“You were ornery even then.” She smiled as a drop of sweat rolled off her nose and landed on the dry wooden floor below. There was Jesse, with his mother, his whole life before him, with no idea that he would find himself unable to walk. There was Quinn, unaware that the burden of caring for his brother was about to be placed squarely upon his shoulders.
As if it were a lightning bolt from a clear sky, the realization struck Adrianna that she was much like the Baxter boys. Back home in Shreveport, she was certain that there were photographs of her and her parents, taken at ages at which she would have found the whole thing silly or a waste of time. All of them would have been smiling and full of joy. At those moments, she would have been incapable of understanding what was going to happen to her life, that she too would be left to fend for herself. As the thought roiled through her, Adrianna found herself fighting back tears.
Suddenly, the sound of a door slamming exploded across the attic, and the dim light that came up from the stairs was cut off. Momentarily unable to speak, Adrianna heard only the pounding of her own heart.
The attic door!
“Hello?” she said tentatively. “Is anyone there?” There was no answer.
She didn’t know if she was imagining things, but Adrianna could have sworn that the temperature in the attic soared. In the near darkness her heart beat like a frightened rabbit’s as the heat descended on her as if it were a net trying to ensnare its prey.
As steadily as she could, Adrianna rose to her feet. What had happened? Had a gust of wind pulled the door shut? Now she needed to find her way back out of the attic. Trying to remember the location of each of the boxes she’d seen, Adrianna inched her way across the attic back in the direction of the steps. She tried to move slowly, confidently, but her fears picked at the corners of her thoughts. Her foot brushed against a box, and she moved to the side to avoid it.
“That’s the way,” she reassured herself. “Nice and slow.”
She’d only taken one more step forward when a thought occurred to her. What if she were to step forward blindly and fall down into the stairwell? In this darkness, she couldn’t be entirely sure she would see it until it was too late. She could break an arm or worse. With this new concern hanging over her, she got down on her hands and knees and felt her way.
As she slid along, dust rose from the floor and clouded in her face, forcing her to cough. All of the worries about spiders and other animals disappeared. Sweat poured from her face and coated her skin.
It is so damned hot
.
I need to get out of here!
She was beginning to panic when her hand caught the lip of the stairwell. Following it along its length, she was soon at the top of the steps that led down to the floor below. Still careful not to lose her balance, she took her time descending. A small sliver of light came from beneath the door, and she sighed as her hand found the knob.
Anticipating the feel of cooler air washing over her drenched body, she reached for the doorknob. The knob stayed firm in her hand, refusing to move.
The door refused to open!
A
DRIANNA CONTINUED
to try to turn the doorknob. “Open, damn it!” It didn’t occur to her that it was locked; she assumed it was only stuck.
Certain that it would finally open and free her from the confines of the scorching hot attic, she continued to turn the knob and push on the door. “Lola,” she called. “Open the door.”
She was momentarily shocked by the sound of her voice echoing around the stairwell. To her ear, it sounded distant, frail, and a bit frightened. Balling her fists, she pounded against the door. It shook on its hinges but refused to give way. When she spoke again, she heard the first tinges of irritation in her voice.
“Lola, this isn’t funny. Open the door.” There was no answer. Lola had locked her in and left the house.
Sweat poured down the sides of her face; she felt as if she were in a steam bath. The heat was a palpable thing; she could have sworn that it was physical enough to touch. It was all around her, bearing down on her, making it hard to breathe. She wiped her brow, and it was again instantly beaded with perspiration. Still, the cold finger of fear played along her spine.
“I have to get out of here,” she murmured, “or I’ll faint from the heat.”
Opening her mouth to once again yell for help, Adrianna stopped herself and fell silent. No one would be able to help her. Even if Jesse were to hear her, he would be unable to come up the steps to open the door.
Adrianna was sure that Lola had shut the door and locked it, leaving her in the hot attic. It was possible that the wind had closed the door, but that seemed unlikely. Even if Lola were to hear her shouts for help, Adrianna could only imagine that the cleaning woman would be pleased, a malicious smile plastered across her face. Shouting would do her no good. She would have to find another way out.
What am I going to do? It will be hours before Quinn comes home.
Climbing back up to the top of the stairs, Adrianna’s eyes sought the dusty window at the far end of the attic. It was too high for her to reach, but she could throw something at it and break the pane.
Keeping that thought in mind, she peered back into the attic’s interior and wondered what she might to find to help her. She hadn’t searched all of the boxes. Surely there would be something that could be used to pry open the door!
Taking a tentative step, Adrianna was hit by a wave of dizziness that crashed into her head and wobbled her knees. She swayed unsteadily, one hand rushing to her temple while the other searched blindly for something to grab hold of. A fit of intense nausea roiled in her stomach. After what seemed like several long minutes, the wave rolled past her and was gone. Without any doubt, she knew that her enemy was the heat. With ruthless efficiency, it was bearing down on her and breaking apart her defenses. It would only be a matter of time before she succumbed to it.
She didn’t want to die in this dusty attic.
With a new sense of urgency, Adrianna moved back into the depths of the attic. She tried to inch along cautiously, not wanting to invite another bout of dizziness or stumble blindly into a box. Soon she was back beside the broken mirror and the trunk that had held the books and photographs. Picking up some of the larger books, she quickly discarded the notion of using them to bang against the door in the hopes of dislodging it; none of them was heavy enough. She even entertained the idea of trying to use the mirror but feared that she would cut herself on the cracked glass. The idea of bleeding to death was even less appealing than dying from the heat.
