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Riley had no confidence that someone would escort her out. In her gut she felt like the escort would be Rollo, and he’d escort her out tortured and dead. She supposed there was a slim chance that Werner had decided she’d come over to the dark side and was usable, but she wasn’t going to count on it. She was going to sneak out like a thief in the night, and she wasn’t going to stop running until she was safe at home in Texas.
She tried the door and was relieved to find it unlocked. She poked her head out and looked up and down the hall. No one there. She retraced her steps down the empty corridor and came to the intersection where she and Emerson had gone in separate directions. The elevator was in one direction. Emerson was in the other.
Riley moved toward the elevator, got about twenty feet, and stopped. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t leave Emerson behind.
“Crap!”
She put her head down and marched back to the other corridor. The first four doors she came to had labels. MECHANICAL ROOM, HOUSEKEEPING, WOMEN, MEN. There was a chunk of hall without doors and then there were doors without labels. Someone was whistling behind one of those doors. It sounded like the stuff Emerson listened to when he meditated.
Riley crept down the hall, stopping at every door until she found the room with the whistler. There was no one else in the hall, and no sound from behind the door other than the whistling. If she opened the door and Emerson wasn’t alone, it might be ugly. She’d have to deal with it, she thought. Go into commando mode. She didn’t have self-defense training, but she thought she could improvise. She was up for sucker punching and eye gouging. She could probably even execute a crotch kick. She counted to three, sucked in some air, and opened the door.
—
Emerson was alone in the small, sterile room. He was sitting in a straight chair with his hands cuffed behind him. His face was bloody, his lip was split, and his left eye was starting to blacken. He stopped whistling when Riley entered.
“Ah, Riley,” he said. “There you are. Could you untie me? I have an itch right above my left eyebrow that’s driving me crazy.”
“My God,” Riley said. “What have they done to you?”
“Beat me, somewhat. Nothing serious.”
“It looks horrible! Doesn’t it hurt?”
“I’ve risen above the pain.”
Riley looked at the cuffs. “They’ve got your hands bound by plasticuffs. My dad used them all the time. I could cut them off if I had a knife or shears.”
“I think Rollo left some tools on the table.”
Riley looked over at the small black case holding surgical instruments. Scalpels, stainless steel pliers, and long metal rods.
“Rollo was here?” Riley asked. “With those?”
“Yes, but I think they were meant to simply intimidate me, not to flay. At least he hasn’t used them yet.”
“Where is he now?”
“He went to get some first aid.”
“For you?”
“No, for himself. When he leaned to whisper something threatening in my ear, I gave him a head butt that made a gash in his chin.”
“Are we talking about a gash that needed stitches or a gash that needed a Band-Aid?”
“Hard to say. There was a lot of blood.”
Riley studied the display of torture tools and chose a scalpel. “Why were you whistling?”
“To lead you to me, of course.”
“Of course,” Riley said. “Hold still so I don’t slit your wrist when I cut this plastic band.”
A moment later Emerson was on his feet, shaking his hands to aid circulation.
“We need to get out of here before Rollo returns,” Riley said, sliding the scalpel into a leather sheath.
“Agreed. He mentioned vengeance as he was leaving. He said it would be unpleasant.”
