Help?
Quickly she eased out of the closet, fumbling as she pulled her socks over her feet, sweating like a pig.
Footsteps crunched on the sparse gravel outside.
Crap!
She turned, banged her head. Nearly yelped. Sucked her breath in through her teeth.
The outside door banged open.
Quickly she crawled back toward the cot.
She heard the latch to her door creak.
She flew onto the makeshift bed and closed her eyes.
The door swung open and a flashlight’s beam made a quick, cutting swath across the room.
Dani’s heart was thudding, her nerves tight as the piano wires of Mrs. Johnson’s old upright.
“What’re ya doin’?” he growled and she froze, feigning sleep.
“I said what’re ya doin’?” He crossed the room and kicked at the cot’s frame.
She jumped, no longer trying to fake him out with the sleeping ruse. He wasn’t buying it anyway. “I had to go to the bathroom.”
He swung his light over to the empty Porta-Potty sitting near the bed. “Don’t think so.”
“Cuz I didn’t get the chance. I heard you coming in and I knew you’d open the door. I didn’t want to be…well, you know, squatting…when you came in.”
He snorted.
Disbelieving.
She couldn’t see him. It was too dark. Then he trained the flashlight in her direction and she couldn’t make out anything with the harsh, bright beam piercing her eyes.
He swung it from the cot to the Porta-Potty to the boarded window, then up to the skylight. Satisfied they were as he expected, he trained the beam on the closet.
Dani wanted to disappear. What if she’d left something inside? Her socks? What if he noticed the nail head rising above the board?
Her heart was knocking so loudly she was sure he could hear it. She had to do something to distract him. She said the first thing she thought of. “I’m thirsty.”
“What?” He swung the beam back at her and she held one hand up to shade her eyes.
“I said, I’m thirsty.”
“Tough. You’ll have to wait. Until morning.”
“But—”
“I said forget it. Christ, you can be a pain in the ass.” He stepped out of the room then, and for a second Dani saw his silhouette against the still-glowing embers of the fire. He had something more than the flashlight in his hand, something small and square and…she recognized it as a cell phone that he slipped into his pocket.
Oh, God, if she could just get it away from him!
Was there any reception up here in these hills?
Why did he, all of a sudden, start carrying a phone?