Karen had to get out of there fast before the Arab came back with his doctor bag. She had no idea what the phone call was that saved her, but she couldn’t count on it happening again.
The big man came in with her lunch, a sandwich on a plastic plate. He set it on the floor and went out. Karen didn’t have to look at it to know what it was. Processed cheese with mayonnaise on white bread.
Karen ignored her lunch, went to the door. There was no sound from the other side. The big man was gone. She took out the safety pin. She’d bent it wrenching it out of the door. She folded it back into the shape that had almost worked before. She exhaled nervously, and fitted it into the keyhole.
It wouldn’t go. Something was blocking it.
Karen pulled it out, knelt down, and peered through the keyhole, trying to see what the problem was.
She couldn’t see a thing. They’d plugged the hole. Why? Just to keep her from looking? If so, what didn’t they want her to see?
Or were they on to her? Had they plugged the hole so she couldn’t try to pick the lock?
Karen took the fully straightened pin and thrust the pointed end into the keyhole. She immediately hit the obstruction. She poked around at it, and realized what it was.
The key!
The big man had left the key in the lock. Now if she could just turn it from the inside.
She poked at the key with the point of the safety pin. But it was hopeless. She couldn’t get a purchase to turn the key. And she couldn’t grab it with the other end of the pin.
What could she possibly do?
She needed a newspaper. If she had a newspaper she could slide it under the door, poke the key out so it fell on the paper, and then pull it back. But they weren’t going to give her a newspaper. She’d asked, but they refused. Probably didn’t want her to know what was going on. It wasn’t that they didn’t want her to read. After all, they gave her a book.
All right. What could she do with a book?