Page 18 of Call My Bluff
Noah made an amused sort of noise but didn’t answer one way or the other.
They moved through the aisles in silence for some time, occasionally stopping to examine an item more closely. Eventually, they wove their way through the main room and down a short flight of stairs. Olivia stopped abruptly at the bottom, and Noah bumped into her from behind.
“Which way?” she asked, peering down each of four walkways in turn. She almost felt like they should be leaving a trail of breadcrumbs, just in case.
Noah leaned around her and examined their options. “This way,” he announced, as if he actually knew where they were going. He stepped past her and started down a narrow trail to the right, and Olivia followed. She scanned the shelves and tables as they went, though she didn’t see any of the white-faced porcelain dolls they’d come for.
“Let’s look in here,” she said, turning into an alcove on theirleft. The low shelves were filled with children’s toys from years past—plastic rotary phones, stiff-legged army men and carved wooden animals. Finally, in the back behind a faded teddy bear, Olivia saw it: a brightly painted smile. “I found one!” she crowed, more excited than she’d expected to be. It was like stumbling across the proverbial needle in the haystack.
She reached past a few cobwebs and retrieved the doll. Its unnaturally blue eyes did in fact seem to follow her as she turned it from side to side, and its whole body needed a good cleaning, but since its only current purpose was to freak Conner out, it was perfect. “Hey, do you see any more?” she asked. She turned around but was surprised to find herself alone. “Campbell?” she called loudly. “Where’d you go?”
“Where’dyougo?” asked a muffled voice. It was somewhere off to the left, but when Olivia poked her head back into the main walkway, she saw there was more than one branch stretching off in that direction.
She tucked the doll under one arm and cupped both hands around her mouth. “Marco!” she yelled.
“Polo!”
She stepped carefully along the hall and peered into each little nook as she passed. “Marco!” she shouted again.
“Polo!” came a second response, but now it seemed to be behind her.
“Stop moving!” she ordered.
“Youstop moving!”
Olivia huffed out an agitated breath. They could play this game for months and never find each other. “Campbell, I will leave you in here if I have to!” she threatened. She started walking toward where she’d last heard his voice, retracing her steps down the halland making another turn. But it seemed like the dust itself had absorbed all the ambient sound. She stopped and listened hard, straining to pick up any footsteps in her vicinity. There was nothing.
“Campbell?” she shouted.
No answer.
The eerie silence made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up of their own accord. “Noah?” she called again, though it came out softer this time. Maybe he’d been swallowed up by a wardrobe or something equally outrageous.
Then, there was a sound. A quiet sort of thud that she couldn’t attribute to anything in particular. She turned on the spot and peered down the dimly lit aisleway behind her, but it was empty.
“No—AH!” She screamed the last syllable as something grabbed her from behind. The doll she’d been holding hit the floor and rolled several feet away, and whatever had attacked her started to cackle. “Noah Campbell, I hate you!” she yelled, turning as the arms released her.
He doubled over, bracing one hand on a low table as he laughed. When he straightened again, she could see the shine of moisture in his eyes. “That was perfect!” he wheezed. “When you turned around...”
“You’re an idiot,” she grumbled, and she pressed one hand against where her heart was running wild inside her chest. “I found what we needed, by the way. Now we can look for a way out.” She turned to retrieve the doll where it lay on the floor but paused when Noah’s warm hand closed around her wrist.
“Umm, no, you meanIcan look for the way out.You’restaying right here,” he said. Then, in the time it took Olivia to turn her head, something hard and cold joined his fingers—and clicked.
She looked down at the silver bracelet in shock. Her eyesfound the short chain on one side before following it to a second bracelet, which Noah still held in his hand. Before she could process what was happening, he’d latched the metal ring onto a heavy clothing rack. Then he flashed her a blinding grin.
Olivia yanked on her arm and watched as the chain on the handcuffs snapped taut, stopping her movement in midair. She felt her mouth fall open. “Where did you get this?”
“Over there.” He gestured along the hall in the direction she’d been going.
“You found the keys, too, right?” she demanded, shaking her wrist inside the bracelet.
Noah scoffed and crouched to grab the doll, which thankfully didn’t seem to be broken. “Of courseI found the keys! I do have a brain, you know.”
“Okay, then take it off,” she ordered.
He stood and stubbornly shook his head. “No.”
“No? What do you meanno?!”
