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“Alice?” she dared to whisper.
What if Alice had just brought her here to play a trick on her?
Or to kill her.She’d probably try to make it look like Tori had killed herself. Then they could all blame Brendal’s death on her.
“Alice!” Anger burned inside Tori. She wasn’t getting away with this.
Fear abruptly coiled around Tori’s chest. What if it was Sarah and she was injured? Or someone else?
“Sarah?”
More thumping and what sounded like rustling.
Tori listened, focused on pinpointing where exactly the sounds were coming from.
The rustling and thumping increased. The door of a tall locker-like cabinet moved. Tori held her breath and eased toward the locker. Her heart thudded harder and harder, rising in her throat as if it might pop like an overinflated balloon.
She touched the door. It moved.
Tori jumped back.
The next sound she heard was a moan-like scream. As if someone were trying to scream with their mouth full ...
“Sarah?” Tori grabbed for the door again. She tried to open it, but it wouldn’t budge. The sounds on the other side grew more frantic.
She tugged harder at the latch. Then she realized she needed to push down the latch and slide it sideways.
The locking mechanism released.
The door sprang open.
A bundle fell out onto the floor.
Long blonde hair. Pink tee. Jeans.
The smell of urine and feces.
Tori blinked and stared at the sobbing girl.
Not Sarah.
Blonde girl, around Tori’s age. She’d wet and soiled herself. There was a cloth stuffed into her mouth. Her hands were tied behind her back. She lay on her side, whimpering and rocking.
Emotions spinning inside her, Tori stared at her. Why didn’t she stand up?
Then Tori spotted the reason. Her hands were tied to her ankles. Knees bent. She was tied up like one of those calves in rodeos.
“I’ll get you loose.” Tori knelt beside her. The girl was sobbing now. The ropes were made of nylon and tied really tight. “I need scissors or a knife.”
Tori shot to her feet and searched the shed. She didn’t find scissors, but she did find a large metal tool that looked kind of like scissors. She thought she had seen a neighbor trimming bushes with something like this.
Might work.
Tori rushed back to the girl. “Hold still.”
It took some maneuvering to get the rope between the cutting blades without hurting the girl. Finally when the tool was in place, she squeezed the handles together. Nothing happened. She squeezed harder, gritted her teeth.
What if this didn’t work?
