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FLUGUM GRIPPED MARY with his left arm, opened the door that she herself had unlocked, and dragged her down the hallway of the isolated corridor. As they passed one of the rooms, she caught sight of a face watching them through the porthole in the door. Someone with eyes and mouth wide open in shock.
It was Christena.
She was all right!
Mary felt a momentary surge of relief. Her aunt gave a frantic wave, but Mary could only communicate back with a raise of the eyebrows.
Flugum quickly unlocked the door next to the room Christena was in and gave Mary a shove. She went sprawling onto her fanny, ripping her skirt in the process. The indignity of it enraged her, but at last she could see the fellow clearly as he glared down at her. He had red, scabby scratches across his left cheek—no doubt self-inflicted.
“I was warned about you, girl. And here you are, trying to break into a locked ward. With a lock pick, no less.” Flugum crossed his arms. “We’ve got ways to deal with troublesome bitches like you.”
Mary had never, ever been called that word, and had rarely heard it said. But if Flugum thought to shock her into submission, he had another think coming.
“You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” she snarled. “I demand that you let me go, or my father will have your head on a platter!”
“Ah, poor little millionaire’s brat,” he taunted. “Well, Papa’s just going to have to wait a week or two to get his precious darling back. There’s still money on the table. Can’t have you go blabbing to the coppers until the big deal is closed.” He got down on his haunches and stared her in the eye. “This ward is my domain, missy. They let me handle the unruly ones how I see fit. So don’t expect anyone to come to your rescue.” He reached out and stroked her face.
Mary tried to back away, but wasn’t quick enough. He grabbed her arm again and touched her neck. His fingers felt like sandpaper.
“You are a pretty little thing, I’ll grant you that. Now, be a good girl and I’ll move you and your auntie to a nicer spot later tonight. I’ve got a cozy house out in the woods, where no one can hear you scream.”
He stood and closed the door behind him. Mary heard the key click in the lock.
She wanted to yell. She wanted to curse. She wanted to cry. But she had no time for any such self-indulgence. No time to ponder how things had gone so spectacularly wrong.
Flugum had said he would be back later. She needed to be ready the next time he swung that door open.
If she didn’t show up at the front gate on schedule, Edmond would head into town and alert the police. But by then, Mary and Christena might not even be on the grounds anymore. No, the two women couldn’t depend on the authorities arriving in time.
Mary hopped up, dusted herself off, and examined her surroundings. There wasn’t much to work with. A stained mattress was thrown on the floor and an enameled metal chamber pot sat in the corner. A window with bars looked out on the top of some maple trees.
Mary tried the door. It was rock solid. Somehow, she had lost what remained of her lock pick set in the struggle with Flugum. And of course he had taken her purse, along with the revolver inside it.
She knocked three times on the wall between her room and Christena’s. In a few seconds, she heard three knocks from the other side. It was a primitive form of communication, but at least she could assure Christena that she was all right.
Sitting down on the mattress, Mary thought long and hard about her lessons with Mrs. Chin, mistress of the Fujian White Crane fighting technique. Their most recent session had been just a few days before the tableaux vivants, which seemed like a million years ago. “You have one chance when man attack,” Mrs. Chin had said. “You surprise him. Fast, sharp, quick. Adam apple. Groin. Knee. Face. Then you run.” The old lady had scowled fiercely. “Do not stay fight him, Mary MacDougall. You run.”
Well, the contingency Mrs. Chin described had arrived with a vengeance. It seemed, absent some deus ex machina, that Mary herself would have to take Flugum out of action.
She laughed a bleak laugh. She had never once struck anyone in anger in her entire life. Well, except for Jim. Her brother had been the recipient of not a few punches and kicks when they were growing up, but she never intended to disable him. With Flugum, though, she had no qualms about doing damage.
Grabbing the hem of her skirt in back, Mary pulled it between her legs in front and up. She jammed it behind her waistband and practiced a few kicks. The improvised bloomers worked well, nicely augmenting her freedom of motion.
She couldn’t tell how long it had been by the time she finally heard the key click back in the lock. It had grown dark outside and there was no light in her prison cell. When the door swung open, she was on her feet, ready for Flugum.
“Evening, Miss MacDougall,” he said, standing in the doorway with a lamp in his left hand. The quivering shadows made his face look like a skull.
Her pupils having been dilated so long, the light almost blinded Mary. It wouldn’t work to attack immediately, she realized. She needed to wait until her eyes adjusted. She squinted and said nothing.
Flugum put the lamp down on the floor. “The way it’s going to work is this. You and me are going to spend some time here.” He glanced at the mattress on the floor. “Get to know each other, nice and personal. Then I’m going to give you a little something to put you to sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be in my house.” He grinned a toothy, ravenous grin.
Mary kept her silence, as her heart raced and her hands sweated. That rictus smile! She wished she had a shovel to smash his face with, to make that awful smile go away.
Flugum edged toward her. He grabbed her left wrist.
“Now how about you give good old Willis a nice kiss? Then we’ll have some real fun.”
Mary froze in place.
His other hand went around her back and he pulled her toward him. He leaned over and pressed his rough, chapped lips against hers. He stank of sweat. Mary almost gagged, he was so revolting. But she needed to keep calm, to focus on what she had to do.
Flugum backed off a foot or two, looking her up and down, like a wolf eyeing a piece of meat. He smiled that leering grin again. Mary regarded him coyly and forced a smile onto her face.
“I’ve never been with a man before,” she said meekly. “You’ll need to show me what to do.”
Flugum seemed amused by her words. “Don’t you worry, missy,” he said, relaxing his grip on her wrist. “Old Willis here is a very good teach—”
With vicious suddenness, Mary shot her right arm forward and smashed the heel of her palm up into Flugum’s nose. The nasal cartilage cracked like cheap tinder. Then she instantly followed with a powerful hit to his Adam’s apple with her left fist—putting her whole body into it.
Before he could even bellow his outrage, she repeated the two blows, and backed away.
He tottered in front of her, blood streaming from his nose and onto his shirt, a look of astonishment on his face.
“Why, I oughta—!”
But before he could finish the sentence, Mary spun sideways, kicked up with her right leg, and smashed her hard-heeled Oxford shoe into the man’s groin.
He bent over double, gasping, groaning, looking down, staggering toward the open door. As he got closer to it, Mary darted in and kicked his left knee out from under him. He lost his balance and lurched onto the floor, ramming his head straight into the wall.
Mary stood there, panting, as astonished at her handiwork as Flugum undoubtedly had been. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. Chin that surprise was indeed the key to disabling an attacker.
But then she noticed that Willis Flugum was lying terribly still. Not a movement, not a twitch.
Suddenly Mary had a dreadful thought.
What if she had broken his neck? What if she had killed him?
