Banana Split (29 page)

Sitting helped dispel the dizziness, but her head felt wobbly on her shoulders. She held it still with both hands, rocking gently back and forth as she tried to catch her breath. No one was coming to save her. No one was letting her out. The fear was an avalanche falling over her, and she thought of the pills Dr. McKay had given her. Pills that were safely stored in her bag in the motel room she’d been banned from, literally.

Dr. McKay’s breathing exercises came to mind, and she tried to draw a full breath but couldn’t do it. She tried again, counting to two with the inhale and again with the exhale. Then she counted to three—in and out—increasing the length of each breath until she reached eight, which was as high as she’d ever been.

The feeling returned to her fingers, though her palms still throbbed, and she wiped at her eyes and nose with the hem of her muumuu, something she knew she wouldn’t do under any other circumstances. She kept breathing and told herself she was alive, that she was uninjured, and that she needed to be calm in order to think logically about what to do next. Eventually, her pulse slowed, and she could breathe through her nose instead of having to gasp air through her open mouth. The nausea lessened, and she didn’t feel so shaky.

You’re safe,
she told herself
. You’re alive. You’ve been locked in a room before and survived.

Yes, and there’d been a dead body with her last time.

Panic descended again and soon she could barely breathe, but she forced herself to be calm, using the breathing exercises again and trying not to think about the anxiety.

But it was dark, and she was hot and someone had shut her in a small room. Who? Pastor Darryl? Bets? Did she know Sadie had been listening to her conversation with Jim? Had Jim left on his charter yet? She was pretty sure he had, but he’d love to lock her up if he had the chance. Could it have been Charlie? He was capable, but why would he do it? And yet, amid trying to figure out who had done this to her, there was something . . . positive to the fact that she’d been locked in and life as she knew it hadn’t come to an end. At least not yet.

She finally stood, able to make out the faintest lines of boxes from the light coming in around the edges of the door. Without a rescuer, she had to figure out how to get out of there by herself. She could think of two options off the top of her head: find a way to push away whatever was barricading the door or take advantage of the wall the prayer slot was on and break through the drywall. What she wouldn’t give for a headlamp to better see her way around in here!

She decided to start with the option of removing the barricade, if she could. It seemed reasonable that one of the foyer chairs had been wedged between the doorknob and the floor, keeping the door closed. If she could push something against the legs of the chair, maybe she could release the tension and push the door open. She was sure she’d seen it work on TV. Then again, toxicology reports came back in thirty minutes on TV—sometimes during the time it took for a commercial break. Still, unjamming the door was the better option and the least destructive. To make it work, though, she would need something long enough to reach the legs of the chair and thin enough to fit under the door. And she had to find it in the dark.

The first thing she tried was a lid from one of the Rubbermaid tubs. It was too thick to fit under the door. Then she emptied out one of the cardboard boxes that happened to be full of papers of some kind and folded the box flat. It wasn’t strong enough to do the job and kept buckling when she tried. After hitting the chair legs half a dozen times from every angle she could manage on her hands and knees, sweat was dripping down her face.

With the cardboard option a failure, Sadie had no choice but to start going through tubs in search of an object that would work. A yardstick would be perfect, but people kept yardsticks in hall closets that were easy to access, not in Rubbermaid boxes stacked to the ceiling. After going through four different tubs and searching by the sense of touch alone, she sat on the ground for a break, fanning herself with a piece of poster board she’d found in one of the boxes and trying not to let the anxiety overtake her. It still sat on her chest like a cat waiting to pounce. Someone would come check out the church at some point, right? Someone would notice the chair and investigate, right?

She kept fanning and focusing on her breathing, gearing up for another search of the boxes before she’d have to turn to plan B and start looking for something to break through the drywall. As she pushed herself to her feet, she muttered a prayer. “Please get me out of here,” she said. It was on the tip of her tongue to promise she’d go back to Puhi and forget all about this when she caught sight of a shadow of movement beneath the door.

“Help me!” she yelled, scrambling over the contents of the boxes on her way to the door. “Let me out of here!”

She went quiet, waiting for someone to answer her, but she heard nothing, and it caused her heart to race even more. Anyone but the person who’d locked her in would have responded to her screams. She dropped to her hands and knees and put her face on the floor in hopes of being able to see the shoes of whoever was out there.

Something thin and white slid underneath the door, causing her to inhale sharply and scramble backward as though it were a grenade. She collided with the piles of unidentified stuff on the floor and was immediately tangled up in some kind of cloth. Nothing exploded, though. She was trying to untangle herself from whatever costume had gotten the better of her when she heard a scrape from outside the door. Immediately she jumped to her feet, put her shoulder against the door, and grabbed the knob. She turned and pushed for the hundredth time. This time, however, the door flew open, Sadie with it.

She burst into the hallway and tried to catch herself but wasn’t able to stop her momentum as she crashed into the heavy wooden chair set a few inches past the door. She fell on it, then over it, and cracked her head against it as she tumbled onto the white marble of the floor. Once she came to a stop, she blinked at the ceiling. She tried to get up despite the stars in her eyes, and, staying crouched in a defensive stance, she looked around the hallway for whoever had let her out.

