Written Off

by E. J. Copperman

  Four more steps and I’d be in jumping range of the hatch. “But you said you didn’t kill them because of proofreading errors,” I reminded the homicidal maniac.

  “I didn’t!” Her voice had crossed the line from irritated to raving. “I fixed their asinine errors, and I took their money. But when I tried to lay it all out, neatly and perfectly in a volume that would explain to everyone in a generation why grammar and punctuation matters, did they help me? I couldn’t get one of those bitches to pick up a phone.”

  So that was it; I should have seen it coming a mile away. “You wrote a grammar book?” Had I said that out loud? Two more steps . . .

  Apparently so. “It was a grammar bible!” Kineally screamed. “It was going to change the way every writer in the country operated. It would have done so much good, but every time I asked, it was, ‘Oh, I don’t deal in nonfiction,’ and ‘Didn’t Eats, Shoots & Leaves take care of all that?”

  I moved toward the hatch but too fast. Kineally saw what I was doing. “Stop!” she screamed. “Don’t even think about it!” And she leapt into the space between us to block me from my escape. For an unhinged, unpublished writer, she could jump; I’d give her that.

  “That’s a reason to kill people?” I said. “Because they didn’t help you publish your”—I looked at her and changed course midstream—“grammar bible?”

  “Don’t change the subject—you were about to rush down those stairs!” The flashlight dropped from her hands, and the only light in the room now was from the cracks around the window and the holes in the ceiling. It wasn’t much, but what I could see was enough to make me wish it was darker.

  Kineally was reaching into her pocket and pulling out a weapon. “I was going to wait two more days, but you’ve made it impossible,” she said. “This is your last moment alive.” And she produced from her pocket—

  “A letter opener?” I shouted at her. “You plotted and planned all those over-the-top deaths for those other writers, and I get a letter opener? That’s the best you could do?”

  She looked contrite. “I told you,” she said. “You were a rush job.” And she raised the dagger, which did indeed look sharp.

  This was so Duffy’s fault, I thought. He’d gotten me killed and I hadn’t even revised his latest adventure. I was beyond irate. The only thing that man could possibly do to redeem himself in my eyes now was . . .

  There was a sound from downstairs, and Kineally stopped her motion and looked down into the hatch. It sounded like a door opening, or wood splintering, or both. And in seconds, a voice screamed into the blackness below me, “Rachel?” More authoritative. “Rachel!”

  Duffy.

  Kineally’s face took on an expression of such anger, you would have thought someone had broken into her home and threatened to ruin the rest of her life.

  Oh, yeah. Never mind.

  Before I could twitch a facial muscle or vibrate a vocal cord, she had grabbed me and put a hand over my mouth. “How did they find you here?” she hissed. It was a good question, but even if I knew, I don’t think I would have volunteered an answer. Which was just as well, because there was that hand on my mouth. Kineally started pushing me away from the hatch and back toward the wall.

  “Rachel?” came the voice from below. Was that Ben Preston? Was it weird that, though he sort of asked me out, I couldn’t immediately recognize his voice, yet I could pick Duffy’s out of a lineup? Was that because I’d had Duffy’s voice in my head for years?

  Maybe this wasn’t the time to ponder that.

  “So you didn’t care for the letter opener?” Kineally whispered in my ear as she dragged me into the darkest corner of the attic. “I can respect that. How’s this for creativity? If they haul me off, you’re going to die the worst kind of death: slow and agonizing from starvation and dehydration, because you’ll be locked in this attic, and they won’t find you until someone complains about the smell. And if they don’t figure out who I am, I’ll come back for something more inventive. Assuming you don’t suffocate first.”

  I fought against her shoving a little harder after that, but the woman was big and strong, and I was, you know, not. She struggled with my resistance, but it didn’t stop my momentum. And I could see what our destination was going to be.

  The steamer trunk in the corner.

