by R. J. Parker
Still no noise.
Lily covered the few feet between her and the table. Didn’t sound like anyone had entered the security area yet but there was every chance they’d heard Maisie rattle the shutter. Perhaps they were on their way around to the ramp. She flinched as she slid the first drawer out.
Empty.
She opened the next and found that one was too.
Should she try the security room, even though they might just be about to walk into it?
Lily opened the door to it just as someone entered from the foyer.
Chapter 58
Lily pulled the door shut again and reversed through the rear office. She didn’t hesitate to find out if she’d been seen or heard but slipped silently back down the concrete steps. She trotted over to where Maisie’s pillar was. But Maisie wasn’t there. Lily stuck out her head so she could take in the others. There were twenty or so. Where the hell had she gone?
Footsteps cautiously descending.
Her eyes flitted about the space for a sign of Maisie. But Lily had to dart her head in as the feet reached the bottom and halted. Had Maisie returned to the pillar beside the shutter?
Shoes started moving again. Slowly.
Lily pressed her back against the pillar, used it as a brace to keep every one of her muscles taut around her trapped breath.
They stopped, nearby.
Lily wouldn’t move until she was discovered. Then she would fight. But for now she had to stay hidden. If they found Maisie first, Lily would attack.
The footfalls continued, moving so softly that Lily could barely hear them. Had they paused again? Lily weighed up if it was worth looking and risking giving away her hiding place. She regretted leaving her phone in the maze. Now was the time they could really have done with a decoy.
Lily made a decision. If their pursuer had walked by her then it was likely they would find Maisie first. But not if she led them away. She breathed out and stepped from behind her pillar. The others obscured her view all the way to the shutter. Nobody was in sight. Were they working their way around the edge? No matter. She needed to lure them back upstairs before they found Maisie. She’d consider how to get back to her daughter once she’d lost them.
Lily loudly ran to the steps again and looked right to see if she was being followed.
‘Wait!’ Maisie streaked from behind a pillar just beyond the one that Lily had just emerged from.
Lily stopped dead. Waited for another figure to emerge behind Maisie. ‘Run!’ What would they do now? She’d figured on scaling the steps in double-quick time, but Maisie wouldn’t be able to move as fast.
She ran to Maisie and scooped her up.
As she put her foot on the bottom step, Lily could hear rapid pursuit. ‘Don’t look back,’ she panted and propelled Maisie up to the office.
They reached the top step and the sound of the feet changed. They were coming up too.
Lily turned and slammed herself against the door. There was no lock. ‘Quick!’ she yelled at herself. Lily released Maisie and grabbed the edge of the desk she’d been searching only minutes before. Plastic chairs toppled and it grated noisily against the floor as she dragged its weight to the door, which immediately tried to open against it.
Lily grunted and rammed the table against the panel, holding it in place with her bodyweight.
Banging the other side.
There was another, smaller, longer table against the wall. Lily gripped its edge and heaved it across the floor. She positioned it at a right angle to the first. If they shoved against the one blocking the door it would get lodged against this one and the wall.
The edge of the door pounded at the first one but there was scarcely an inch gap. They weren’t slipping through there. Lily grabbed Maisie by the hand and they exited the back office. She pulled the door closed and then lugged an empty cupboard in front of that one. She picked up Maisie again and ran into the foyer.
The elevator door was still bouncing against the chunk of plaster. Should they get back in it and try to find another way out on the first floor?
Behind them the door butted against the desk.
They couldn’t get out. But there were at least two kidnappers in the building. Lily knew the most direct route out was the best. They had to smash the window. Was there something heavy enough she could use? She carried Maisie to the reception and looked behind it. Nothing. Just plaster and balls of dust on the floor. What about the scaffolding?
Lily returned to the wall it was holding up and examined the steel poles.
‘What are you doing?’
They were held in place by metal clips, but she managed to release one and slide out a heavy length of tubing. ‘Stand over there.’ Hefting it, she staggered back to the door beside the revolving one and launched the tube at the glass.
It bounced off and back at her and she had to sidestep it as it clanged onto the tiles. But there was a snowflake effect where it had impacted.
‘Do it again.’
Lily panted as she picked up the weighty pipe again and drove it against the same place.
The snowflake turned into a cobweb.
She kept hold of the pipe and repeatedly thrust it at the pane.
‘Keep going!’
Her bashing at the window sounded just out of time with the thudding on the door in the office. She was letting anyone nearby know exactly where they were.
A huge crack opened up in the glass from the middle of the web to the top of the door, but as she kept striking the pane it still wouldn’t break. ‘Come on!’ She wrenched some extra energy from within herself and intensified her attack on the window, but it remained intact.
The banging in the office stopped.
Lily paused and they both turned. Had they given up or had they got through?
A crash behind them made them swivel back to the door.
The plate glass had collapsed from the frame and lay in shards on the tiles. A cool wind blew in.
Lily blinked as the fresh air gusted against them. ‘Careful. Let me go first.’ Lily stepped gingerly through them until she was standing outside. There was nobody around. ‘All clear.’