“I know you’re here,” she yelled, certain her captor was still within hearing range. She crept silently down the hall toward the foyer. The closest door was on her right and she opened it quickly, jumping inside with a “ki-ya” in hopes of taking someone by surprise. The room was empty, and she pushed her sweaty hair out of her eyes as she returned to the hallway, first peering around the doorway before she made herself fully visible—and vulnerable.

The next classroom was also empty, as was the foyer and the chapel, though she didn’t take time to check the pews. She was breathing hard when she returned to the foyer and accepted that whoever had let her out—probably the same person who’d barricaded her in—had made their getaway. Then she remembered the object that had been slid under the door.

She returned to the storage room, the door gaping open and the chair haphazardly blocking the entrance. Her hip and head were throbbing, and she winced as she reached up to touch the tender spot on her shoulder that had seen far too many ungraceful falls like this one. She pulled the chair from the doorway and regarded the scene with suspicion. She flipped on the light to illuminate the inside of her recent prison.

The floor was covered with a messy pile of box contents, papers and cloth scattered in no order at all. She began flinging things here and there, trying to find what had come under the door while also looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was going to lock her in again.

She could only think the object was a note of some kind, but when she moved away an armful of costumes, she saw the small white rectangle near the stacks of tubs on the left side. She approached it cautiously. She looked over her shoulder again before she picked up the rectangle and turned it in her hand. Her breath caught. She knew exactly what it was—the only thing it could be. Her room key.

Chapter 32

Sadie knew she should check out the rest of the church. She should see if Pastor Darryl was there—if he was, and hadn’t helped her, he was definitely in on this. She should also check if Bets was home and see if she could get a feel for the possibility that she was involved in the situation too. If Sadie wanted to figure out who had done this to her, scoping the scene of the crime was essential. It was basic investigation stuff and yet, as she stood in the stark white foyer and looked down the hallway that curved around the chapel, Sadie couldn’t make her feet move. She knew what she should do—what the old Sadie would do—but
she
couldn’t make herself do it. While she’d survived the storage room, the ordeal had exhausted her, and all she could think about was the deal she’d made with herself before she started: if it got to be too much, she’d stop.

It was a relief to remember that promise, and without looking back at the closet behind her, she let herself out the front doors of the church. She passed no one on her way through the parking lot to the sidewalk, which she followed around the block to the motel. The plastic key card cut into her palm, she was holding it so tight, as she tried to decide if someone was helping her by giving her the key or not. It was all so confusing.

Only Kiki and Jim knew she was locked out of her room and, therefore, in need of a key. Did that mean the person who locked her in also knew she needed her room key? Did that mean it was Kiki or Jim? Or could they have told someone else? And why give her the key to her room anyway? Why lock her in a closet only to let her out half an hour later? Her head hurt, and all the exertion of the last few days seemed to fold in on her until she was craving solitude and silence.

She could see the plumeria flowers by the front of the motel and increased her pace, eager to close herself in her room and lay on the bed and do nothing but breathe. The air was thick with the day’s humidity, saturated with the smells of flowers and moisture. Heady. Stifling.

A horn honked behind her. She screamed and immediately ducked, covering her head with her arms, certain she was moments away from being mowed down on the crumbling sidewalk. Blood pounded in her ears, blocking out all other sound. She didn’t realize she’d lost several seconds to her reflexive panic until someone touched her shoulder. As though they were playing a game of freeze tag, the touch unstuck her, and she shot forward a few steps before she could turn and see who it was. She wasn’t thinking clearly, breathing as though she’d just run a mile, and it took her another few seconds to recognize the person standing before her with red hair, wide eyes, and a concerned expression.

“Gayle?” she asked, as though unsure whether she could trust her own eyes. It didn’t seem far-fetched for her to be hallucinating right now.

“Sadie,” Gayle countered, smiling even though Sadie could read the worry behind the attempt. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Sadie looked past Gayle to a light blue Honda pulled to the curb, the driver’s door still open. Gayle must have hurried to get out of the car when Sadie had freaked out. Sadie put a hand to her chest as though it would calm her, but her heart was still racing. Being scared by a honking horn was just plain humiliating.

“I called and called once I landed in Honolulu,” Gayle explained. “But you didn’t answer so I called Pete, and he told me the name of this motel. I was so relieved when I saw you, but . . . it was silly for me to honk. I’m so sorry; I wasn’t thinking.”

She wasn’t thinking about what a mess I am,
is what she meant. Why had Sadie thought a new hairdo would somehow hide her current state of disability? “No,
I’m
sorry,” she said, trying to square her shoulders and look confident. “I was locked in a closet over at the church, and it kind of freaked me out, ya know?” Why did it sound like a reasonable explanation until she said it out loud?

Gayle blinked. “You were locked in a closet at a church?”

“Well, a storage room, I guess. It was full of boxes and no light and there were prayers and stuff but the lid wouldn’t fit under the door and the cardboard wasn’t strong enough and there were so many clothes.” She took a breath but could feel her heart racing again just by talking about it. “And then they slid the key to my room under the door so now I’m going to my room.” To lay on her bed and calm herself down. How would she do that with Gayle here? She thought about what Dr. McKay had said about the difficulties of losing her personal space, and for a moment, she regretted ever telling Gayle she could come.