up! I’ve got you covered!”
The shouting stopped. The hall was silent. Nobody was being mugged that she could see. “Hello?” she said timidly. “Is somebody up here.”
“Yes.”
The voice came from right behind her and several feet above her. Blythe screamed. The flashlight flew out of her hands and the hallway plunged into total darkness.
2
“WHO SAID THAT? Where are you?” On her hands and knees, Blythe scrambled blindly for the flashlight. Her hand closed on it and she clutched it gratefully to her bosom, then remembered why she loved it so much and turned it back on.
“I’m in the elevator. Where did you think I was?”
She shone the light on the bank of elevators. “Which one?” she said. Her voice was shaking. She pounded on the first doors. “In here?” The second. It sent back a hollow sound. “Here?”
She was moving on to the third when she heard, “Stop, damn it. I’m right here in the middle.”
She stepped back. “Are you okay?”
There was a silence, then, “No, I’m not okay. I’m stuck in the elevator.”
“Besides that,” Blythe said.
“That’s enough,” he said.
“How long have you been in there?”
“Since the lights went out! Can we end the quiz? Is there a way to get out of here?”
She was calming down because she knew the answer to this one. “Yes,” she said, speaking slowly as if he were a child. “You pick up the emergency phone and say—”
“It’s not working. Neither are the lights. It’s really, really dark in here.”
Nothing is working, Bart had said. She was beginning to grasp the idea. “We’ve had a major power outage,” she said, “but we’ll get you out of there. Don’t you worry. Dial 9-1-1. Do you have a cell phone? Because I don’t.”
“I can’t get a signal.”
“I’ll go back downstairs,” she said at last, groaning at the very thought, “and see if J.R. or Santiago has something to pry open the doors.”
“No. Don’t leave.”
She paused. The man was admitting he was frightened. Claustrophobic, maybe. Or just a man trapped for hours in an inky-black box with no connection to the outside world until she’d come. He needed her. Some strong, unidentifiable feeling surged up in her heart. He actually needed her. She couldn’t let him down. “Okay, I won’t. Maybe I have something in my bag.”
“Can you see anything?”
“I have a flashlight.”
“Oh. A flashlight. I’d kill for a flashlight.”
Poor guy. She aimed the light at the doors. “Can you see this?”
“What?”
“A ray of light.”
“No.”
Some quality of his voice made her dump the contents of her handbag out on the hall carpet and aim the flashlight at the pile. She had a nail file. Still on the floor, she thrust it through the opening in the doors and wiggled it. “Can you see my nail file?”
“I can’t see anything.”
“Well, can you feel it?”
“Aim it higher. You sound like you’re way below me. The elevator must have stopped between floors.”
She stood and reached as high as she could to wiggle the file in.
“There it is!” He sounded like Columbus spotting land. She felt a tug on the file. “It’s not going to move the doors, though. Got anything bigger? Wait a minute. I’ve got a Swiss Army knife.”
“You have a knife?”
A spurt of air, something like a snort, came from above her head. “Everybody has a Swiss Army knife. Chill, okay? The knife doesn’t belong in the lead paragraph.”
It was an odd coincidence that he’d used a journalistic term—lead paragraph. “Okay. Sorry.” She reached for the nail file and found that a tiny sharp point had emerged from inside the elevator. “Now we’ve got two things through.”
“More, more.”
Blythe was staring down at her comb. It was plastic with a thick, solid handle and long wide-spaced teeth, the kind called an Afro-comb, the only thing Blythe could get through her hair when she’d been out on a windy day. It might work. She grabbed it and began forcing it through the practically nonexistent opening. One tooth took hold. Dizzy with excitement, she pushed harder.
“Ouch.”
She stopped pushing. “What happened?”
“Something hit me in the nose. I crouched down here to see if any air was coming through the doors, and…”
“This is good news,” Blythe assured him. “It’s my comb. Try to grab it and help me get it through.” She instantly felt a tug.
“I’ve got a grip on it. If I can just bend it without breaking it…”
With a clatter, the nail file and the knife fell from the widening crack in the door through which two sets of long, strong-looking fingers were emerging.
“It’s opening!”
“Forget the comb. Help me push the doors.”
Blythe tucked the flashlight into her waistband. Moving closer for leverage, she put her fingertips through the opening and pushed with all her might. Her toe connected with something, the file or the knife, and kicked it through the space below the elevator car. For a moment she froze, listening as it fell down, down, endlessly down the elevator shaft to the basement thirteen floors below. She thought she might faint just waiting for it to hit bottom.
“Keep pushing.” He sounded desperate.
“We have a slight problem,” she said, willing her voice not to tremble. “You’re pretty far up from the floor, actually. If I keep pushing and the doors suddenly open, I’m going to fall down the elevator shaft. Not that anybody would miss me particularly, but I would hate the fall itself, if you know what I…”
“Stop pushing.” It was an order. “Let me think.” While he thought, a shoulder emerged through the opening above her. “Okay, you step back and pull on the left side—”
“My left or your left?” She was still poised in the middle, one hand on each side of the opening, prepared to die.
“Your left. And I’ll push the door to your right. Got it?”
She already had both hands gripped on one door, tugging. “Got it.”
“We’re almost there, almost there, don’t give up.”
With a terrifying suddenness, the doors popped open. Blythe fell backward. A suitcase landed on her left knee, followed by a body swinging a smaller bag. It felt like a huge body, a huge, trembling body. It covered her completely. Crisp hair brushed her face.
For a moment he just panted, then he said, “I think I love you. Will you marry me?”
Panic and all, she felt a smile rising to her face. “Let’s hold off on total commitment until morning, shall we?” she said.
“You’re right.” He puffed out the words, still not rolling away from her. “I was being impulsive. Names first. I’m Max. Max Laughton. And actually, I already have a date tonight. Have to meet my obligations first. Unless,” he added, sounding hopeful, Blythe thought, “she didn’t