What she wouldn’t do for a tall glass of ice water.
Once again, a reflection in the half-mirror caught her attention. This time, rather than being frightened at some unknown animal, her heart leapt at the possibility of escape. There, right where she had seen it earlier, was the dressmaker’s mannequin.
Grabbing it from where it leaned, Adrianna closely examined the peculiar object. While the covering around the top of the mannequin was little more than a limbless assembly of soft fabric, the pole on which it sat was an iron rod. The bottom was originally a three-pronged base, but one of the prongs had broken where it made contact with the pole, which must have been the reason it had been discarded in the first place. As she hefted it in her hands, the desperation in her heart began to be inched out by hope.
With the mannequin held in one sweat-soaked hand, Adrianna hurried back down toward the door. As the early-afternoon sun hammered down on the roof, the heat grew even more intense. If she could have seen clearly, she would have sworn that there was heat shimmering off the old wooden boards. As her mind raced over the joy she would receive from a tall glass of water, Adrianna took a step and found that the floor had disappeared beneath her.
Her fall was a short one. She hardly had time to gasp before her knee struck the stairs and her shoulder collided with the wall. The force of the blow knocked the air from her lungs and the mannequin from her hand, sending it clattering to rest below her. As she sucked in gasps of hot, humid air, pain flared through her shoulder and knee. In her hurry to return to the locked door with her prize, she had fallen partway down the stairs.
“Owww!” She winced as she rubbed her leg and said under her breath every curse word she had ever heard. The words that came from her mouth were words she had never spoken before.
Adrianna sat on the steps and let the tears run down her cheeks to mix with the sweat that coated her face. She realized that she had been lucky. If she had struck her head, she could have been knocked unconscious and would have lain there in the heat for hours. She could have died before Quinn found her. Gingerly making her way down the stairwell, she soon located the mannequin. She checked it by feel and found the rod that ran up the middle of it had fallen out. Now she could use it to break down the door.
Stepping away from the door and up one of the steps, she positioned the end of the steel rod so that it was a couple of inches above the lock. Then, with all of the strength she had left, she pulled it back and drove it forward into the door. The bang of the strike sent shivers up and down her arms. She’d instinctively closed her eyes before she’d swung and expected when she opened them to find the door open. Rearing back, Adrianna swung again. Then again. And yet again. Still, the door held.
It seemed to her that the attic door was as impregnable as the door on the vault of her father’s bank.
Fatigue began to wear her down. Her arms throbbed and ached. The heat was nearly unbearable. Oddly, at that moment Adrianna thought of her father. The adversity he had faced would certainly have humbled a lesser man, but not Charles Moore. Even when things had seemed their worst, he had refused to give in to defeat, instead choosing to hold his head up and simply try harder. As his daughter, she could hardly expect less of herself.
She took a deep breath and steeled herself for another go at the door. Even in the near darkness, she tried to visualize hitting the lock cleanly. When she was certain she was ready, Adrianna swung. The end of the rod hit the metal lock with a resounding bang. Her hope that the door would fly open was dashed.
“Oh, shit!” she said in utter frustration.
How can I ever get out of this damned attic?
Tears began to well at the corners of her eyes. The hope that had fueled her moments ago vanished. Before despair could sink into her too deeply, she reached out and felt the end of the pole and was surprised to find that it was tapered sharply.
Luckily the door was not a tight fit. There was a small space between the door and the frame. Without giving it another moment’s thought, Adrianna jabbed the tapered end of metal into the gap. She remembered that when she came to the attic, the door had swung outward. If she could use the remaining length of the mannequin’s pole as a type of lever, she might be able to force the door open.
Please let this work,
she silently prayed.
Taking a moment to wipe the sweat and tears from her eyes and blot her hands on her blouse, Adrianna checked to see if the metal end was in place. It held firm against her efforts. As grim determination knotted her brow, she began to push.
Off in the distance she heard Cowboy barking. Lola had shut him outside and her in the attic. She wondered how she would explain that to Jesse.
At first, Adrianna was afraid her efforts would be in vain. No matter how hard she pushed and prodded, the door didn’t give an inch. Then, imperceptibly at first, things began to change. With the muscles in her arms straining, Adrianna felt the lever move less than an inch, and then shift ever farther outward. The incessant pounding in her chest and ears was so great that she could barely hear the creaking and fussing of the door as it was forced outward.
A fearful thought rushed through her head:
What if the moaning and cracking was coming from the place where the metal met the wooden pole?
Ignoring such a possibility, Adrianna pushed on.
Much like the moment in which her car had struck against Quinn’s in the storm, something suddenly stopped Adrianna from pushing on toward her intended path. It was probably the lock, stopping at the point at which it was not meant to pass. Sweat poured freely. The muscles in her shoulders quivered from the strain.
When I get out of here, Lola, I am going to pull every hair out of your ugly head. Even nice girls have their limits. You’ll not think I’m so uppity when I get through with you, and I don’t give a damn what you say to Quinn or what he thinks!
Damn, damn, damn, everyone in this blasted town. It’s time I show you what I’m really made of. You’ll see I’m not the useless little rich girl you think I am. My grandfather settled this area, and he passed his grit on to me.
With a hiss of hot air through clenched teeth and determination in every line of her body, Adrianna threw her shoulders into the iron pole and strove forward with her last ounce of strength. At first the door held but this time it met with more force than it could resist and it broke from its hinges. With a loud rendering sound, the lock finally yielded, and the door flew out. As the resistance to her pushing disappeared, Adrianna fell against the wall with a thud before collapsing into a heap on the floor.