Dead to Life

Sara Mason Mysteries

Book 3

Below is another action-packed chapter from Dead to Life. Sara Mason is secretly examining an old boarded-up house for clues that could lead to finding Emma Ellis, the reason she and Huxley are in Hawaii. Just as Sara looks into one of the rooms and is shocked by what she sees, someone wallops her on the back of her head.

Chapter 39

Sara began to regain consciousness, though she didn’t move. Her thoughts were distorted. One hand was twisted under her. Her fingertips told what she lay on. A concrete floor? A weak stream of light filtered into the room from somewhere up high. She was thankful the light didn’t fall directly on her. Someone close by was rummaging through stuff, moving items, shoving things. Sara played dead.

Someone in a long dress stepped over her, the hem of the dress brushing over her face. The fabric carried a foul-smelling body odor. She almost gagged, held her breath, and felt her face heating up from want of fresh air.

“We should have brought a flashlight.” The woman’s voice was just above a whisper. “Where is it?”

“Just leave it!” It was a man’s gruff whisper. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Where are her shoes?”

“Oh, here.”

“Throw them. Let’s go!”

Something glanced off Sara’s hip and shoulder and landed on the floor in opposite directions as she lay sprawled. More conscious, her first impulse was to curl into a knot to protect herself, but she was coherent enough to know not to move or make a sound.

Impatient sighs were followed by shuffling footsteps, like climbing of stairs, footsteps of two people wearing flip-flops.

“Hurry up!” the male voice urged.

“Hey! Don’t take your gloves off.” The woman’s voice was gruff, demanding.

“What difference does it make? We used to live here.”

“Yeah, but our prints are old. We don’t want our fresh prints mixed in if they bring another shipment through.”

“Our old prints should be covered by now.” The man kept his voice low. It sounded like he was gloating.

“There’ll be no trace of us. Lock this door. By the time anyone find her bones, a lot of people will have been run through this house.”

“Maybe you should give her another whack, make sure she’s taken care of.” He chuckled but kept his voice quiet.

Sara went on full alert. If she heard anyone moving toward her, she would jump up and fight. She dared open her eyes, barely enough so any eyelid movement couldn’t be detected in the near darkness if someone watched her.

“No, once is enough.” The woman sounded like she was in charge. “If anyone finds her, it’ll look like she got locked in here by accident and then fell in the dark and hit her head.”

“Good thinking.”

The beam of dim light from high above disappeared. The door closed. A lock clicked into place. Sara struggled to open her eyes… to nothing but pitch black.

“Damned!” Sara kept her voice low too.

She tried to roll over to get herself up on all fours. She moved too quickly and slammed her temple against something hard. She collapsed and passed out again.

When Sara began to regain consciousness a second time, she was aware something horrible had happened to her. Old memories lurked. The sound of the lock clicking brought back jumbled mental images of the Sacramento Valley serial killer’s ability to get into her home. But there were no completely dark rooms in her home and the serial killer was in prison.

Adrenaline kicked in. Through the blur of her mind, she knew she was locked inside a darkened room, but why? She lay still, trying to remember what happened. No more light shown anywhere. The cold concrete beneath her was unforgiving. Traces of that foul odor she smelled earlier, mixed with that strong body odor caused another bout of gagging. She’d have vomited but had skipped breakfast. She had nothing in her stomach but couldn’t stop the dry-heaves and convulsing.

She needed help but wasn’t sure how bad her injuries were. She felt at her waist for her hip pack. It was still there but the pocket that carried her cell phone hung open and empty.

As her thoughts began to clear, she remembered the last shocking thing she saw before being walloped. Somehow, she had to get word to Huxley and Keo.

She had to get out of that house.

Then she remembered the people, that man and woman’s voice.

Her sandals!

She carefully sat up and reached for whatever she could find. Her hands bumped into objects and startled her. She couldn’t find the footwear, but she didn’t need to waste time looking. She needed to get out of there.

She felt the concrete beneath her, vaguely remembered the layout of the house. She wasn’t laying prone on creaky floorboards. She was locked inside the basement and the basement had no exterior doorway!

Her head hurt. She touched the sore spot and it was sticky… with blood, the smell of her blood on her fingers. She remembered the smell of her blood when she was forced off the road, her car rolling and rolling, and her head gushing blood as she hung upside-down. At least this time blood was not spurting out, but she already had a goose egg. Maybe at her age she wasn’t cut out for this type of work. Or maybe she hadn’t yet learned how to protect herself. She dispelled the thought. Some people need to be caught and she’d always be looking.

