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“I think a woman lives here,” I whispered, as I opened one of the makeup compacts to find the eyeshadow palettes worn down by frequent use. In another mound of rubbish, I saw a stack of yarn and knitting needles. “Anoldwoman.”
“What’s that?” Xavier asked. To our left was a door that had a heavy bolt on the outside. It wasn’t locked, and the floor outside it was the only part of the house that wasn’t covered in rubbish.
“I’m guessing that’s where Emma’s being kept,” I said. “Look at the handle — there’s no dust on it.”
“What’s the plan?” Jackson asked. “Go in swinging the bat?”
“We can’t do that,” Xavier said. “If the kidnapper’s in there, he’ll kill her.”
They both looked at me as though I might have a better answer, and I refrained from reminding them that the kidnapper may not be ahe.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “Should we wait for someone to come out?”
Jackson raised an eyebrow. “I thought jail would have taught you better skills than that.”
“It was a low-security prison,” I pointed out. “I wasn’t there with murderers.”
“We have to dosomething,” Xavier said. “If we leave her in there…”
He stepped back and bumped into one of the rubbish piles. A ten kilogram dumbbell that had been balancing precariously fell off and landed on the floor with a heavy thud.
Without a second thought, the three of us darted back the way we came. It was difficult to move quickly through the trash, but panic spurred us on.
The upside of being in a house so messy was that there were plenty of places to hide, and when we heard the heavy door open, we dove in separate directions: Xavier balled himself up under a table, I threw myself behind a couch and Jackson ducked into a room where the door was just ajar enough for him to slip through. I held my breath as the footsteps came into the room and stopped.
What was the kidnapper doing? I made myself as tiny as possible as I waited.
And then I remembered… we were all wearing our Tattoo Workz shirts. And from where I was hiding, the back of mine would have been visible to an observant eye. I wished I’d hidden differently, or changed our clothes before we came here.
It was too late now. All I could do was stay still, keep my head down, and hope that my shirt and shoes blended in with the rest of the rubbish in the room.
The person walked a few more steps and stopped again. Seconds felt like minutes as I waited to see what he’d do. Finally, he kept walking along the path we’d taken and I relaxed, thinking that maybe he was going to leave the house and we could check behind that door without being bothered. But then I heard the back door being pulled closed and the footsteps growing louder.
Shit, I thought.We’d left the door open — he’d be able to tell that someone came through it. There were many, many things in the house that could be used as a weapon, and I expected him to grab one of them and beat the living snot out of us. But instead, he walked past and disappeared back through the heavy door.
I emerged from my hiding place, and so did Xavier.
“It’s Nathan,” he said in a heavy voice.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
Xavier nodded. “I’d know that weasel anywhere.”
“What now?” I asked, but as soon as I did, the sound of the door opening again made me dart back to safety. Nathan came out, shut the door behind him and bolted it, then made his way through the rubbish again. I stayed quiet, as small as possible, hoping he wouldn’t see me.
Until I smelled smoke.
I knew it was the wrong thing to do, and that it would send me back to jail. But the smell triggered me to leap over the couch and punch Nathan right in his startled face.
48
EMMA
This was the end — we were dead for sure.
When Nathan didn’t come back, I thought there was a chance that we would be safe. That Xavier would break through the door and Jackson and Adrian would carry us out on their shoulders, like firemen did in the movies.
But when smoke seeped into the basement from under the door, I knew our time was running out.