Chapter 59
‘Come on …’ Lily extended her hands. Maisie reached out and Lily seized her under the armpits and swung her over the main fragments. Their feet crunched and ground splinters as they headed for the rubble before them.
Lily glanced over her shoulder. She still couldn’t hear any sound from the office. Had they given up and gone to try and escape through the shutter? But that was securely locked. Maybe they had the keys though. They might if they’d been regularly in and out of the place. In which case, they could be on their way from the rear of the building.
Maisie halted. ‘Which way?’
They’d reached the edge of the debris. On the far side they could see the top of the other collapsed block.
Lily wanted to get them out of the area as quickly as possible. Could they go around the rubble? It seemed to make sense to do that for as long as they could. ‘Be careful where you step. You go in front of me.’ She indicated Maisie right, steadying her under her elbow as she traversed the odd bricks that had rolled down from the heap. Again, Lily looked back, but nobody was following them through the shattered door.
‘Do you know where we’re going?’
‘As far away as we can get.’ The area was clearly condemned, and she didn’t know if they were about to run into a fence they couldn’t climb. They’d have to tackle that as and when.
A hundred yards along they came across some more stacked up rusty industrial freezers and cookers. They hadn’t been able to see these from the kitchen window, so it at least meant they were making progress, getting away from the block and out of sight of anyone who might be watching them from the front windows.
‘Shall we go around?’ Maisie pointed to the right edge of the stack, but there were a lot of broken bottles lying about on the ground that side.
‘Go up onto the rubbl
e and round.’ Lily gestured to the left side. ‘Just be careful where you’re putting your feet.’
Maisie nodded and extended her arms like she was a balancing act as she started to climb.
Lily went up after her, but the bricks and powdered concrete felt unsteady beneath her deck shoes.
Maisie bent forwards as she clambered the steep slope and used her hands to support herself.
Lily did the same, her fingers grabbing shattered cinder blocks. She spotted broken glass glinting amongst the broken hardcore. It was the last place a little girl should be. ‘Take your time and don’t cut yourself.’
‘I’m fine.’ Maisie scrambled ahead.
‘Slow down. We don’t need to go much higher.’ Lily stopped and squinted behind them again. Nobody in pursuit.
When she turned back, Maisie had vanished.
‘Maisie.’ She wanted to yell harder but knew she shouldn’t give away their location.
No reply.
‘Maisie!’ Now she couldn’t restrain her alarm. Lily picked her way towards where her daughter had been standing and was looking down a tight crevice between a ten-foot square of a collapsed red brick wall and some misshapen concrete with gnarled reinforcing wires sticking dangerously out from it. Maisie was lying on her back eight to ten feet away at the bottom and the dim morning daylight only just illuminated her. She leaned in and shouted down. ‘Maisie, can you hear me?’
She was motionless.
Were her eyes closed? There wasn’t enough light to tell. ‘Maisie, answer me!’
Still no movement.
Lily darted her eyes around the rubble. Nobody moving across it who had been alerted by her shouts. ‘Maisie?’ Had she been knocked out cold, or worse? She felt panic surge. Maybe she’d struck some of the rusty cables on the way down.
Maisie’s head rolled.
‘Maisie.’ She could see a faint frown of pain on her features. Thank God. But she could have concussion or broken bones. ‘Are you hurt?’
‘I don’t think so.’ She rubbed her face, got dirt all over it.
Lily leaned in further. ‘See if you can sit up.’
‘My back,’ she grunted groggily before she could do it.
Had she sustained a serious injury in the fall? ‘Can you move your legs and arms OK?’ She tried to keep her tone calm.
Maisie stirred her legs and wiggled her fingers. ‘Yes.’
‘OK, just try and sit slowly up.’
‘Watch out that nobody’s coming.’ Maisie’s voice sounded suddenly terrified.
‘I will.’ Lily cast her eyes about the uneven terrain around her. ‘Nobody up here. Just concentrate on sitting up. Do it slowly and stop if it hurts.’
‘OK.’ Maisie seemed to gather her strength and jerkily sat up.
‘That’s good. How do you feel?’
‘My head’s aching.’
‘See if you can stand … but take your time.’
Maisie struggled to her feet.
Lily could now only see her daughter’s grubby face staring up at her from the dinginess below. ‘Try and grab one of the cables sticking out.’
Her daughter regarded the bent wires.
‘But be very careful. They’re embedded in the concrete, so they should be able to take your weight.’
Maisie tested one, pulled on it. Damp concrete immediately crumbled, and the wire bent down towards her.
‘Try another. If you can pull yourself halfway up, I should be able to lean in and lift you out the rest of the way.’
Maisie nodded uncertainly and tugged another wire. That bent in her hand too. ‘It won’t work.’
‘Just keep trying,’ Lily encouraged her. ‘You only need to get out by a few feet …’
A noise. Rubble sliding.
Lily turned in the direction of the sound, which came from right behind her. Somebody was coming up the stack, displacing bricks with their sluggish steps.
Chapter 60
In seconds the eyeline of whoever was climbing up would connect with hers. Lily had no choice. ‘Move to one side,’ she warned Maisie. ‘I’m coming down.’ There was no time to turn around. She had to go face first.
