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“I didn’t jump. You did.”
Fair enough.
“Because you sneaked up on me,” I tell him.
“I didn’t mean to,” he says. “I was going to say ‘hi’ after you came in through the door, but you seemed to be in such a rush. Should I have done that?”
No. Even if he had, my reaction would still have been the same. After all, I never expected to find him here, though maybe I should have.
“Never mind.”
I focus on my task again and try to open the drawer, but it still won’t budge.
“Let me,” Cain says.
I’d argue, but I’ve wasted enough time already.
I step back. Cain comes forward, takes a Swiss Army knife out of the inside pocket of his jacket, and goes to work on the lock. After a few seconds, the drawer opens.
Impressive. I don’t say it out loud, though.
Cain steps aside. I start taking things out of the drawer and taking pictures of them.
“Find anything?” Cain asks.
“I don’t know,” I answer as I snap a photo of a receipt. “I might not know until later.”
“Oh.”
I put the receipt back in the drawer and look at him. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you sure you don’t already know the answer to that question?”
Right. He’s not stalking me, because he was here before I was, which means he’s simply doing his own investigation. I only wish it wasn’t the same as mine.
I continue taking pictures. Cain just stands there, watching me.
“What?” I ask him. “Aren’t you going to investigate? Or have you already done that?”
“Oh, I’ll let you do the hard work,” he says.
I narrow my eyes at him. “If you think I’m going to share these pictures with you, you – ”
I don’t finish because Cain’s hand suddenly goes over my mouth. At the same time, he turns off the lamp. At first, I’m confused, but I realize why as I hear footsteps approaching seconds later.
Shit.
I push Cain’s hand away but remain silent. He leads me behind the curtain and I follow, clutching my phone between my fingers. As the footsteps stop in front of the room, I hold my breath and say a silent plea.
Please don’t let whoever it is come in here.
If they do and they go behind the desk, they’ll find the drawer open and my purse on the chair. They’ll sound the alarm. Then Cain and I will be screwed.
I glance at him. As before, he doesn’t seem the least bit worried. He’s staying very still and yet I can tell he’s ready to make a move. Is this his military training? Is that why he heard those footsteps before I did?
The door opens. I freeze. I can hear my heart drumming against my rib cage in the silence of that longest moment as I hold my breath and wait for what will happen next.
Please go away. Please go away.
Finally, the door closes. I hear the jingle of keys outside the door, then the sound of a lock turning. After that, I hear more footsteps, fading this time. I let out a breath of relief.
“Thank God.”
Cain steps out from behind the curtain. “I wouldn’t be grateful yet.”
He tries to open the door and fails. He grunts.
“What?” I ask him.
“Just as I thought. We’re locked in.”
“What do you mean?” I try to keep the fresh panic out of my voice.
We can’t be locked in here. We can’t.
Cain turns to me. “The doors are locked from the outside. They can’t be opened from the inside.”
“What?”
That doesn’t make any sense.
“Didn’t you do your homework?” Cain asks me.
“What homework?”
I have no idea what he’s talking about. I can’t think anymore.
“Cerena doesn’t like locked doors,” Cain tells me. “Or closed ones, for that matter. When she was a child, there was an earthquake and the door to her bedroom got jammed, leaving her trapped inside. They were able to remove the door eventually and Cerena was unscathed, but ever since then she’s been careful to leave doors open when she’s inside a room. I’m guessing these doors are open when she’s here, and when she leaves, someone closes them and locks them from the outside. That’s exactly what just happened.”
I shake my head. “That doesn’t make sense. What if she was in here and someone locked the door from outside? Then she’d be trapped.”
“That’s why she leaves the doors open. And by the way, none of the other doors in this house have locks, either inside or out. Just this one.”
I sink into the chair from the weight of my dismay. “So you’re saying we’re trapped here now?”
“No,” Cain answers.
“But you just said…”
“We can’t get out the way we came in,” he says. “But we can get out through the window.”
I look out the window. “A little high, though. We’re on the second floor.”
“Not as high as the third,” Cain says as he, too, takes a peek.
