Hedy was returned to her little room and locked in. But in the past minutes—the first time she had been let out of her prison—she had learned a few things. They were on the Amalfi Coast, she had been right about that. Now she had to start finding a way out of this room and then out of the house.
She found a wire coat hanger in her closet and began trying to shape part of it into a lock pick. She didn’t know much about picking locks, but this one was large and old-fashioned and used a large key. She worked on it until dinner came, and at the scraping of the key in the lock she jumped back onto the bed.
Lasagna this time; she ate it greedily, pouring the wine down the toilet, as usual. Maybe picking the lock had not been such a good idea. The woman who brought the food was a little smaller than she; maybe she could be overcome. She knew where the key was—in her apron pocket. She looked around for a weapon, should she need it. Nothing, only a rickety caned chair, very old. Nothing to tie the woman up with, either, and she would have to be gagged, too, and there was nothing for that, unless she started tearing up the sheets. She tried it, but without a cutting tool, she couldn’t make it work.
She thought of bribing the woman, but she didn’t have any money to show her, and she was unlikely to accept a promise of funds later. She would also be afraid of her employer.
Hedy went back to working on the coat hanger.
—
A couple of hours later, she began experimenting with the pick she had made. She had bent one end to a right angle by clamping it in a drawer and bending the long end. Then she made another, larger right angle at the other end to use as turning leverage. The whole thing was, maybe, four inches long. She was surprised once, when she heard the key scrape in the lock and barely had time to duck into the bathroom and flush the toilet before the woman came in and took her tray. When Hedy came out she was alone again and went back to work on the key. Finally, she got it placed inside the lock and thought she had found a sweet spot. Using both hands, she turned the other, larger end and felt something inside move. A moment later the door was unlocked.
She cracked it open and listened. There was conversation in Italian from the kitchen between two women, who from the sound of their activity were cleaning up. She closed the door softly. She would wait until later, when the house was asleep.
—
It was well past midnight, she thought, when she opened the door and listened again. No voices, no pots clattering, just silence. She was in a hallway, and there were other doors like her own, numbered. She was in three. The household workers must be asleep in one, two, and four. No light shined from under the doors. She took off her shoes and, holding them in one hand, moved slowly and silently down the hall, emerging into a kitchen, large and commercial-looking. There she found a door that seemed to lead farther to the rear of the house. On her way she spotted a waiter’s corkscrew and stuffed it into her jeans pocket with the lock pick; she wasn’t sure why, but it had a blade that might come in handy. It occurred to her later that she could have found a proper knife in the kitchen.
She opened the door, which led into another hallway and several storage rooms. She could see another door at the end, and she made her way to it. Locked. The top half was of glass panes, and she could see trees moving in the darkness and hear the wind blowing. She inspected the lock with her fingers. There was no thumbscrew; it must be locked with a key.
She felt the ledge above the door: nothing. She ran her fingers along the inside wall, and found it: a teacup hook, with a key dangling from it. She felt her way back to the lock, slipped the key into it, and turned. It opened. She removed the key and let herself out, locking it behind her. It would stop anyone chasing her, until they could find another key.
She leaned against the door for a moment to let her heart slow its beating and her eyes become accustomed to the darkness. She fought the exhilaration that came with being free; she still had to be careful. She stood on the edge of a broad deck and saw an opening in the handrail ahead. She crossed the expanse quickly and stopped at the opening. There was a path, and it led upward.
Then she heard a terrible sound: someone was trying to open the door behind her, and in a moment they would know the key was gone. Rain began to fall. She moved ahead quickly, feeling her way. The path began to narrow as she climbed. Then the clouds broke for a moment, long enough to let some moonlight through. She saw that the right side of the path was a sheer drop into a void, and there was only a rope handrail between her and that void.
The moon vanished again, leaving her in pitch darkness, with only her memory of the scene to guide her.
She plunged ahead into the black night, doing her best to stay to her left. Then she fell, stretching her arms out, trying to catch the rope. Instead, she caught a blow to the head.