Blindside (3 page)

She asked as she got into the Porsche, “What was all that about?”

“I'd rather tell you when we get home.”

Savich brushed out
a thick hank of Sherlock's curly hair and carefully wrapped it around a big roller. “I'm glad you're feeling better. I'm glad you were at the gym tonight.”

She watched him in the mirror, concentrating on getting her hair perfectly smooth around the roller. He was nearly
done. He really liked doing this ever since they'd met an actress who'd had a particularly sexy way with hair rollers. Of course, the rollers didn't stay in her hair all that long. “Why? What happened?”

He paused a moment, smoothed down her hair on another roller, and slowly turned it. Sherlock shoved in a clip to hold it. “There's this woman. She's not taking the hint.”

Sherlock leaned her head back until she was looking up at her husband's face. “You want me to go kick her butt?”

Savich didn't speak for a good thirty seconds. He was too busy untangling the final thick hank of hair for the last roller. “There, done. Now, be quiet. I just want to look at you. You can't imagine how that turns me on, Sherlock.”

She now had a headful of fat rollers, perfectly placed, and she was laughing. She turned and held out her arms. “Now what, you pervert?”

He stroked his long fingers over his chin. “Hmmm, maybe I can think of something.”

“What about this woman?”

“Forget her. She'll lose interest.”

Sherlock did forget all about the woman during the removal of the rollers in the next hour. She fell asleep with a big roller pressed against the back of her knee.

It was just after six-thirty on Friday morning when the phone rang.

Savich, Sean under one arm while Sherlock was pouring Cheerios into a bowl, picked it up. He listened. Finally, he hung up the phone.

“What's wrong?”

“That was Miles. Sam's been kidnapped.”

D
on't
give up, don't give up. Never, never give up.

Okay, so he wouldn't give up, but it was hard. He'd cried until he was hiccupping, but that sure hadn't done him any good. He didn't want to give up. Only thing was, Sam didn't have a clue where he was and he was so scared he'd already peed in his jeans.

Be scared, it's okay, just keep trying to get away. Never give up.

Sam nodded. He heard his mama's voice every now and again, but this time it was different. She was trying to help him because he was in big trouble.

Don't give up, Sam. Look around you. You can do something.

Her voice always sounded soft and kind; she didn't sound like she was scared. Sam tried to slow his breathing down.

The men are in the other room eating. They're watching TV. You've got to move, Sam.

He'd been as quiet as he could, lying on that stinky mattress, getting colder and colder, and he listened as hard as he could, his eyes on that keyhole, wishing he was free so he could scrunch down and try to see what the men were
doing. He heard the TV; it was on the Weather Channel. The weather guy said, “Violent thunderstorms are expected locally and throughout eastern Tennessee.”

He heard that clearly:
eastern Tennessee.

He was in Tennessee?

That couldn't be right. He lived in Virginia, in Colfax, with his father. Where was Tennessee?

Sam thought about his father. How much time had passed since they'd put that cloth over his face and he'd breathed in that sick sweet smell and not really waked up until just a while ago, tied to this bed in this small bedroom that looked older than anything, older even than his father's ancient Camaro? Maybe it was more than hours, maybe it was days now. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep. He kept praying that his father would find him. But there was one big problem, and he knew it even while he was praying the words—his father wasn't in Tennessee; as far as Sam could see, there was no way his father could find him.

I'm really scared, Mom.

Forget about being scared. Move, Sam, move. Get your hands free.

He knew he probably wasn't really hearing his mama's voice in his head, or maybe he really was, and he was dead, too, just like she was.

He could feel that his pants were wet. It was cold and it itched so that must mean he really wasn't dead. He was lying flat on his back, his head on a flattened smelly pillow, his hands tied in front of him. He'd pulled on the rope, but it hadn't done anything. Then he'd felt sick to his stomach. He didn't want to throw up, so he'd just laid there, breathing in and out, until finally his stomach calmed down. His mom wanted him to pull on the rope and so he began jerking and working it again. His wrists weren't tied real tight, and that was good. He hadn't talked to the two men when he woke up. He was so scared that he'd just stared up at
them, hadn't said a single thing, just stared, tears swimming in his eyes, making his nose run. They'd given him some water, and he'd drunk that, but when the tall skinny guy offered him a hamburger, he knew he couldn't eat it.

Then one of the men—Fatso, that's what Sam called him in his head—tied his hands in front of him, but not too tight. Fatso looked like he felt sorry for him.

Sam raised his wrists to his mouth and started chewing.

“Damned friggin' rain!”

Sam froze. It was Fatso's voice, loud and angry. Sam was so scared he started shaking, and it wasn't just the damp chill air in this busted-down old room that caused it. He had to keep chewing, had to get his hands free. He had to keep moving and not freeze. He couldn't die, not like Mama had. His father would hate that almost as much as Sam would.

Sam chewed.

There weren't any more loud voices from the other room, but he could still hear the TV announcer, talking more about really bad weather coming, and then he heard the two men arguing about something. Was it about him?

Sam pulled his hands up, looked closely, and then began working the knotted rope, sliding his hands first this way, then that. The rope felt looser.

Oh boy, his hands did feel looser, he knew it. Sam chewed until his jaws ached. He felt a give in the rope, then more give, and then the knot just came loose. He couldn't believe it. He twisted his wrists and the rope fell off.

Unbelievable. He was free.

He sat up and rubbed his hands. They were pretty numb, and he felt pins and needles running through them, but at least they didn't hurt.

He stood up beside the mangy bed with its awful smells, wondering how long it had been since anyone had slept in that bed before him. It was then he saw a high, narrow, dirty window on the other side of the room.