  Under normal (for a crime such as this) circumstances, that would be the best possible place to be stashed away. It was the first object an observer would see that would be large enough to store a body—even a live one. If I could count on Kineally not dosing me up with another shot of her sleep juice, and if it didn’t have padlocks on it the size of hubcaps, and if I wasn’t petrified at the idea of running out of air in that little thing, and if Duffy Madison wasn’t going to assume this criminal would never put me in something that obvious, I’d have hopped happily into the trunk and awaited my rescue.

  But that was a lot of “ifs” to consider, and the last one was the—you should pardon the expression—killer. Duffy would see the trunk, figure Kineally was an evil genius who would never use such a trite storage receptacle, and look for something less pulp fiction and more Hannibal Lecter. By the time he realized that he should be thinking more conventionally, I’d be deprived of air for too long, and it wouldn’t matter. To me.

  I increased my resistance as we reached the trunk. I needed to instantly flash upon a more creative alternative and then convince Kineally that the change in plan was her idea, because if I showed too much panic at being stuffed in a trunk, that would become much more attractive to this sadistic maniac.

  First order of business: figure out what Duffy would flash on. I had to think back on what I’d seen when I’d scoped out the area before. What was the opposite of a place the average deranged criminal would stash a victim?

  Oh, no.

  The small wooden toolbox, which on first glance didn’t appear large enough for a human being to exist in, was exactly the kind of thing Duffy’s criminally attuned mind would latch onto. It was just the right place to get Kineally to store me. And I hated myself for thinking of it. I’m not overly claustrophobic, but a big dog would feel a little cooped up in that thing, and I am somewhat larger than a collie.

  Damn it, it was perfect.

  Now to convince her to do it. I fought against her pulling, which was still the best option but least likely, and forced my mouth open between her fingers. “What are you doing?” I asked, muffled but audible. As if it weren’t crystal clear exactly what she was doing.

  Kineally didn’t answer. From downstairs, but closer now, I could hear Duffy’s voice. “Is anyone here?” he called. He’d never yell, “Police!” It wouldn’t be accurate. Still not close enough to see the pull-down stairs, he was definitely on his way in the right direction.

  When we were (finally) near enough to both objects, I dug in my heels, looked at the toolbox, and widened my eyes with not-very-feigned fear. “You’re putting me in that?” I gasped. “No, please. Not in there! It’s too tight! I’ll die!”

  Okay, so I stole my tactic from Br’er Rabbit. That doesn’t make it bad.

  Kineally, clearly not having considered the toolbox before, looked at it, sized me up, and grinned with evil glee. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. And if you so much as make a squeak to signal your pal downstairs, I’ll leave you in there until you’re dead. Is that clear?” Then she reached into the one drawer in the toolbox and pulled out (it figured) a roll of duct tape. She ripped off a piece and slapped it over my mouth.

  Before I could reach for it, she had taped my hands at the wrists like handcuffs and punched me in the stomach, making me double over. After that, stuffing me into the open doors of the toolbox was, I imagine, relatively easy. I was too busy watching the twinkling lights falling from the sky and feeling like I was going to vomit to take note. I fought the impulse. Successfully. For now.

  In a nanosecond, the doors of the toolbox, made well (damn that good craftsmanship!) of heavy wood, were shut. I heard a lock
click on the other side. And then I heard Kineally’s footsteps head for the pull-down stairs. Then the groan of the springs as she began to push the steps back up into the attic. But there was no snap at the end, no report that indicated the stairs were back in place.

  I’m sure that if I’d had the time, I would have panicked. My knees were practically in my face, it was pitch black and hot, and I had no idea how long the air in this disgustingly well-built box would last. If I’d misread Duffy, or if—worse—he never made it up to this space to search for me, I was doomed.

  But luckily, there wasn’t the time to think about that. Within seconds of hearing that lock snap shut, I started to hear voices. First, it was just snatches of a sentence: “Special Agent Rafferty,” “already searched up there,” “fresh pair of eyes.” Then there was the sound of feet on the pull-down stairs, and the voices got louder.

  “It’s not much to look at,” Kineally was saying, and even though I knew what she was saying was a lie, I had to admit it was being played convincingly. “I think we have a better chance trying to figure out where she might have been taken after she was here.”

