Killing Hour - Lisa Gardner [87]
She rubbed her eyes. Bad idea. They immediately burned. Some of that water would feel so nice on her face. She could rinse out her eyes, maybe get them to crack open so she could see. Rinse off the sweat, then maybe the mosquitoes would finally leave her alone.
Stupid. Pipe dream. She was sweating down to her toes, her green sundress plastered to her skin and her underwear soaked straight through. She hadn’t been this hot since she’d sat naked in a Swedish sauna. Rinsing her face would buy her respite for about two seconds. And then she’d be sweat-soaked and miserable again.
The key was to marshal her resources and use them sparingly.
She also had to get out of the sun. Find someplace shady and relatively cool for the day. Then she could make her escape at night.
She remembered the weather forecast now. Hot, working toward even hotter. Probably breaking triple digits by the end of the week. Not much time, especially if she was already feeling this exhausted.
She had to get moving. Get out of this pit, or die here.
Tina wasn’t ready to die yet.
She used her fingers on her puffy eyelids, prying open the painful, swollen flesh. Some kind of thick liquid drained down her face. She held her eyelids open resolutely, permitting only a few short blinks.
In the beginning, nothing. And then . . . the goo cleared from her eyes and the world slowly came into focus. Bright, harsh, punishing.
Tina inspected her surroundings. Below her was some kind of thick, wet muck. Above her, fifteen to twenty feet overhead, was the mouth of the pit. And beyond that? She had no idea. She could see no signs of bushes, trees, or shrubs. Whatever was up there, however, it surely had to be better than what was down here.
She turned her inspection to the walls. Standing carefully on the edge of the boulder, she counted to three, then let her upper body fall forward. Her red, inflamed hands hit the surface hard. She felt a moment of stunning, cracking pain. Then she was there, feet on the boulder, the rest of her leaning against the side of the pit.
The side was cooler than she would’ve thought. Wet with something she didn’t understand. Slippery. Like a rock covered with algae or mold. Tina wanted to yank back her hand in revulsion. Instead, she forced her fingers to spread, feeling around for handholds.
Not rock, she determined after a moment. The rough texture was too consistent, without any protruding knobs or zigzagging crevices. It was gravelly, lightly scraping her palms. Concrete, she realized abruptly. Oh my God, she was in a man-made pit. The son of a bitch had dropped her into his own homemade hell!
Did that mean she was in a backyard? Her thoughts raced. Maybe some kind of residential area? If she could just climb up, then, find some way to the surface . . .
But if she was in a populated area, why hadn’t someone responded to her screams? And what about the muck? That oozy, swampy mud, teeming with things she didn’t want to know . . .
He probably had a place out in the country, or deep in the woods. Someplace far from civilization, where no one would ever be the wiser. That would make more sense, given his penchant for kidnapping young women.
But still, if she could climb out . . . Once on the surface she could run, hide, find a road, follow a stream. Even if she was deep in the middle of nowhere, up top she had a chance. It was more than she could say down here.
She resumed scouring the bumpy walls with her hands. Faster now. More determined. A moment later, she found it. A vine. Then another, and another. Some kind of invasive species, either seeking the mud or trying to escape. It didn’t matter to her.
Tina wrapped three vines around her hand and gave them an experimental tug. They seemed strong and resilient. Maybe she could use them. Balance