Jan Burke - Nine

Twenty minutes after taking the clothing, he was on his way down the winding canyon, wondering, as he recalled many a morning when he had overslept during high school, if he would still be able to find the shortcut into the grounds of Sedgewick.

Malibu, California

Thursday, May 22, 5:04 P.M.

“Don’t move,” a voice whispered.

Chase felt confused. Some moments passed before he realized he was lying on a bare wooden floor, his wrists and ankles bound. His muscles felt stiff, and he was scraped and bruised. Gradually, he remembered the accident on the road, although the details of that were unclear to him.

He tried to turn toward the voice, but again it said, not unkindly, “Don’t move, it will only hurt.” He heard the sound of someone scooting along the floor behind him, then a little whimper of pain, quickly suppressed.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

A low, short laugh-then, again in a whisper, “No. I’m as okay as you are. Hold still, and if you have to talk, keep your voice down. I’m going to try to get your hands free.”

A girl, he decided.

He felt cool hands touch his own, moving near his wrists. After a moment, she said, “It’s no use, my fingers are too numb. Wait a minute.”

He heard her moving again. Some moments later, her face was near his hands.

There was the odd sensation of her lips against his wrists, her face and hair touching his lower arms, her breath against his hands, and, in a little while, moisture-her tears? She was using her teeth, he realized, to work at the bindings around his wrists.

It took a long time, but he felt them loosen, and then, seemingly all at once, he was able to pull free. He heard her roll away. He moved his arms, feeling relief in his shoulders and back, and rolled toward her, his feet still bound. The room swam for a moment, and he waited for his double vision to clear. As it did, he got his first look at her.

She had really short hair, which suited her, he thought. He liked her eyes. They were big and brown beneath dark brows, and there was nothing coy in the way she studied him with them. She looked bold, as if she’d as soon hit him as look at him, and somehow that made him feel less afraid. She hadn’t cried after all, he realized, and glancing at his own hands and then back at her face, saw that the moisture he had felt was her blood-her lips were bleeding where the wire that had been around his wrists had cut into them.

If a girl-a girl who looked younger than he was-could go through that without shedding a tear, then he wasn’t going to feel sorry for himself, either.

He hurriedly moved his hands-which felt numb, then quickly needle-pricked by returning circulation-and began fumbling with her bonds. He rubbed at her hands to help get the blood flowing to them again, then freed her ankles before freeing his own.

“I’m Chase,” he said. “What’s your name?”

She hesitated, then said, “Emily. Some people call me Spooky.”

He didn’t get that weird nickname at all. “Thanks for freeing me, Emily.” He frowned as he looked for a clean corner of his ragged T-shirt, then tore off a strip of it and offered it to her. “Your lips-I’m sorry-it looks as if that really hurt.”

She shrugged but accepted the cloth.

Every time he moved his head much, the narrow room dipped and swayed. At one point, it was so severe, he thought he might get sick, but the notion of doing that in front of this girl was too humiliating-he forced himself to wait out the sensation. It seemed to subside, and he took that opportunity to try to take stock of his surroundings. A storage room of some sort, he thought. The only source of light was a long, narrow window. He stood up and moved toward it on unsteady legs. She followed, dabbing at her mouth with the cloth. “It’s a long way down,” she said.

They were high in a tower, it seemed. He couldn’t see much of what was below-trees, mostly. A group of buildings. His vision doubled again, and he felt another wave of nausea. Dizzily, he moved back from the window.

The place seemed familiar to him, but he wasn’t quite sure why. His mind wasn’t working right.

He saw Emily move quietly to the door and try the handle. To his amazement, it was not locked. The door opened a crack. “Be careful!” he warned.

She eased the door farther open but hesitated on the threshold. Beyond was nearly complete darkness. He waited until he was a little steadier on his feet, then moved next to her. He allowed his eyes to adjust to the small amount of light coming from what appeared to be an opening in the ceiling above. He still could not see more than that opening’s square edges. He heard pigeons somewhere above it.

He quietly moved out a step, and listened. Nothing.

He looked back at Emily, then stretched a hand along the wall outside the door. He took another step. Emily followed him. He reached back in the darkness and took her hand. He felt her jump a little, but then she held on tight. They edged along the wall.

Suddenly he found himself stepping out into space. Emily must have felt his loss of balance-she pulled back hard. That was all that saved him from falling some unknown distance into the darkness.

He tried to keep the panic out of his voice when he said, “Thanks. I guess we’d better go back.”

“Wait here,” she whispered, and lay down flat by his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Getting a match.”

“You have matches?”

“Always. I have them hidden in the hem of my jeans.”

“Why didn’t you light one earlier?”

“I only have three left.”

“Wait-if you’ve only got three, maybe we shouldn’t waste one now.”

But she lit it anyway. For the brief time that it burned, they saw that they were at one edge of a platform that ran along the walls of a tower-a bell tower, Chase thought. There were rails everywhere but at the place he had nearly fallen from. Wooden stairs led up from the opposite wall, toward the top of the structure, but the stairs leading down and the platform that would have been just below them had been dismantled, leaving a long drop before they resumed again. For all he could tell, they were alone. A set of ropes hung through the center of the tower, out of reach.

The match died out just as his surroundings seemed to whirl before him.

Emily reached into a pocket, found a few coins, and pitched a quarter over the edge. It seemed an eternity before they heard the sound of it striking bottom.

He heard Emily get to her feet. “Are you dizzy?” she asked.

“A little.”

She took hold of his hand again and carefully led him back to the storage room.

They sat next to each other. His headache hammered at his skull. He felt as if the pain was derailing his thoughts, keeping him from coming up with any sort of plan.

After a time, he said, “I guess we’ve been kidnapped.”

She nodded. “They took me from a restaurant. Two of them. They gave me some kind of shot. You?”

“Ran me off the road while I was on my bike. I think-I kind of remember someone giving me a shot. I don’t know. I hit my head.” He rubbed a hand over his scalp and winced as he touched a good-sized knot.

“Why do you think they took us?” she asked.

He felt sleepy and lay back down on the floor. “I don’t know.”

“Are you going to sleep? How can you sleep at a time like this?”

“Sorry. I can’t help it. Maybe I have a concussion.” He yawned. “I don’t know.”

“‘I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…’ Is that all you can say? Besides, if it’s a concussion, you’re supposed to stay awake, right?”

“I don’t-”

“Know.”

He smiled a little. “No. I don’t.”