second mistake was going to destroy his life. Cheyenne was right, Griffin knew. If Roy let her go, the police would find them without too much trouble. And then what?
Suddenly, she went slack. “All right,” she said, her voice low. “Help me get out of here and then you can tie me back up. Quick.”
He hustled her out of the bathroom – closing the door on the tattletale ripped shower curtain – and then back into his room. He pulled the cord that was tied around her ankle out of her sock and quickly looped it around the bedpost. What about her hands? He had cut off the shoelaces, and the remainder of the cord he had used to tie her ankle was out on the kitchen counter. Griffin had taken two steps to get it when he heard the front door open.
He barely had time to turn back and hiss, “Quick – put your hands behind your back!” before TJ and Jimbo were thumping down the hall.
“You should’ve seen it!” Jimbo crowed. He had added a black down jacket over his coat. Griffin wondered how he had been able to fit behind the steering wheel. “That place was crawling with cops. And they had two of those portable news vans there with reporters doing stand-ups. One was that hot redhead on Channel Three. And they had yellow crime-scene tape up around a bunch of parking spaces – must have been where the Escalade was parked.”
“Where’s R—” TJ started, then said, “Ow!” when Jimbo elbowed him. “Why’d you do that?” he protested.
“No names, dummy.” Jimbo nodded in Cheyenne’s direction. “No names and she’ll never know who we are.”
It infuriated Griffin that Jimbo was capable of thinking further ahead than he had been. “He’s gone to make some phone calls,” Griffin said. He risked a glance at Cheyenne. She was sitting with her back against the headboard, her arms tucked behind her, as if they were still lashed together. Every time someone spoke, her head swiveled in that direction. He wondered if that was left over from being able to see, or if it helped her hear better.
“There was this other lady there, too, and people were lining up to interview her. Must have been your mama,” Jimbo said to Cheyenne.
“Her stepmom.” Griffin found himself correcting him.
“Did her real mom get herself traded in for a better model?” TJ said. “’Cause that Nike president’s got himself a nice piece of ass.”
“Don’t talk like that around her,” Griffin said sharply. He could see how stiffly Cheyenne held herself.
Jimbo and TJ responded at the same time with a mocking “ooh!”
“How much money do you think he’ll want to spend to get his own daughter back?” Jimbo said. “A million?” Griffin heard the yearning in his voice.
TJ reached out to finger Cheyenne’s curls. “A pretty thing like you ought to go for a lot.”
Cheyenne’s lips curled back. She jerked her head away from TJ. But when she did, she lost her balance and had to put out one hand to stop from tipping over. A hand that was obviously not tied to anything at all.
“Well, well, well, what have we here?” Jimbo said. “How come you don’t have her tied up?”
ONE WAY TO DESCRIBE STEALING
Something dark loomed in the corner of Cheyenne’s vision as the gross one taunted her. When she instinctively pulled back, her hand flew up, revealing that she was no longer tied up. She froze. What excuse would Griffin give? Five minutes earlier, she had been ready to scratch his eyes out. Now he seemed like the only buffer between her and these men who treated her like she didn’t have ears to hear what they said.
Griffin sounded unhurried, unworried. “She had to go to the bathroom. I was just getting ready to tie her back up when you guys came home.”
“Are you sure that’s all that’s been happening?” the gross guy said. “I mean, maybe you’re just taking advantage of the fact that you finally got a girl in your bed.”
So this was Griffin’s room, not a guest room. Cheyenne was surprised.
“Better not handle the merchandise,” the other man said. He seemed smarter, but not by much. “Remember, you break it, you bought it.”
Wanting to keep the focus away from her untied wrists, Cheyenne put the hand that was no longer behind her back in her pocket. She barely missed cutting herself on the piece of glass she had hidden there earlier. It was nestled in the kibble that always, since she had gotten Phantom, half filled her pockets. (Cheyenne had learned the hard way to check before she put her clothes in the washer.) The kibble was used for rewards, as well as for what the guide dog school had called counter-conditioning. If Phantom was distracted, giving him a piece of kibble was one sure way to get his attention back on her.
“Bring me the twine,” the second man said. “Let somebody who knows what he’s doing tie her up.”
The gross one sniggered.
For a minute, Cheyenne wondered if she could use the glass to hold them all at bay. And then what? She couldn’t come up with a scenario that lasted for more than a few seconds. It probably wasn’t even possible to cut someone with a broken piece of glass without cutting yourself at the same time.
“I’ve got things under control,” Griffin said. “And it’s not like she’s some huge flight risk. She’s blind, remember? You guys should go out and finish working on that Toyota.”
Nobody moved. There wasn’t a sound. She wished she knew what was happening. In the silence, she could feel the tension stretching out between Griffin and the two men.
Then the second man laughed. “You just think you got things under control.” But there was a note in his tone, as if he were trying to save face, trying to make Griffin think this was his decision, not Griffin’s.
Cheyenne and Griffin were both silent until they heard the front door o
pen and close. Then she said, “Thanks. I don’t like them.”
“You’re not the only one.”
“Who are they?” Cheyenne made a conscious effort to look toward his face. People got nervous if you didn’t look at them, but for her, the face was no longer important. It was just the place the voice came from.
“Guys who work for my dad.”
“Doing what, exactly?” What kind of employees would just accept it if you showed up with a kidnapped girl?
Griffin hesitated for so long she wondered if he was even going to answer. Finally, he said, “We sell cars and car parts for cheaper. Say you want to buy a seat for a Honda Civic. If you get it from the dealer, it’ll cost you three thousand. Buy it off us, it’s a lot cheaper. A lot.”
“So why is it so much cheaper?” Now that the two men were gone, Cheyenne’s body was reminding her how sick she was. She had used up all her energy thinking about how to escape, then deciding it would be better to try to find a phone once the house was empty, and then struggling with Griffin. “Do you guys run a wrecking yard or something?”
“Or something.” Griffin sighed and settled down on the end of the bed. Cheyenne pulled her feet farther back so that she wouldn’t touch him. “It’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that.” He took a deep breath. “One of the things we do is buy junker cars at auction. Stuff that the insurance company has declared a total loss.”
“And you use them for parts?”
“Mostly we just use a couple of the parts, and that’s it. Just the ones with the VIN on them.”
“What’s a VIN?”
“The vehicle identification number. Each car has a different one. There’s a tiny one on every dashboard that you can see through the windshield, but they put them in a few other places, too. The cops can check a VIN to see if a car has been stolen. So once we buy a junker, then we go looking for a second car that’s the exact same year, make, and model, only not totaled.”