  “I’m not clear on how you beat us here.” That was Ben Preston’s voice. “We’ve been tracking the GPS Duffy put in Rachel’s cell phone when they drove to Ocean Grove, and it led us here. But you obviously knew about this Kineally woman that Rachel mentioned because her ex-husband’s name is on the deed to this place.” Oh yeah, like you had really been following up on Shana Kineally, you liar! Ben would really have to rescue me all on his own to get past first base now.

  “I’ve been following up on the only connections the authors all had, and Kineally showed up pretty early,” said the “special agent.” It was amazing how she could talk about herself like a stranger. “She showed up on Sunny Maugham’s hard drive. The computer spat out this address as a property owned by someone with that name. It fit.”

  “You thought that Rosemary Cleland was missing and sent Duffy to Connecticut when she was just off on a weekend with her boyfriend,” Ben reminded her (as if she hadn’t done that on purpose). “Not only did you get her husband mad at her, you wasted Duffy’s time and maybe got Rachel kidnapped. So let us look around a little, okay? Your eyes aren’t the only ones that see things.”

  “Why would the window be boarded up?” Duffy Madison was already punching holes in the idea that the attic was a dead end. Atta boy, Duffy! “I saw from outside that the glass is still intact. There is no safety element involved. It seems to me that the only rational explanation under these circumstances is that the owner of the building didn’t want someone to be able to leave this room. Rachel was being held here.”

  “That’s my point,” Kineally said, trying to punch holes in Duffy’s holes. Maybe I was already starting to get a little woozy. I knew for a fact that my left buttock had fallen asleep, and the rest of me wasn’t far off. “She was being held here. She isn’t being held here now. I think we’re losing valuable time investigating a place that is no longer relevant.”

  “Maybe so,” Ben said, pondering. “Her father is frantic, and I don’t blame him. We might only have a few hours now before we find Rachel murdered in some bizarre way. Maybe we should try to pick up the trail.”

  “That’s what I’ve been saying,” Kineally reiterated. I realized I was closing my eyes. When it’s totally dark in your environment, closing your eyes is either an acknowledgement that you can’t see anyway or a sign that your oxygen supply is starting to dwindle and your brain can’t necessarily be trusted. I forced myself to stay awake. Maybe I could make the toolbox move or fall over. That would get their attention. “If we leave now, we might be able to get to Ms. Goldman’s house before this Kineally person manages to kill her.”

  I was definitely not fond of all this talk about me being murdered, particularly when the person who did the murdering around here was one of the people saying it. I tried to shake myself from side to side, to get the big wooden storage unit moving. Nothing. For all I knew, it was bolted to the floor. And there was barely enough room inside for me, let alone for a swaying motion. My muscles were crying out from effort and there were no results. Worse, I was breathing harder through my nose because my mouth still had the duct tape barrier on it. Air was at a premium, and I was using it up faster. That couldn’t go on. I stopped trying.

  I had to count on Duffy.

  There was the sound of footsteps moving away from me. They were heading for the stairs! If they left and got in a car to drive to my house, which had to be at least an hour and a half away (judging from Ben’s comments), I’d never get out of this toolbox. I tried to yell, but the small squeak I managed wouldn’t have attracted the attention of a really astute Labrador retriever in an otherwise silent room.

  “I don’t think so,” Duffy said, and I think I might have held my breath, which wasn’t a really strong survival tactic. My head got fuzzier. “I believe there is a possibility we are giving up too easily.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kineally demanded. “We have very little time, and you’re wasting it on a cold lead.” Now that I knew she really wasn’t with the FBI, that sounded like something a woman would say if she’d watched too many CBS crime dramas. A cold lead. Really.

  “Everything in this room, even though it is dusty, is in place,” Duffy began. I knew this technique. “The furnishings are sparse, but they have been arranged with a purpose. There are spaces on the floor that have no dust, as if someone has been sitting down. And that lamp over there, which clearly was the only source of light in the room, has been unplugged and left on the floor, discarded, not neatly standing in a corner, like the rest of the room would suggest.”

