Julia Spencer-Fleming - To Darkness And To Death

“The Planetary Liberation Army.” She looked up at Lisa. “No wonder you were worried. This is the group that fire-bombed a research lab in California last year. Killed three people.”

Lisa nodded grimly. “I saw this special about them on MTV News. It said they also blew up an SUV dealership in Michigan.” She held up another pamphlet. “This one is all about the evils of big, gas-guzzling, four-wheel-drive trucks.”

“They’d have a field day with the search and rescue guys,” Clare said, picking up a typewritten letter. It was addressed to Millie van der Hoeven. It thanked her for her cash donation and her interest in aiding the PLA in its mission. It suggested any further discussions be held in person.

“These started showing up after Millie got here at the end of the summer. I found ’em in the drawer when I was looking for a piece of paper to write down a phone message. I didn’t say anything to Mr. van der Hoeven, ’cause I figure it’s nobody’s business.” At Clare’s look, she frowned. “I didn’t want to cause bad blood between the two of them. He thinks her environmental causes are crazy enough without this.”

“What do you think?” Clare asked.

Lisa shrugged. “Maybe she had some sort of secret meeting with them? It says meet in person.”

“But why wouldn’t she have returned already? You’d think the last thing she’d want to do would be to draw attention to herself.”

Lisa looked into the middle distance for a moment. “If I was going to do something illegal-like blow up a car dealership?-I’d think being lost in the woods was a great idea. Get someone to pick me up, do the dirty, then get dropped off at one of the access roads that lead onto the property. Come wandering out, tired and cold and hungry. Who’s to say she hasn’t been lost the whole time?”

“You don’t like her very much, do you?”

Lisa raised her eyebrows in surprise. “I don’t know her well enough to like her or not. But, you know, nowadays, you gotta be on the lookout for terrorists everywhere. There’s no reason they might not go after Millers Kill.”

Clare thought Millers Kill would fall pretty far down on the list of possible targets for an environmental terrorist group. But then again, she would have thought that about an SUV dealership in Michigan. And wasn’t one of the dealerships in Fort Henry selling Humvees now?

Clare held up one of the pamphlets and the letter. “Can I keep these? If the police get involved-” Lisa’s dismayed face stopped her. “Not that they necessarily will. But I’d like to show this, unofficially, to the chief. He’s a friend of mine. He might have some ideas about finding her.”

Lisa was shaking her head. “I don’t want to get anybody in trouble. I know how the cops are. Nothing’s ever unofficial.”

“Have you thought that it might be the other way around? What if Millie met with these people, decided she didn’t want to take part in whatever they were planning, and they’re holding her against her will?”

“Riiight.” Lisa’s face showed what she thought of that idea. She swept the pamphlets off the wine crate and held out her hand for the remaining papers.

“Please?” Clare said.

Lisa sighed. “Oh, all right.” She shoved the pamphlets into the drawer. “But you don’t mention my name. I didn’t show these to you, and I don’t know anything about it.”

“Deal.” Clare sniffed. One of the skillets was beginning to smoke. “We’d better get back to breakfast. ’Cause God knows none of those men is about to feed himself.”

The duct tape wasn’t coming off. She had tried stretching it, rubbing it against the edge of the door lintel, working her hands back and forth until her wrists were raw. Nothing.

Using the bucket had been a nightmare of complications. It had taken her five tries to stand upright, a feat she accomplished finally by rocking back and forth on her aching arms until, in a kind of reverse somersault, the velocity of her forward roll brought her to her feet. She hopped all the way to the wall to keep herself from falling forward. Standing, she discovered that the stretch of duct tape between her ankles served as a shackle, and she was able to shuffle slowly to the bucket. Getting her sweatpants down was a matter of plucking with her almost-numb fingers and hopping up and down, but when she lowered herself over the pail, she lost her balance and tumbled over. She had to go through the whole rigmarole again, this time with her sweats sliding around her thighs and the bucket rolling across the floor.

Once she was erect, she shuffle-walked to the bucket and, with tiny kicks and nudges, shoved it against the wall. She couldn’t figure out how to get it upright with her hands behind her back and her feet only inches apart, so she thudded painfully to her knees and head-butted it into its final position. It was there she discovered she could get to her feet by leaning hard against the chilly stone wall and forcing her feet under her. She kept her arms and back to the wall this time when she squatted. When she was finally able to relieve herself, it felt like a victory on par with winning the Tour de France. Civilization one, barbarism zero.

Scootching her sweatpants back up with the help of the wall, she considered what to do next. At least using the bucket had given her a goal. Now she was down to two choices: collapse into a motionless heap or find some way to get out of her cell. Since she had already done the motionless heap thing, an escape attempt seemed to be in order.

That was when she discovered that duct tape, the handyman’s friend, was a lot more resistant than she had ever realized.

All right, if she couldn’t saw, stretch, or slither herself free, maybe she could get out while still bound? The arrow slits were at an easy height; standing, she could look out any one of them and see sunshine and bare-branched trees and sky. They opened wide into the cell, maximizing light, but their external openings were narrow enough to repel invaders-or prevent determined children from killing themselves while playing King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Besides, even if she could wiggle her way between the constricting stones, where would she be? The view from the arrow slits showed the tops of the trees. And she knew from painful experience there was no handy fire escape.

She dismissed the curving wall with its deceptively open windows and considered the door. She had read a book once where someone freed himself from a locked room by removing the door’s hinge pins. These hinges were large, faux-medieval things, stretching a quarter of the way across the face of the door. The pins holding them in place were topped by pointed iron finials, reminding her less of the Middle Ages than of the tops of flagstaffs. She shuffled to the oak slab, turned around, and slid down until her hands touched the triangular top of a pin. She pulled it. Nothing. She twisted it. It moved. She twisted the other way, then tugged and pulled, her thighs straining with the effort of squatting. The pin moved upward. She felt like Galileo- e pur se muove! It moves! Excited, she tried a mighty wrench. The pin slid another inch and stuck fast. Beneath her duct-tape gag, she groaned in frustration, then bit the sound back. She wouldn’t be discouraged. She would be… smart.

She attacked the pin again, this time twisting and teasing and scraping it upward, bit by squeaky bit, her arms shaking, sweat slithering under her flannel shirt. More and more of the narrow metal dowel rose from the hinge until she could feel it wiggling loose, and with a final pivot and pull she had it. She bent forward and straightened, her long thigh muscles complaining the whole way. She stood upright, swaying slightly, letting her heart, which she hadn’t realized had been pounding, slow down to normal. Letting her legs stop shaking, letting her shoulders relax.