“No! I really, really need you!”
She reaches the grate. Happy Face belies the urgency in her voice.
In her hand is a metal key.
A million things run through me as she puts it into the lock, turns. As I hear the metal click and the bolt release. Thoughts. Emotions. Instincts. There are too many to sort out. I feel dizzy with excitement. The possibilities seem endless, and yet I know there is only one choice that is right. I know there is only one chance.
I step outside my prison cell and run with Alice to the kitchen. The key is still in the grate, the grate that now swings open on its hinges.
In the kitchen, I see the burner coils smoking. I take the pot of soup off the stove. I turn off the heat and go to the sink to get a towel. I wet the towel, then carefully wipe down the burner until the butter comes off, and the heat cools. The smoke stops.
I let my eyes move around the room, looking for one of Dolly’s eyes. I don’t see one, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
I pull Alice close. “It’s fine now. You’re safe.”
“Thank you so much!” she says. She is not a good actress, and I file this away with everything else I know about her.
“How did the butter get on the stove?” I ask her.
“I was trying to put it on the bread and it just fell off. I didn’t think it would cause any problems. I didn’t know butter could burn like that.” She says this very loud, as though she knows her voice has to carry. I think that maybe there are no cameras in this kitchen after all.
“Okay,” I say. “It’s okay. How could you know that?”
I finish cleaning up. I heat the soup, butter the bread, and serve us dinner at the table. Alice glances out the door to the living room.
“Alice,” I say.
“Yes?”
“Can Dolly see in the kitchen?”
Coy Face comes, and Alice slowly moves her head left to right.No.
Then her eyes move back to the living room. I follow them and see a monitor on the wall in the corner near the door. It sits at an angle that can see the table, but not the stove. Not the sink.
And not the cupboard beneath the sink.
The cupboard which I opened to look for a dish towel, and where I found remnants of some household products. Old sponges. Dish soap. WD-40.
And a bottle of antifreeze.
I smile at Alice. I place my hand on her back and gently rub it up and down. Coy Face becomes Happy Face, which has a nice big smile.
And then I smile too.
20
Day fourteen
Nic walked quickly through the parking lot. The air was cold enough to see her breath. And still enough to hear her steps on the pavement. Watkins was long gone. The woman had vanished as well, between a row of cars, maybe to the back of the building.
Inside, Nic stopped, leaned against a wall just beneath one of the mounted cameras. She didn’t want to be seen. Not by anyone.
She pulled out her phone but there was no one to call.
Her father had lied to her about the handwriting analysis.
Roger Booth had lied about Daisy Hollander, about being the boyfriend she’d been running away from when she disappeared.
