The room was cold, but Cheyenne’s hands were sweating, making it hard to keep a good hold on the broken piece of glass. The tendons in her wrist ached. She ignored everything but the thought that soon she would have her hands free.
A noise made her freeze. It sounded like a door swinging open at the far end of the house. Cheyenne recognized Griffin’s voice, and that of his dad. She had a few seconds, maybe less. With the side of her free foot, she tried to sweep the other shards of glass under the dresser. Straining her wrist until it felt like it might snap, she managed to slip the broken piece of glass into her coat pocket. By the time she heard the doorknob turn, Cheyenne was again sitting on the bed, sweat running cold down her back. In her mind’s eye, she imagined several pieces of glass still lying in the middle of the floor. Winking in the light. Giving her away. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, she told herself there was nothing she could do about it now.
The door swung open. Their first words were a surprise.
“Why didn’t you tell me who you were?” demanded Griffin.
Cheyenne felt confused. Now that she was no longer concentrating so fiercely on cutting away her bonds, exhaustion and sickness crashed over her like a wave. “I did tell you. I’m Cheyenne Wilder.”
Roy said, “But you’re the daughter of Nike’s president.”
“How do you know that?” She spent most of her time trying to play it down. Even at the private school that she attended, where everyone’s parents were doctors or lawyers, people acted like what her dad did was a big deal. All it meant was that he traveled a lot and that the whole family dressed in Nike – and Harley, Converse, and Cole Haan – clothes from head to toe. And sometimes she met famous athletes.
“There was a story about you on the radio,” Griffin said. “Your dad said you were so sick that you could die. I just thought you had a cold or something.”
Her dad! Cheyenne’s chest ached so bad. She didn’t know if it was from the pneumonia or because she needed to cry. She wished she could hear her dad’s voice. To hear one good thing on this awful day.
Roy stepped closer. He smelled gross. She sniffed again. Peppermint chewing tobacco, like one of the kids on the football team chewed, the sharp smell of mint not masking the earthy, stomach-turning smell of tobacco. “So how sick are you?”
Cheyenne was strangely torn. She wanted to act like everything was okay, to not show any weakness. But then she remembered what she had thought earlier when she was alone with Griffin. It was probably better to let them know that she was sick. Because maybe they would watch her less closely, leave her alone more. They would think she was too weak to pose any danger.
“I’ve got pneumonia. That’s why we were at the pharmacy – to get my antibiotic prescription filled.”
“And your mom left you in the car,” Griffin said.
Cheyenne shook her head. Suddenly, the distinction seemed important. “Danielle’s my stepmom. My real mom’s dead. Danielle left the keys in the car in case I got cold.” She remembered how she had begged Danielle to leave the keys and pushed the thought away.
“Well, now we need her number and everyone else’s,” Roy demanded. “Mobile numbers for your dad and stepmom, home number, work numbers. And we also need to know how much you think your daddy might part with.” He paused to let that sink in. “Here’s a tip. It had better be a lot.”
Cheyenne had thought that Griffin had only been stealing a car. But now it looked like he had been stealing a girl, too.
THE ETIQUETTE OF KIDNAPPING
Cheyenne looked frightened. “Most of my phone numbers are programmed into my mobile.” Her voice was ragged. “It’s voice activated. I just say who I want to call, and it dials it for me.”
“So it’s in the car?” Roy turned toward the door.
“I threw it out the window.” Griffin hoped Roy wasn’t going to get mad. It wasn’t always easy to know what would set his dad off. “It started ringing, and I was worried they could trace it. So I threw it in some bushes in a vacant lot near the shopping center.”
“Good point,” Roy said, nodding. Then he turned to Cheyenne. “Just tell me all the numbers you remember.”
“My home number is five oh three—”
“Hold on, hold on,” Roy said. Griffin saw that his dad didn’t have a piece of paper or anything to write with. Roy went out and began scrabbling in the junk drawer in the kitchen, leaving Griffin alone with Cheyenne.
She didn’t look good, in Griffin’s opinion. Her cheeks were red, but the rest of her face was blue-white, like skim milk. And then she started coughing again. Thick, wet coughs that sounded like something was tearing in her chest. The cords stood out in her neck. Griffin turned to get her some more water, but the glass wasn’t on the dresser where he thought he had left it. He went into the kitchen to get another one, leaving the room just as Roy came in with a pencil stub and a piece of torn paper.
The kitchen looked the way it always did, but imagining what Cheyenne would think if she could see it made Griffin look at it differently. Dirty dishes were piled in the sink. On the stove, every burner held a pan with the remains of some kind of food stuck to the bottom. The counter was crowded with empty cans, open cereal boxes, tipped-over beer bottles, and overflowing ashtrays. The only time anything got washed was if Griffin grew too disgusted to let it go on any longer. The problem with him being the one who occasionally cleaned up was that Roy expected it.
There weren’t any clean glasses in the cupboard, so Griffin picked up one that didn’t look too dirty and rinsed it out before filling it with cold water. When he carried it back, Cheyenne was managing to choke out numbers that his dad was writing down. He waited for them to finish. After he had written the last number down, Roy walked out of the room and motioned for Griffin to follow.
In the hall, Roy said in a low voice, “You’ll need to stay here and watch her. I’m going to go make a deal for a mobile that can’t be traced. And then I’ll make some calls.”
“Can’t I go with you?”
“Somebody needs to stay with her.” Roy jerked his chin in Cheyenne’s direction. She seemed to be staring at them. Griffin wondered how much she could hear. Weren’t your other senses supposed to get better when you were blind?
Roy walked back down the hall, and Griffin returned to his room. “I brought you more water.”
She didn’t answer him for a second. He heard the front door close and realized she had been waiting until they were alone.
“You’re going to have to untie my hands so I can drink it myself.” It was eerie how her dark eyes seemed to be staring at him. “Last time I almost drowned.”
He wondered if it was a trick. But her ankle was tied to the bed. And she wouldn’t be able to move more than a few feet in an unfamiliar house before he could tackle her. Then he remembered how she had fought him in the car.
“All right. But remember, I still have a gun. If you try anything, I’ll shoot you.” The words were such a cliché that he worried he would laugh when he said them out loud. But instead, he sounded tough. He sounded real. He sounded scary.
He kind of liked it.