  “Nobody’s saying she was never here,” Ben argued. “Why is the lamp so important?”

  “I’m collecting data,” Duffy said, but his voice was gaining urgency. “And I am developing a theory.”

  Forcing my eyes open, I found myself hoping that Duffy’s theory would develop into a concept, become an idea, and solidify into a course of action in a very short time. I felt the need to gulp air and fought the impulse, realizing that each gulp would use up more oxygen than I had to spare at the moment.

  “A theory?” Kineally echoed.

  Duffy didn’t answer. I heard footsteps; if I were writing him, he’d be walking the perimeter of the room. “There is no evidence of physical abuse, no blood, no areas where blood might have been cleaned from the floor. There is evidence that someone was being held here, and footprints in the dust would indicate more than one person. This is not the first time this attic has been used for housing victims.”

  “You’re wasting time,” Kineally said.

  “No he’s not,” said Ben. “Duffy never wastes time.” That was true; I was planning on revealing in a later book that he suffered from undiagnosed ADHD. Maybe I could think about that while I slept right now . . . No! Wake up! The duct tape on my hands was especially irritating; my feet were unbound but had no room to kick.

  Why didn’t the genius who built this toolbox put in a window? Or an air conditioner?

  “There is no evidence of someone being taken out of this room,” Duffy announced.

  Kineally’s voice dropped an octave. “What?”

  “It’s true. The only physical evidence I can find speaks to a woman, mostly likely Ms. Goldman, being brought into the attic by someone very strong and placed on the floor and then walking around the room. And a struggle. Two people, probably women. I would guess they were Rachel and Shana Kineally.”

  “So what does that tell us?” Ben was great at feeding him straight lines. Suddenly, this conversation had more interesting features. I didn’t need to work quite as hard to stay awake. But it was starting to feel like I was working on a story; it wasn’t like they were talking about me so much as a character I had written.

  Wait. If I could make Duffy real by writing about him, did that mean I had made myself up, too?

  “It tells us there’s a good chance Rachel Go
ldman is still in this attic,” Duffy said.

  Wow. That would be really cool. I wondered if she was up here! If only I could look around, I might be able to help them find her!

  “That’s ridiculous,” Kineally said. “This killer has always abducted the victim first and then taken her back to her home to kill. They’ve already got a head start on us; let’s go!”

  Her footsteps were clearly the only ones I heard next. The two men must have been standing still, looking either at her or at each other.

  “Gentlemen,” she said. “Think of Ms. Goldman. Her life is very much in peril right now. You saw the note that was left on her trash can. The killer is targeting not just her, but you, too, Duffy. We need to get down there while she’s still alive.”

  A long silence. Or maybe it just felt like a long silence. When Duffy spoke, it was quietly, and I was a mile and a half past drowsy, so I can’t be sure my account is completely accurate.

  “How did you know that, Special Agent?”

  Kineally took a while, maybe two seconds, maybe three days, to answer. “Know what?”

  “The incident at Ms. Goldman’s house involving the note on her trash can. That was never reported to you. How did you know about it? How do you know what was written on the note?”

  “Yeah,” Ben’s voice said, coming from somewhere around Michigan. “And the previous victims were brought here for days before they were discovered. They hadn’t been killed in their homes; they were brought there afterward and staged.”

  I might have missed a few seconds there; I think I might have heard the sounds of a scuffle. But I knew Kineally was armed with a letter opener, while at the very least, Ben had his service weapon. It couldn’t have been too much of a battle.

  When I heard Duffy’s voice again, it sounded panicky and a little breathless; the man needed to work out more and build up his wind. It was a condition that, now especially, I could empathize with. “She’s up here somewhere! And she has to be running out of air!”

  Kineally started to yell something but was told to shut up. That must have been Ben. “Tell us where you put her!” he added. There was silence, and Ben sounded disgusted when he shouted, “Officer, get her out of here!” Scuffling, feet dragging. I didn’t hear steps on the stairs and wondered for a moment if they were lowering Kineally out of the window.