“If we were sitting ducks before, what does that make us now?” Marlowe asked, a pressured but still cutting edge to her words.
“Cooked geese,” Plum replied.
“No!” Sofia kicked the door, then hopped back, cradling her toe. “Ow!” She glared at the door. “I refuse to be outsmarted!” She glanced around wildly. “We have to find weapons.”
She gently set Henrietta on the floor. The hen started a slow examination of the room.
“We have to escape,” Marlowe said.
They turned to look where she was looking.
The painted-shut French doors.
The Juliet balcony.
“Good idea,” Peach said. “We should split up, though. There won’t be much time. You three find a way out to the balcony, and Cici and I will see if there’s any more shoddy renovations in this room.”
“What?” Cici seemed as confused as Plum felt.
“We were only able to break through the bathroom because it had been poorly subdivided,” Peach explained. “It’s shoddy . . . obvious work.”
Marlowe was already tugging on the balcony doors. “We’ll have to break the glass.”
“That will draw attention,” Plum said. “We need to make our plan before we do it.”
Peach gave Plum another quick hug. “Cici and I will look to see if there’s more drywall. Maybe the back of the closet wall is another renovation. If so, we can get to Jude, or Jalen, or whoever is next door.”
“Jalen,” Sofia said. “He’s next door.”
“We can team up. Be ready for the killer when they come,” Cici said. She planted her hands on her hips, looking fierce. With her ponytail up high like that and her makeup perfect, she could almost be a comic book superhero, Plum thought.
“Or,” Cici continued, “we could at least keep on the move and mess them up that way.”
“And we might find another way out,” Peach said.
“When we break out from the balcony, I’ll find something to get the doors open,” Plum said. “A fire ax, or crowbar, or a chair, even.”
“We’ll make a lot of noise,” Peach said, building on Plum’s ideas. “To cover for you.”
Peach hugged Plum once again, quick and tight. Then she peeled off her shoe and lurched over to the opposite wall. She started knocking methodically with a knuckle.
Plum turned to her friends. “After we break the glass, you have to lower me down quickly,” she said urgently. “You have to do it while everyone’s making noise and the killer is reveling in how clever they are.”
“If that’s what they’re doing,” Marlowe interjected.
“Well, it’s either that or getting ready to come pick us off one by one,” Sofia said, not at all comfortingly.
“Either way, I have to go. Now’s our chance,” Plum said.
“How is this supposed to be a good idea? I thought you said we should stick together,” Marlowe argued.
“We can’t all go through the window. The drop is too far. But if you lower me, I can go get the ax and break down the doors.”
“I agree, we need to do something,” Marlowe said, “I just don’t think that it’s you that should go.”
“Don’t start, Marlowe. We don’t have time!” Plum snapped.
“I’m the lightest. I should be the one lowered,” Sofia said.
“But I’m the tallest,” Plum argued. “I’m taller than you, Sofia, by a lot, and I’m lighter than you, Marlowe, don’t look mad, you’re perfect just the way you are, I just mean—”
“You think I’m perfect?”
Plum stammered at the shining look in her friend’s eyes. “Yeah . . . yeah . . . of course.”
“We don’t have time for this now,” Sofia snapped.
“I’ll have the shortest drop,” Plum reasoned, coming back to the moment. Putting the vision of Marlowe looking at her like that out of her mind. There would be time to unpack whatever that was later. When she got them all through this. “If I climb over the railing, then crouch and grab your hands pushed through the bars, you can lower me. It won’t be that far a drop at all.” Plum tried to feel as confident as she sounded.
Sofia was shaking her head. “I still think you should lower me.”
“No,” Marlowe said reluctantly. “Plum’s right. Extra inches could make all the difference here, and we don’t need you breaking your ankle. Or worse.”
“I don’t like it,” Sofia repeated. “What if the killer’s out there waiting for you?”
Plum shrugged. “I’ll run. I’ll figure out something. At the very least I’ll get the killer away from you guys, from the villa. You can try following me, Sofia. As a backup plan.”
“I should be lowered first,” Sofia insisted.
“How are you going to run on a broken ankle?” Marlowe asked.
Sofia hit Marlowe’s shoulder. “I don’t have a broken ankle!”
“We’re wasting time.” Plum crossed the room and looked out the windows. “Help me, and I’ll get us all out of this.”
“I don’t like it,” Sofia said again.
Marlowe picked up a moldering old book from a shelf. “On three?” She hefted the book, aiming at the largest glass pane.
Plum nodded.
The shattering of glass joined the incessant knocking and banging from the other captives.
Plum knocked the remaining glass out with another book. She kicked out the wooden cross pieces of the French door.
Without looking back, she stepped out and climbed over the narrow railing.