Page 146 of Spies Don’t Fall for Their Best Friend

I gesture with my bound hands to his. “You’ve got a bit of glitter on your hand. Also, you checked your phone like it might be a person instead of work.”

He looks down at his hand like the glitter betrayed him and rubs at it with his other thumb, but it does nothing to remove the glitter. “Stop talking.”

“Is she in elementary school?”

His jaw tightens.

“Second grade? Third?”

Nothing.

“Can I please go to the bathroom? I’ve had to go since you grabbed me in that parking garage, and we’ve been here a long time.”

“You can wait.”

“I really can’t. Listen. If someone kidnapped your daughter, would you want the person guarding her to let her use the little girl’s room?”

He closes his eyes. I think I must’ve hit close enough to the truth when it comes to his daughter, because he leads me to the bathroom. I can tell that the woman is on the phone, but I can’t hear anything that’s being said through the closed door.

I convince the man to remove my wrist restraint by informing him in great detail that certain bathroom functions are going to become logistically problematic if he doesn’t. He checks the bathroom first, including the way-too-narrow window above the toilet, then cuts the zip tie and closes the door behind him.

The window is so small that the man barely gave it a glance. But he underestimates my resolve if he thinks that will stop me. It isn’t a cool secret passage, as they’d probably have in a murder mystery. But I’ve seen enough shows where people leave out the bathroom window to know that this is my chance.

I turn on the fan and faucet for the noise, use the bathroom as quickly as humanly possible, because I really wasn’t lying about that part, then climb onto the toilet, push open the window, and attack the screen.

It doesn’t budge. I can’t get the frame of the screen to slide out, either. The man is going to get impatient soon. Think, Reese!

I grab the small metal trash can beside the toilet and shove its edge beneath the corner of the screen frame. It bends a bit. I push much harder. The screen pops loose, but the can rebounds and hits me in the face. Oof. That’s going to leave a black eye. But at least my face cushioned the noise.

I set the trash can down quietly, then shove my arms and head through the much-too-narrow window. I twist sideways, then start wriggling. The bathroom doorknob turns, and I launch myself forward. For one terrifying second, I am balanced on my stomach across the sill. Then gravity chooses a side, and I tumble into a shrub just as the bathroom door bangs open.

Branches scrape my face and arms, and the bush decides to hold onto one of my shoes, but I am off and running. I don’t run down the street because a) I don’t know where it goes, b) the man is taller than me, so he’s probably a faster runner, especially because he has both shoes on, and c) I don’t need somewhere to hide—I need people.

So, I run across the street toward a house I noticed when they brought me here. It has two bikes lying on their sides in the grass, sidewalk chalk on the driveway, and a minivan. My brain already built a family inside it. Please let me be right.

Behind me, I hear both the man and the woman shout. Of course, they’re after me—it’s not like I made a particularly stealthy escape. I run faster, my sock-covered foot and my shoe making alternating slapping sounds against cold pavement. I finally reach the front door of the house and pound both fists against it. “Help! Call nine-one-one!”

They’ve got a dog inside, and it’s losing its mind. Lights come on. I turn to look back to see the man and woman are almost across the street, and terror freezes me.

Then, the porch light snaps on, and I can see that they have a doorbell camera. A neighbor’s porch light turns on, too. As the man and woman are crossing the grass, almost to me, the front door opens, and a man in pajama pants stares at me. His dog is at his feet, and he’s got one hand holding him back.

“Please,” I gasp. “I’ve been kidnapped. Call nine-one-one.”

His wife is behind him, a phone in her hand, already dialing.

I turn to see the woman who abducted me grabbing the arm of the man who’d been guarding me and pulling him away. Between the camera, the open door, the dog barking, and the witnesses, they must’ve decided that dragging me, kicking and screaming, back to the house was a line even they preferred not to cross. The man in pajamas pulls me inside and locks the door behind me.

My knees give out, and I fall to sitting on the floor. The woman with the phone is talking to 911. I’m shaking so badly that my teeth chatter. But I’m inside and away from them.

The man crouches and asks, “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so.”

His gaze lands on what I assume is already becoming a black eye.

“Oh, yeah. That was self-inflicted.”

“What’s your name?”