Find Her (Detective D.D. Warren #8)(48)

The smell is coming from the opposite side of the room, where the pine box was. I make my way carefully through the dark, feeling my way with my fluttering fingers. Sure enough, I hit the edge of the pine box with my left shoulder. I pause, back up, feel around the edges.

He’s rebuilt it. Son of a bitch. I’d smashed the thing apart, left it in half a dozen distinct pieces. Why not? But now, it’s once again intact.

I curse, am tempted to halt my pursuit of roasted chicken in order to destroy the box out of pure spite. But I force myself to stop and think.

Why rebuild the box? Head games? Because even now, somewhere outside the viewing window, he’s grinning to himself, watching me explore a cheap pine coffin with my fingertips. He wants a response, is probably leaning forward in anticipation of my look of terror. Fuck him. No way I’m giving him that satisfaction.

Okay, so when did he rebuild the box? Surely if he’d come into the room, even while I was sleeping, and worked on it, I would’ve heard him. And given I’d yanked apart all the various wooden panels . . .

He must’ve removed it. Snatched up the pieces and carted them out. Then, after rebuilding it—or buying a second one?—redelivered it.

This makes me frown. I keep my back to the one-way mirror, feeling suddenly uneasy. I’m not sure which thought disturbs me more. That my captor can enter and exit the room multiple times without rousing me, or that he might have an unlimited supply of cheap pine coffins.

I finger the lacy edge of my satin nightgown. Again, the level of preparedness indicated by his actions. A predator who is more than your average bear. A man who’s done his homework.

He knows me. I’m almost certain of it. One of the men who wrote me a letter in the past five years? One of the very many predators, who read every salacious detail of my captivity and thought, wow, if only I could get a girl like that for myself?

My hands are shaking. With my wrists bound, I can feel my fingers tremble against one another and I hate the weakness. Worse, my instinctive desire to start picking at my own thumb. Find a ragged edge. Tear off the nail. Use the pain to ground me.

As I did, so many minutes, hours, days ago, when I was trapped in the box.

Food. I can smell it, so close it tantalizes. I need to focus. I’m hungry, definitely, and given I don’t know when I might be able to eat again . . .

Evil Kidnapper might have read all about me. Evil Kidnapper might even feel he knows me.

But that was the old Flora. Not the one who’s spent the past five years studying, training, preparing. I am now Flora 2.0.

I’m a woman with promises left to keep.

Dinner. The promise of sustenance. I will not waste it just because of a stupid pine box, some twisted blast from the past, or the unnerving realization someone is most likely watching me.

Time to eat.

I scoot around the box, inching forward with my bound wrists rocking against the floor. I explore between the box and the wall for the prospect of roasted chicken. But . . . nothing.

I move all around the box, continue through the rest of the room. Nothing.

Finally, I sit back on my heels next to the bare mattress, my back once again to the watcher’s window, and contemplate things.

Smell is hard to trace. It could be coming from another room, I suppose. Or, worse, he’s piping it in somehow. Maybe from the grate next to the one-way glass. Meaning there’s no food at all. This whole thing is just like some bad science experiment, where I’m playing the role of mouse in the maze.

But the smell is so strong, so close.

Heat. It comes to me. I’m not just smelling chicken, but I swear I can feel it. Steam wafting through the air. And I felt it strongest, smelled it sharpest, over by the pine box.

My shoulders come down. Immediately, I know what he’s done. Son of a bitch!

I cross back to the rebuilt—second?—box. Sure enough, crude holes are drilled in the lid. (Should I rub my fingertips against the jagged edges? Tear my own flesh, jam a sliver into the softness of my skin, then suck out the blood? Good times from the good old days. Is that what he wants from me?)

I keep my fingers fisted tight as I lean closer and sniff at the first hole. Chicken, no doubt about it. And yes, I don’t just smell it; I can feel it. A trace of heat and steam wafting up from the inside of the box.

Son of a bitch.

I find the padlock easily enough. Of course it’s locked, because why not? As long as you’re torturing someone with the olfactory promise of dinner, of course you’re going to lock the actual food away. I mean, leaving the lid open, where would be the fun in that?

Am I hungry right now? Yes. Am I thirsty right now? Yes.

But am I in pain? Am I terrified, depressed, beaten, too hot, too cold, too overwhelmed? No. Then I’m all right. I can think this through.

Option one, walk away. Or, being me, more likely turn around, once more flip him the finger, then resume my position on the mattress. Disadvantages include going hungry, but also . . . food might not just be food. What about utensils, plates, hell, a plastic cup? Resources, potential tools. The box is a care package of sorts. And being all alone in the dark, I can’t afford to give up on the contents.

Which means I’m going to have to open the box. I did it once before by hammering it apart with my bound wrists. I was pretty pissed off at the time and, frankly, trying to shake up the occupant. An approach I’m not so sure will yield great results for my prospective dinner.