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.One arm was draped over something soft and plump.“Wake up,” someone insisted in a croaky whisper.“Wake up!”With a lightning bolt of realization, Leonie remembered Whitechapel and she shot up, pushing herself up with hands and knees.Dizziness assailed her and she caught herself on a wall.She bent over and tried to keep from throwing up the banana the little old woman had given her.The little voice said, “Can you help me? He’ll be back anytime and he’s so mad at you.”The dots cleared from her vision and the nausea passed.Leonie managed to look around.She was inside the windowless room of her thoughts.A single bulb burned in a ceiling socket, revealing what she already knew.There were dozens of red, satin pillows on the floor and in the exact center of the room was a metal hook that had been attached to the floor with rivets that prying fingernails couldn’t hope to force up.But secured to the hook was the other person with whom Leonie was so connected.Douglas Trent stared up at her with large brown eyes.His collar-length hair matched his eyes, a light chestnut color, toasted in the sun’s warm light.His face was pale and drawn with worry, but he looked the same as the picture Leonie had seen.He was wearing what he had last been seen in and there were bruises on his arms where he had struggled with Whitechapel.He had shifted his body around so that his bent knees could push weakly at Leonie in an attempt to get her to regain consciousness.Whitechapel had choked her into oblivion and shoved her in the room with his other prisoner, eager to deal with his visitor and get that person away from his home.Leonie made a noise and knelt beside him.“It’s all right,” she muttered, praying it was so.Her fingers worked the tight knots of the ropes around his arms.He had been tied with his arms behind him and his legs attached to the arms.“My name is…”“Leonie,” finished Douglas.He swallowed and tried to clear his dry throat.“I’ve…been dreaming of you.Dreaming of my mother.She’s hurt real bad by this.I can hear her crying.”Leonie hesitated for a moment.She couldn’t begin to understand why an outsider would have this connection with her.It had seemed so one-way, but clearly it wasn’t.She didn’t have a moment to waste.When Whitechapel was done doing whatever it was that had gotten his attention.The doorbell, she remembered excitedly.I screamed.Was it loud enough?Her fingers seemed like they were all thumbs.The knots were tight so that little boyish fingers couldn’t work themselves free.Not that it was a problem because Douglas couldn’t feel his hands or his feet anymore.Leonie made a disgusted noise and pried one knot loose.It got another one going and in another thirty seconds she had the younger boy free.She threw the ropes away from his body with a sound of disgust.Douglas groaned as feeling started to return to his limbs with a devastating resurgence of sensation that crossed the border of pain.Leonie rubbed his hands and switched to his feet.“We have to get out of here,” she muttered urgently.She leapt up, ignoring the fiery ache that worked itself down from her shoulder blade to her elbow and gingerly tried the door.It was locked once again.Then she carefully went around the walls of the room.There wasn’t another door, or a window, or any other opening that could possibly allow them to escape.Whitechapel had intended this room to be his prisoner’s cell.The door was thick oak.The lock was solidly attached.Leonie briefly closed her eyes and tried to calm her panicked emotions.She opened her eyes again and slowly surveyed the room again.He had tied Douglas to the middle of the floor because he didn’t want him to escape.So there had to be a way out.Leonie looked up.There was an attic door above her.It was the type that would be pulled down with a hanging cord, but of course, Whitechapel had removed most of the cord.She could see the edges of the door and just a little bit of cord that remained hanging from a hole.Kneeling next to Douglas, who was still rubbing his limbs, she said, “Listen, Douglas, we can get out of here, but you have to get on my shoulders.” She pointed upward.“If you can reach up and grab the attic door, we can get up there and escape down the stairs on the far side of the house.I’ve seen them.”Douglas nodded, a tear running out of his right eye.He wiped it away furiously.“I’m going to kill that man.He’s a bad, bad man.He said that he would give me toys, but I would have to stay with him forever.I’d never see Mom and Dad again.And he hurt you.I can see marks on your throat.You’ve got blood on your mouth.”“I know, Douglas,” Leonie said as she helped him up.“But cher, we have to hurry.”“Cher?”“It’s a French word.Do they call you Douglas or Doug?”“Doug, mostly.” Douglas considered, a tremor shaking his full lower lip.“Except my mother.It’s always Douglas.Or she middle-names me.When she’s really, really pissed off.”Leonie smiled faintly.“My maman does that.When she’s very mad.” As she spoke she got Douglas to his feet and briskly rubbed his limbs.“Have you ever done gymnastics, Doug?”“Sure.Somersaults.Some other stuff.Leonie, are we going to really get out of here?” His voice held a little quake of fear.She knew he was trying to be as courageous as he could.“Be brave.We can fight him.” Leonie bent her knees slightly and braced her arms against her legs [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]