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The word ‘is’, then? Or was it part of a longer word? This? Or his?

There was a longer pause, maybe five or six seconds. Did that signify a new word?

The problem she had was that she had not figured out this was a code until quite a few letters in, which meant it was hard to decipher where the letters she now had were in a word. Somehow she needed to get Ryan to start again.

She cried out a few times and then banged her fists and heels against the floor. When she finished she moved the bed back and forth with her right foot, scraping it loudly against the wooden boards.

A cacophony to say Start again. Tear it all down and start again.

Ryan gave a muffled cry in response. She thought – hoped – that meant he had understood that she wanted him to start again.

He tapped out nine letters.

I

A pause of six seconds, then one tap.

A

A three-second pause. She was starting to understand that three seconds meant a new letter, six meant a new word.

Thirteen taps. The letter ‘M’.

I AM

I am what? OK? Injured? Dying and in need of medical attention?

A three-second pause, then three taps.

C

One tap.

A

Eighteen taps.

R

Her stomach tensed, and she felt sick. A chill spread out from her core, leaving her fingers cold and tingling. She counted the next set of taps, although she didn’t need to. She knew what the letter would be.

Twelve taps. A dozen. The dirty dozen.

The letter ‘L’.

I AM CARL

I Know Nothing about It

The words did not take shape into a meaning until she had replayed them three or four times.

I AM CARL

It made no sense. Carl had arrived in his car, broken into her house, and knocked her out with some kind of poison. He was obsessed with her since their teenage years. He had probably killed his first wife. He was behind this; he was not a victim.

That was what made sense. Mary had laid it all out in her mind.

So he could not be tied up in the adjacent room.