He could fit through that window. He could.

How would he get up there?

If he tried to pull the bed to the window they were sure to hear him. And then they'd come in and tie him even tighter.

Or they'd kill him.

Sam knew he'd been taken right out of his own bed, right out of his own house, his father sleeping not thirty feet away. He knew, too, that anything those men had in mind to do to him wasn't any good.

The window . . . how could he get up to that window?

And then Sam saw an old, deep-drawered dresser in the corner. He pulled out the first drawer, nearly choking on fear when the drawer creaked and groaned.

He got it out. It was heavy, but he managed to pull it onto his back. He staggered over to the wall and, as quietly as he could, laid the drawer down, toeing it against the damp wall. He stacked another drawer on top of that first one, then another, carefully, one upside down on top of another.

He had to lift the sixth drawer really high to fit it on top of the others. He knew he had to do it and so he did.

Hurry, Sam, hurry.

He was hurrying. He didn't want to die even though he knew he'd probably be able to speak to his mama again all the time. No, she didn't want him to die, she didn't want him to leave his father.

When he got the last drawer balanced on the very top, he stood back, and saw that he had done a good job putting them on top of each other. Now he just had to climb up on top and reach the window.

He eyed the drawers, and shoved the third one over just a bit to create a toehold. He did the same with the fourth.

He knew if he fell it would be all over. He couldn't fall. He heard Fatso scream, “No matter what you say, we can't stay here, Beau. It's going to start raining any minute now.
You saw that creek out back. A thunderstorm'll make it rise fast as bat shit in a witch's brew!”

Drown? The thunderstorms he'd heard on the Weather Channel, that must be what Fatso was yelling about. He didn't want to drown either.

Sam was finally on the top. He pulled himself upright very slowly, feeling the drawer wobbling and unable to do anything about it. He froze, his hands flat against the damp wall, then his fingers crept up and he touched the bottom of the windowsill.

Things were unsteady beneath his feet, but that was okay. It felt just like the bridge in the park when he walked across it, just like that. He could work with a swing, even a wobble, he just couldn't fall.

He pushed at the window but it didn't budge. Then he saw the latch, so covered with dirt that it was hard to make out. He grabbed it and pulled upward.

He heard Fatso yell, “Beau, listen to me, we gotta take the kid somewhere else. That rain's going to start any minute.”

So that was his name, Beau. Beau said something back, but Sam couldn't make out what it was. He wasn't a screamer like Fatso.

Sam had the latch pushed up as far as it would go. Slowly, so slowly he nearly stopped breathing, he pushed at the window.

It creaked, loud.

Sam jerked around and the drawers teetered, swaying more than ever. He knew he was going to fall. The drawers were sliding apart like earth plates before an earthquake. He remembered Mrs. Mildrake crunching together real dinner plates to show the class how earthquakes happened.

He shoved on the window as hard as he could and it creaked all the way out.

The drawers shuddered and moved and Sam, almost
crying he was so afraid, grabbed the windowsill. With all the strength he had, he pulled himself headfirst through that skinny window. He got stuck, wiggled free, and then fell outside.

He landed on the ground, nearly headfirst.

He lay there, breathing, wanting to move, but afraid that his head was split open and his brains might start spilling out. He lay listening to the wind pick up, whipping through the trees. There were a lot of trees around him, and the sky was almost dark. Was it nighttime?

No, it was just the storm coming closer, the thunderstorm the Weather Channel had talked about for eastern Tennessee. How could he be in Tennessee?

He had to get up. Fatso and Beau could come out at any moment. The drawers had fallen over, no doubt about that, and the loud noise would bring them into the bedroom fast. They'd see he was gone and they'd be out here with guns and poison and more rope and get him again.

Sam came up on his knees. He felt something sticky on his face and touched it. He'd cut himself with the fall. He turned to look up at the window. It was way far off the ground.

Sam managed to stand up, weaved a bit, then locked his knees. He was okay. Everything was cool. He just had to get out of there.

He started running. He heard Fatso scream the same instant a bolt of lightning struck real close and a boom of thunder rattled his brains. They knew he was gone.

Sam ran into the thick trees, all gold and red and yellow. He didn't know what kind of trees they were, but there were a lot of them and he was small and could easily weave in and out of them. If they got too close he'd climb one, he was good at that, too good, his father always said.

He heard the men yelling, not far behind him, maybe just a little off to the left. He kept running, panting now, a stitch in his side, but he just kept his legs pumping.

Lightning flashed through the trees, and the thunder was coming so close it sounded like drums playing real loud rock 'n' roll, like his father did when he thought Sam was outside playing.

Sam heard Fatso yell, and stopped, just for a second. Fatso wasn't even close. But what about Beau? Beau didn't have the belly Fatso had, so maybe he could slither through the trees really fast. He could come out from behind a tree and jump Sam, cut his throat.

Sam's heart was pounding so loud he could hear it. He crouched down behind one of the big trees, made himself as skinny as a shadow, and waited. He got his breath back, pressed his cheek to the bark, and listened. He didn't hear anything, just the thunder that kept rumbling through the sky. He rubbed his side and the stitch faded. The air felt thick, actually felt like it was raining before the first drop found its way through the thick canopy of leaves and hit him on the jaw.

They'd never see him in the rain. Fatso would probably slip on some mud and land on his fat belly. Sam smiled.

You did it, Sam, you did it.

He'd done it all right. Only thing was he didn't know where he was.

Where was Tennessee?

Even with the thick tree cover, the rain came down hard. He wondered if the forest was so big he'd come out in Ohio, wherever that was.