Page 91 of The Accomplice
She was alive. And she didn’t know why. The Sandman did not take live victims hostage. There could be two reasons.
She was ransom. Something to hold over the cops, or Eddie. Something to bargain with. That seemed the most likely explanation.
There was another reason. One she didn’t want to think about. But the thought came anyway and stayed with her. Like that smell. It was there, constantly.
He took her so that he could take his time killing her.
Kate decided right then she had to escape. She could hear no one, see no one. The Sandman was not in this strange room. She had time. No idea how much.
She had to think.
She had to plan.
She had to escape.
From shifting her body weight she’d guessed she was in a wooden dining chair. It squeaked if she leaned back, the way old ash or pine does when it’s rubbing against other wood. Her hands were behind her, wrists bound together with cable ties. Using her thumb and fingers, she’d felt another tie, in the middle of her wrists, and this was attached to something beneath the chair, a central crossbar that had the cable tie attached.
She pushed down with her right leg, shifted all her weight over to the left, got both legs on the right off the ground, higher, and then, just when she thought she might tip over, she threw herself to the right. The legs on the right side of the chair crashed down, and she pushed up, until the left set of legs was in the air, and then flung all her weight in that direction.
This rocking motion made the chair legs screech and crack, and she pulled up with her arms, letting the cable tie bite into her flesh.
It didn’t take long to dislodge the central bar as the legs threatened to come out of their housing and break the screws holding them in place.
Kate pulled, shimmied, and felt the cable tie slide free.
It had taken a lot of effort, and she was out of breath, but she almost smiled when she was able to stand up straight, now free from the bastard chair. Her back muscles ached as she straightened up. She took a moment to loosen up then bent over, slid her hands over her behind and down to the backs of her thighs. She bent down and let herself sit on the floor, then pulled her arms forward and tucked her legs and feet, one by one, through her arms.
Now her hands, still bound, were in front of her. And she could stand.
With the effort she had actually broken a sweat, and apart from her feet, she was no longer cold. And her teeth had stopped rattling.
Teeth.
She brought her wrists to her face, angled her head, and was just able to get her lower front teeth over the lip of the cable tie.
Kate started chewing.
The plastic felt sharp against her lower lip, and she tasted blood now as she worked her jaw, back and forth, tears streaming her face, stinging the cut, her wrists raw and bleeding, her whole body shaking.
The tie snapped.
When it fell to the floor her eyes followed it, instinctively, and it was then she saw a thin strip of light on the floor. The light wasn’t coming from the floor, it was a reflection. She looked up, saw a small gap in the ceiling. At first, she couldn’t understand what kind of place she was in. It was narrow, she was sure of that, maybe only five feet wide and ten feet long. The ceiling was low, as she had suspected. Very low. Kate wasn’t tall, but she could easily touch the ceiling. She was surprised when she heard thetingof her knuckles on steel.
It felt like there was a huge metal plate that acted as a roof. She placed her palms flat against it and pushed. It didn’t even budge. She moved forward, to the end of the narrow room, and it was here that she stood beneath the tiny gap. Wide enough to slip a paper towel through, but no more. She couldn’t even get her fingernails through it. She tried again to shift the steel plate, but it was way too heavy.
Now she realized where she was.
The smell of oil, the sand on the floor, the shape and dimensions of the space. She felt the wall, the narrow head of the rectangle and found that the concrete gave way to wood, but not all the way. It was as if there was a gap cut out of the concrete and old mahogany placed there.
She was in an inspection pit.
This place, wherever it was, had once been an old garage, probably specializing in buses, trucks or long heavy vehicles. The wooden section of the wall was actually a stopper. If it was removed, there would be concrete steps leading out of the pit. It would have been specially made so that it would cover the steps when the pit was not in use. When it was in use, men would walk down into the pit, and the vehicle would be driven over it, so they could work at a comfortable height on a truck or a bus in the days when there were no hydraulics powerful enough to lift those vehicles.
The steel plate was now covering the pit. If she could move it, somehow, she could get out.
She heard a cracking, crunching sound. And then whatever was making the sound, made a different noise. She heard the cooing and the fluttering of wings from a rock dove.
Just a bird.
