Page 56 of You Betrayed Me (The Cahills 3)

I’ve checked every screw, nail, and bolt in the entire house, trying to pry free the tiniest of weapons, anything with which to attack my kidnapper, but every damned thing is screwed down tight, and I have no tools, not even a plastic knife or fork or friggin’ spoon to try to pry my way to freedom.

Damn, damn, damn!

Desperate, I study the ladder once more, then slam it to one side with such force that it bounces and returns, seeming to laugh at me. I examine the one step on the ladder that had seemed a little loose, but that was just my imagination. I give it another tug, and it doesn’t shift at all.

I rock back on my heels and glare at the beast of a ladder.

It won’t help. But there has to be something, one little flaw. I just have to find it.

Once more, I start opening drawers and cupboard doors, searching the insides and . . . then . . . Oh!

Like a bolt of lightning, an idea strikes.

The drawer pulls! Why haven’t I thought of it before? If I could loosen the screws . . . but that’s the problem, isn’t it?

Still . . .

Heart pounding, I check every one.

All fitted tight.

Nothing loose, but if there was anything to wedge in the inside of the drawers . . . My fingernails are broken, and there is nothing, not one damned thing . . . or is there? Adrenaline sliding through my veins, my pulse pounding, I rifle through the trash, something my captor takes away after each visit. Nothing . . . except . . .

The meals that had been provided are prepackaged, the kind from the freezer section of a grocery store—the food frozen in tiny plastic containers.

I find one in the garbage pail, pull it out, and without rinsing it, test it. My heart is beating wildly as I attempt to force the lip of the dish into a screw head behind a kitchen drawer.

No good.

The plastic is too thick. I swear furiously. But I don’t give up.

The bottom of the dish is thinner than the sides, I think.

Biting my lip while attempting to tamp down the hope starting to soar, I try to tear the plastic.

No go.

Again.

But it proves impossible.

My grip slips.

I wash the tiny tray and my hands, drying both, then tackle it again.

“Come on,” I grit out as I begin to work the small dish between my hands, making a valiant stab at tearing the black plastic.

There’s a reason plastic doesn’t decompose for upward of a thousand years, something I think I’ve heard. Tearing it seems impossible, and I sure don’t have a millennium to do it. But if I can just get an edge started . . .

Twisting the little tray back and forth furiously, I see the black plastic turning gray and start to whiten. “Good. Good.” More pressure. More twisting. Faster and faster, until I’m actually sweating. “Come on, come on,” I mutter, moving the hard material back and forth, back and forth, trying to break through, create a seam. I just need a slim edge to insert in the screw so I can remove it.

The damned plastic holds fast.

“Shit.”

I wipe my brow.

Set my jaw.

---