She watched him in the mirror, concentrating on getting her hair perfectly smooth around the roller. He was nearly done. He really liked doing this ever since they’d met an actress who’d had a particularly sexy way with hair rollers. Of course, the rollers didn’t stay in her hair all that long. “Why? What happened?”

He paused a moment, smoothed down her hair on another roller, and slowly turned it. Sherlock shoved in a clip to hold it. “There’s this woman. She’s not taking the hint.”

Sherlock leaned her head back until she was looking up at her husband’s face. “You want me to go kick her butt?”

Savich didn’t speak for a good thirty seconds. He was too busy untangling the final thick hank of hair for the last roller. “There, done. Now, be quiet. I just want to look at you. You can’t imagine how that turns me on, Sherlock.”

She now had a headful of fat rollers, perfectly placed, and she was laughing. She turned and held out her arms. “Now what, you pervert?”

He stroked his long fingers over his chin. “Hmmm, maybe I can think of something.”

“What about this woman?”

“Forget her. She’ll lose interest.”

Sherlock did forget all about the woman during the removal of the rollers in the next hour. She fell asleep with a big roller pressed against the back of her knee.

It was just after six-thirty on Friday morning when the phone rang.

Savich, Sean under one arm while Sherlock was pouring Cheerios into a bowl, picked it up. He listened. Finally, he hung up the phone.

“What’s wrong?”

“That was Miles. Sam’s been kidnapped.”

Don’t give up, don’t give up. Never, never give up.

Okay, so he wouldn’t give up, but it was hard. He’d cried until he was hiccupping, but that sure hadn’t done him any good. He didn’t want to give up. Only thing was, Sam didn’t have a clue where he was and he was so scared he’d already peed in his jeans.

Be scared, it’s okay, just keep trying to get away. Never give up.

Sam nodded. He heard his mama’s voice every now and again, but this time it was different. She was trying to help him because he was in big trouble.

Don’t give up, Sam. Look around you. You can do something.

Her voice always sounded soft and kind; she didn’t sound like she was scared. Sam tried to slow his breathing down.

The men are in the other room eating. They’re watching TV. You’ve got to move, Sam.

He’d been as quiet as he could, lying on that stinky mattress, getting colder and colder, and he listened as hard as he could, his eyes on that keyhole, wishing he was free so he could scrunch down and try to see what the men were doing. He heard the TV; it was on the Weather Channel. The weather guy said, “Violent thunderstorms are expected locally and throughout eastern Tennessee.”

He heard that clearly: eastern Tennessee.

He was in Tennessee?

That couldn’t be right. He lived in Virginia, in Colfax, with his father. Where was Tennessee?

Sam thought about his father. How much time had passed since they’d put that cloth over his face and he’d breathed in that sick sweet smell and not really waked up until just a while ago, tied to this bed in this small bedroom that looked older than anything, older even than his father’s ancient Camaro? Maybe it was more than hours, maybe it was days now. He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep. He kept praying that his father would find him. But there was one big problem, and he knew it even while he was praying the words-his father wasn’t in Tennessee; as far as Sam could see, there was no way his father could find him.

I’m really scared, Mom.

Forget about being scared. Move, Sam, move. Get your hands free.

He knew he probably wasn’t really hearing his mama’s voice in his head, or maybe he really was, and he was dead, too, just like she was.

He could feel that his pants were wet. It was cold and it itched so that must mean he really wasn’t dead. He was lying flat on his back, his head on a flattened smelly pillow, his hands tied in front of him. He’d pulled on the rope, but it hadn’t done anything. Then he’d felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to throw up, so he’d just laid there, breathing in and out, until finally his stomach calmed down. His mom wanted him to pull on the rope and so he began jerking and working it again. His wrists weren’t tied real tight, and that was good. He hadn’t talked to the two men when he woke up. He was so scared that he’d just stared up at them, hadn’t said a single thing, just stared, tears swimming in his eyes, making his nose run. They’d given him some water, and he’d drunk that, but when the tall skinny guy offered him a hamburger, he knew he couldn’t eat it.

Then one of the men-Fatso, that’s what Sam called him in his head-tied his hands in front of him, but not too tight. Fatso looked like he felt sorry for him.

Sam raised his wrists to his mouth and started chewing.

“Damned friggin’ rain!”

Sam froze. It was Fatso’s voice, loud and angry. Sam was so scared he started shaking, and it wasn’t just the damp chill air in this busted-down old room that caused it. He had to keep chewing, had to get his hands free. He had to keep moving and not freeze. He couldn’t die, not like Mama had. His father would hate that almost as much as Sam would.

Sam chewed.

There weren’t any more loud voices from the other room, but he could still hear the TV announcer, talking more about really bad weather coming, and then he heard the two men arguing about something. Was it about him?

Sam pulled his hands up, looked closely, and then began working the knotted rope, sliding his hands first this way, then that. The rope felt looser.

Oh boy, his hands did feel looser, he knew it. Sam chewed until his jaws ached. He felt a give in the rope, then more give, and then the knot just came loose. He couldn’t believe it. He twisted his wrists and the rope fell off.

Unbelievable. He was free.

He sat up and rubbed his hands. They were pretty numb, and he felt pins and needles running through them, but at least they didn’t hurt.

He stood up beside the mangy bed with its awful smells, wondering how long it had been since anyone had slept in that bed before him. It was then he saw a high, narrow, dirty window on the other side of the room.

He could fit through that window. He could.

How would he get up there?

If he tried to pull the bed to the window they were sure to hear him. And then they’d come in and tie him even tighter.

Or they’d kill him.

Sam knew he’d been taken right out of his own bed, right out of his own house, his father sleeping not thirty feet away. He knew, too, that anything those men had in mind to do to him wasn’t any good.

The window… how could he get up to that window?

And then Sam saw an old, deep-drawered dresser in the corner. He pulled out the first drawer, nearly choking on fear when the drawer creaked and groaned.

He got it out. It was heavy, but he managed to pull it onto his back. He staggered over to the wall and, as quietly as he could, laid the drawer down, toeing it against the damp wall. He stacked another drawer on top of that first one, then another, carefully, one upside down on top of another.

He had to lift the sixth drawer really high to fit it on top of the others. He knew he had to do it and so he did.

Hurry, Sam, hurry.

He was hurrying. He didn’t want to die even though he knew he’d probably be able to speak to his mama again all the time. No, she didn’t want him to die, she didn’t want him to leave his father.

When he got the last drawer balanced on the very top, he stood back, and saw that he had done a good job putting them on top of each other. Now he just had to climb up on top and reach the window.