Dizziness laid her prone again. When at last she was able to remain upright, she again reached out through the darkness. Her hands banged against too many things. She slowly grasped at them.

Wood. Cushions. Furniture? She rose to her knees and felt further. The least they could have done way lay her on a couch.

“Okay, so I’m in the basement storage with furniture.” She listened suddenly. Maybe those two were still here and would hear her. But maybe not. They wouldn’t hang around. What did they say? By the time anyone finds her bones….

“Oh, dear God! They’ve left me here to die.” Sara sat back again on the cold concrete, clearing her thoughts, trying to retain what she had heard and felt. “Not on your life, you two. I’m not dying here. I have more lives than a cat!”

**Honolulu and Waikiki – where the story takes place.**

Sara is Resilient

Sara had no idea how long she had been unconscious. She grabbed hold of the wooden arm of the couch, wobbled, and finally stood. Her head reeled. She knew the feeling too well. Like after her accident on Kauai, she most likely had another concussion. She managed to sit on the couch till the vertigo passed. The soft cushions were a blessing, but they smelled moldy, musty. How long had stuff been locked away in this basement and simply forgotten?

Something skittered across her bare foot. “Oh, shit!” She quickly drew her legs up to a fetal position and wrapped her arms around them.

“Rats?”

She stood again, beginning to feel her way around in the totally dark room. Her toes banged into something hard. “Crap!” She lifted her foot and shook it till the pain eased. “Just crap!”

She had to get out. The basement could be crawling with rats, or geckoes. Maybe even a centipede or two. She worried that her bare feet or ankles could be bitten by a centipede. Worse yet, a rat could bite or scratch her. What sickness do rats carry? A centipede bite, though painful, would fade over time. Anything passed from a rat could be a life sentence. She had to get out! She hissed and clicked and shook furniture when she could make it move just to scare away any pests.

Sara continued feeling her way by holding onto things to steady herself, trying to get to a wall to find a window. She was in the basement and those windows were boarded up from the inside. They were probably nailed closed, but she would rip the boards down with her bare hands if need be. If she couldn’t find something loose in the room that she could use to pry the boards, her hands were all she had.

Her foot nudged something on the floor. She hoped it was her phone, maybe her sandals. She carefully stooped and gingerly felt around the concrete again, to no avail. Then she realized the sandals were what glanced off her body when she was barely conscious. They could have landed anywhere. She couldn’t find whatever her foot had touched.

She continued moving, slower now, in the total darkness so she wouldn’t bang or break her toes. At least, the concrete floor was cool. She felt nothing but furniture. Then she snagged herself on something and fell forward, tangled in it. Something jammed hard against her ribs. She yelped. Something else scraped her leg, an arm. She fought to extricate herself from the mass of confusion. She ran her hands over the many parts as she pushed them away.

“A bicycle?”

Maybe she could work loose a metal piece to use as a tool. She ran fingertips over the parts looking for the nuts and bolts of the thing and located a few. What felt like rust flakes crumpled into her hands. Whatever parts she tried to work lose were rusted together and stuck tight. She couldn’t loosen anything at all.

She wanted to scream again, but it wouldn’t help to lose her head at that moment, though it was throbbing, and she wished for a new one.

Creeping slowly, her hand knocked against something upright. She felt a flat surface. Then her knuckles hit another upright. Then another flat surface.

The stairs!

Sara slowly climbed to the top of the stairs, taking care to hold to the handrail she found. She didn’t need to fall again, especially not from the top of the stairs.

Reaching the top, she tried the doorknob. It was locked.

Maybe all this door needs is a shove, like the back door.

She rested to get her bearings and gather strength. Then she put a shoulder against the door and gave as strong a shove as she could manage. Her bare feet offered no traction on the wooden steps. The door didn’t budge. She had to hold tight to the knob in case she lost her balance. She gave it another shove. It didn’t budge. She made her way slowly down the stairs. The cold concrete floor told her she was at the bottom.

Sara wasn’t about to waste time on that door. She knew to get out of there meant to find a boarded-up window. Get the board off to get some daylight in there and find her phone. Good grief! How would she explain her situation to Huxley when he was laying in the hospital taking care of his own injuries? How would she explain her predicament to Keo? He of all people needed to know what she had seen.

She sighed heavily. She determined to break out the windows panes. Maybe, just maybe, she could ease her body through one of those small windows if it wasn’t too high up the wall; if she could stand on something to get up there. If she could get the boards loose.