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But time was short. She might turn the whole tray over, might need to, and that meant risking the noise and Jimmy coming downstairs. She had no choice but to chance it. Wedging her backside up against the side of the table, she rocked back onto it. Once she was on securely, she rolled to her right side and scooched backward toward the tray of instruments. Finally, she could touch it, but she couldn’t grip anything.
She growled under her breath. There had to be a way.
“I prayed for a way out, Violet. Whiskey’s offer was tempting, and I was willin’ to take it ’cause I didn’t care about the price. I knew one would come with it. I’d never truly be free of Whiskey, but I’d rather have dealt with him than Mother.” She sniffed again. “I didn’t know I had a sister who was coming to rescue me with no strings attached. God brought you here for this reason. I know it. Maybe you can help Bella Dawn if it’s not too late. I don’t know where she is, but that smell...”
Violet paused her attempt to gain a scalpel. Ruby thought God was using Violet as a rescuer? “That’s not Bella Dawn. She’s been found and alive. Cecil took her. He’s Lula’s Him. He’s also still on the run.”
Violet had found Bella Dawn.
Because she’d found the cabin.
Because she’d found the wood shavings in it and then found the passage and the wood shavings.
Because she’d felt eyes on her. Felt a draft in the chifforobe. Used the chifforobe for her baggage since her underwear was missing. All these little things that she never connected now fit dot by dot by dot.
She was here because of her choice of career and that was to find Adam.
And Adam was here. There was much more going on she had no way of knowing about. “Ruby, don’t put all your faith in me yet.”
“Violet, my faith isn’t in you. It’s in God. To use you.”
A prostitute teaching her about faith in God. Violet was no judge of trafficked women surviving. The irony—Mother had required their church attendance and efforts to help others, yet they couldn’t help themselves.
“Ruby, why do you have faith in God when you’ve been trapped into this life? Wouldn’t you think God would have rescued you already? Sooner?”
“Faith isn’t based on timing but trust. Wendell once talked about these Christians in prison for their faith. They were beat daily and starved. They prayed God would free them, but more so, they prayed God would keep them faithful to the end. They died. But they never stopped hoping. Neither have I.”
“And if we die here?”
“I die in faith.”
Violet couldn’t say the same. But she wanted to.
God, I have to knock this thing over and get something to cut us away. To unbind us so we can break free and get out of this horrible place. Help me. Help us. Help me to see.
“Ruby, I want you to cry really loud. Okay? He won’t care if you cry. If he’s even up there. It’ll help muffle the sound.”
“That won’t be hard.”
“Now!”
Ruby began to wail.
Violet slapped the tray to fall toward her. Instruments clattered to the ground and onto the table. The tray rattled as it hit the floor, echoing. She grabbed onto something slight, felt a pinch and burn. The scalpel! It had cut her, but she didn’t care. She gripped it and worked at cutting the twine.
It snapped and fell away, and she made haste cutting through the binding on her ankles. “Keep it up. I’m...halfway there. Got it.”
She hopped off the table, thankful Jimmy had put her shoes on her feet, and shoved her hands out in front of her using them to guide her from running into anything else. She followed Ruby’s cries to the corner of the room.
Hollering and cursing reached her ears then the deliberate stomping on the stairs. Violet’s hand shook. She couldn’t see!
Then a tiny ray of light popped on the stairs. Jimmy was using his cell phone flashlight to descend, and that one tiny beam opened her eyes to see the edge of the stairs and the wall butting up against them. She maneuvered around the operating table, trying not to scatter fallen instruments across the floor.
She tripped over something and fell. To break the fall, she put out her hand and it landed onto something cold and mushy.
And fleshy.
Vomit hit the back of her throat as she realized she’d probably landed on Jimmy Russell’s dead mother. Jumping to her feet, she raced to the brick wall and backed up against it, heart pounding...waiting on Jimmy, the scalpel gripped in her clammy hand.
