Harlan Coben - Shelter

I didn’t wait. I dived behind some throw pillows just as three men and one woman-the matronly one I’d heard on the phone-turned the corner and entered the room, pushing Ema aside.

“There you are, Bambi,” the woman said. She had a big beehive hairdo and cat-eye glasses. “All set, dear?”

From behind a pillow I tried to flatten myself down into the floor.

“Where have you been?” the man with the rough voice asked.

“Tee-hee,” Rachel said. “I was trying on outfits, silly.”

“Well, then why are you still wearing the same clothes?”

“Ummm, uh, nothing fit.”

I positioned myself behind the pillows in a place where I was able to see. Another man entered the room. He stopped short. “Wow,” he said, taking in Rachel, “you weren’t kidding about her.”

Along with Beehive, there were four men here now. None of them was Buddy Ray. So where was he? I thought about Ashley, about that monogrammed sweater and the pearls and how she was trying so hard to escape from this life. I thought about the way she looked at me, with such hope, and how, right now, she could be behind that door, in the dungeon.

Alone with Buddy Ray.

“Okay, this is perfect anyway,” Beehive said. “We can do the auditions right here, right now.”

“Now?” Rachel said.

“Sure, why not?”

With Beehive taking Rachel’s hand, the four men all dropped onto the throw pillows. The one with a rough voice landed right near where I was hiding. His back was less than two feet from my head. I held my breath, afraid to move.

The guy near me growled, “Candy, what are you doing here?”

“Who, me?” Candy said. “Nothing.”

“Then get out, will ya? And close the door behind you.”

“Yes, Max. Right away.”

Candy hurried out, and per the man’s command, she closed the door behind her.

“Okay, Bambi,” Beehive said. “Let’s get you up on that stage so you can show us what you got.”

“Now?”

“Right now.”

Rachel slowly got up onstage. She just stood there.

“Uh, Bambi?”

“I, uh, I usually like some music,” she said.

“We can sing if you want,” Max said, and there was an edge in his voice now. “But I’m getting awfully impatient here.”

I thought about going for my phone, but even that movement would reveal me. I tried to slowly slink off the pillow, move farther away from Max, and then…

Then what? What was I going to do?

Ema said, “Can I go tinkle too?”

Max waved an I-don’t-care at her. I wondered what she was up to-leaving Rachel alone-but I figured that she saw what I saw. No hope. She’d get out of the room and call 911. I remembered Juan’s warning about calling the cops, but what else could we do?

I looked at the fire door. I looked at the door to the dungeon.

“Dance!” Max shouted.

And so Rachel started dancing. There was a pole up on the stage. She ignored it. Rachel was a beautiful girl. She was stunning, with the face of an angel and a body that could not only stop traffic but make it back up a little.

But she was a terrible dancer.

She started dancing as though she were the awkward cousin at a bat mitzvah.

Beehive put her hand to her chest and groaned. For a moment the men just stared in something like horror. Then they started calling out:

“What the heck is this?”

“Dance, for crying out loud.”

“Shake it!”

“Use the pole.”

“Wow, that’s pathetic.”

“Wait, are you doing the electric slide?”

I started sliding off the pillow, an inch at a time, when Max stiffened.

“Stop a second,” Max said.

It was as though he sensed me. I moved a little faster, ducking behind the pillow a few yards away. Max slowly turned his head toward me. I was out of sight now, under two pillows. I couldn’t look out. I didn’t even dare breathe.

“What’s the matter, Max?”

“I thought I heard something.”

“What?”

Max got up. He started walking toward my throw pillow. The other guys got up too. They were moving closer to me.

“Okay,” Rachel said, “my top is coming off.”

That got their attention. They turned back to her. I quickly made another dash, behind pillows near the door to the dungeon. All eyes were on Rachel. She started doing a new dance, like some horrible imitation of John Travolta in that old disco movie. Beehive groaned again.

That was when the door to the room burst open. Ema ran into the room. Candy was with her.

“Bitch!” Ema shouted at Rachel. “You stole my boyfriend!”

“No!” Candy screamed. “He was mine!”

And then Rachel, catching on faster than I would have, called back, “You want a piece of me? Come on!”

Ema ran over to Rachel and jumped up onstage. She tackled her. Candy followed, jumping onto the two of them too. They all started screaming and shouting and fighting. For a moment, Max and the others didn’t know what to do. Other girls ran into the room, joining the fray. The fighters rolled onto the floor, right to the fire door, where I had no doubt Rachel and Ema would make their escape.

Ema, you genius!

No one was paying any attention to the pillows anymore. I made my move, staying low and hurrying toward the door to the dungeon. I tried the knob. It turned. I quickly pushed the door open and disappeared into the dark behind it.

WHEN MY EYES ADJUSTEDto the dark, I saw a staircase leading down.

The dungeon, it seemed, was in the basement.

I shut the door behind me and started down the steps. When I reached the bottom, I stopped cold. Cigarette butts littered the floor-I thought about poor Candy’s arm and shivered-but that wasn’t what made me pull up in shock.

There, in the middle of a cinder-block room, tied to a chair, was Ashley.

Her back was to me, her arms bound behind her. I was about to move toward her when I heard a voice say, “I thought you’d been kidnapped, Ashley.”

It was Buddy Ray.

I leaned back into the dark of the stairwell, staying out of sight. I ducked low and peered out. Buddy Ray was in a corner of the room. He sat on a big tool chest closed with a padlock. He smiled at her and shook his head. He was, I couldn’t help but notice, smoking a cigarette.

He also had a knife in his hand.

“Now, I know you ran away from me,” Buddy Ray said, putting on a fake hurt voice. “How do you think that made me feel?”

“Let me go,” Ashley said.

“You ran away. So now you’ll have to be taught a lesson,” Buddy Ray said with that creepy voice of his. He stood up and stepped closer to her. “I need to make sure-very sure-that you never run away from me again.”

I stayed hunched in the dark, wondering what to do here. I was too far away to jump him. He had that knife and could probably call for help.

“It won’t do any good,” Ashley said in a voice that was oddly calm.

Buddy Ray tilted his head. “No?”

“No. Because no matter how much you hurt me, no matter what you do to me, I’ll run again.”

“And I’ll find you again.”

“And I’ll run again. I don’t care if you cut off my legs with that knife. I will keep trying to escape. I don’t belong here.”

Buddy Ray laughed, shaking his head. “You’re wrong, my dear. So very wrong. What, do you think you belong in that happy little high school, wearing your little sweater, holding hands with your handsome new boyfriend? How do you think that new boyfriend would react if he knew the real you?”

That last remark hit home. I saw her stiffen. I wanted to shout out that it wouldn’t matter, that I couldn’t care less what her life had been before.

Buddy Ray spread his arms. “This is where you belong.”