Maisie squeezed herself to the side of her pit, her expression wide-eyed as her mother descended.
Lily’s body teetered and then her weight carried her forward. She attempted to slide down to the left of the rusty cables, but as she dropped, the shape of the crevice directed her at them and her side was grazed deeply by their sharp ends, the metal dragging at her skin as she plummeted. She saw Maisie’s alarmed features fill her vision and then her nose was butting her daughter’s shoulder and arm before she halted abruptly.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Ssshhh.’ Lily gritted her teeth against the raw pain in her ribs.
They both waited, frozen in their positions.
Lily’s ears pounded as blood rushed into her head. Above them she could hear the footsteps getting nearer. Had they already seen her at the hole? Why else would they have climbed the stack? But perhaps they didn’t know exactly where she and Maisie were and had hauled themselves up there to get a view from the top.
The feet paused.
Sounded like they were nearby. Lily had to take a short breath in and flinched as the injury to her side smarted. Her left arm joined in and she gritted her teeth against crying out.
Bricks scraped above, as if the person up there was readjusting his footing.
The interior of the crevice smelt of damp soil, and she could feel Maisie’s chest rising and falling as they waited.
The footfalls slogged nearer.
What would happen if they grabbed her legs? Could she reposition herself or was she stuck like this? If so, she was powerless. At least she could hold onto the cables and shield her daughter. But she was vulnerable. They could injure her and soon get to Maisie.
The crunching above ceased.
Were they peering into the hole? Lily didn’t want to shift her position to try and look in case her body slid further down and she made any more noise. She could feel her forehead throbbing and prayed Maisie wouldn’t move.
Seconds passed.
Were they looking at the soles of her feet, considering exactly when to reveal the fact that they’d found them?
They tramped away a few paces and stopped.
Maybe they hadn’t seen the hole. Maisie hadn’t spotted the trap until she’d been right on top of it. Lily awkwardly tried to swallow upside down.
The feet kept on moving erratically away, trudging and then dodging over obstacles.
Lily gripped Maisie’s shoulders to support herself. ‘Just stand still, sweetheart.’ She used her daughter to push herself back up again so she could address her face-to-face. ‘I’m going to try—’ Agony shot up her side.
‘You’re hurt.’
‘Ssshhh, just a scrape.’ But Lily knew there was blood. She could feel its warmth oozing down towards her bra. She tensed, gripped the edges of the cables above Maisie’s head and pulled herself further against the back of the crevice so she could drop her feet down. But she couldn’t support her weight and felt her body conform to gravity. ‘Crouch down, put your hands over your head.’
Maisie quickly obeyed.
Lily tried to hold herself back but plummeted, the bottom half of her body landing on Maisie. ‘Are you all right?’ She could feel her daughter below her and her head nod. Quickly repositioning herself, Lily managed to find footholds and straightened up. She shot a glance up at the diagonal opening above them. There was nobody standing there.
Maisie still had her hands over her head and peeped out. ‘Are you OK?’
Lily nodded and whispered. ‘How about you? Head still hurting?’
Maisie rubbed the back of it for good measure.
‘Let me take a look.’ Lily lifted her fair hair at the back and saw a red mark at the roots. ‘Think you banged it when you landed.’
‘Is it bleeding?’ Maisie asked fearfully.
‘No. No
blood.’ But Lily could feel her own running down to her waist now. She would check it later. She didn’t want to send Maisie into a panic.
Maisie seemed to read her mind. ‘How did you hurt yourself?’
‘Think I just pulled a muscle.’ She hissed in air for effect, but it actually helped stem the pain. ‘At least we can get out of here now. You climb up onto the wires and I’ll push the soles of your feet so you can crawl out.’
Maisie nodded with determination.
‘Right, I’ll lift you up as high as I can then I’ll come up after you. Quick.’
Maisie turned her back to Lily and raised her hands to be lifted.
Lily flinched as she tried to take her weight.
Maisie regarded her over her shoulder. ‘You sure you’re OK?’
‘Just concentrate on not cutting yourself on these things.’ Lily studied the twisted wires. They were dangerous but, if they were careful, they might serve as a ladder at least some of the way out. ‘Ready?’
Maisie nodded and Lily hefted her. Hot pain gushed through her side and arm and she grunted hard to cover an exclamation.
Maisie carefully rested her feet on a length of wire.
‘Is it taking your weight?’ Lily released her slightly and she was held in place there. ‘Good. I’m behind you. See if you can climb higher and then I’ll come up too.’
Maisie began to scale the wires, but froze.
The footfalls were coming back.
They both looked up to the aperture above them.
The steps halted nearby. Then somebody appeared at the top and looked in.
Chapter 61
Maisie screamed and climbed back down but even with the dingy light behind him, Lily immediately recognised the man.
‘Are you all right?’
It was the bearded guy with the baseball cap and Irish accent who’d come up to their floor.
Lily blinked a few times to make sure she was correct.
‘No. We need help.’ Maisie responded first.
He knelt at the side of the hole. ‘Either of you hurt?’