Silver Linings

the mirror, and she almost failed to recognize the white-faced woman with the huge, frightened eyes who stared back at her.
    A soft sound in the bedroom made her flinch. She had to make her move now. Mattie walked over to the sink and turned one of the handles of the silver faucet so that the water splashed merrily into the basin.
    She started opening drawers quietly, remembering what Hugh had said about Cormier keeping a flashlight in every room of the house because of frequent power outages. Surely he would have kept one in this bathroom, since it had been planned as an escape room. Cormier was a strategist, Hugh had said. Rainbird would have had no reason to remove something like a flashlight.
    She found what she was looking for in the bottom right drawer near the sink.
    Picking up the flashlight, she stepped out of her shoes and went across the room to flush the toilet.
    Water churned loudly in the fixtures.
    It was all the cover she would get. Carrying her shoes, Mattie hurried to the marble bath, stepped into it and pushed on the wall panel as Hugh had before.
    For a second nothing happened. Mattie thought the stress would overwhelm her. She simply could not go back out into that bedroom. She would become a screaming zombie here in the elegant bath if she did not escape right now .
    The panel slid silently open. Mattie breathed a silent prayer of gratitude, hitched up her skirt, and stepped into the darkness. The sense of relief was enough to push aside the mounting sense of claustrophobia for a short time. She found the button on the other side of the panel and pushed it. The panel slid soundlessly back into place.
    At that same instant there was a soft knock on the bathroom door.
    “Mattie? Are you all right in there?”
    Mattie switched on the flashlight, stepped into her shoes, and fled down the hidden hallway. She reached the door that opened onto the jungle and held her breath as she turned the handle.
    Half expecting to meet up with one of the armed guards, she switched off the flashlight and stepped out into the night. She stood very still for a minute, waiting for her eyes to adjust. Then she darted into the jungle.
    She had only the moon and the lights of the house to guide her. The soft, moist earth muffled her footsteps, but she knew she was making far too much noise in the undergrowth. At any moment one of the guards would surely hear her. She could only hope the crashing surf would give her some protection.
    She went straight into the jungle, keeping the house lights at her back. They quickly began to fade, however, as the thick vegetation closed in around her. She had to concentrate on the sound of the ocean and the vague light of the moon to guide her. She did not dare turn on the flashlight.
    Ocean on the left. House to the rear. Straight on until you cross the stream .
    Rainbird's voice, sounding as if it were magnified through some sort of megaphone, blared out in the darkness.
    “Mattie, come back. Don't run away. You won't come to any harm. You can't survive in that jungle, Mattie. There are too many things out there that can kill you. Especially at night. Things like snakes, Mattie. Do you want to find yourself in the coils of a giant snake?”
    Hugh had said not to worry, Mattie recalled. There were no snakes in the jungles of Purgatory. Hugh had never lied to her. Rainbird could tell you he loved you while he slit your throat.
    She plunged on. When the lights of the house disappeared entirely, she risked the flashlight in brief doses. At one point she scrambled over a fallen log and realized it was the one on which she had torn her silk blouse the first time she had come this way.
    She was on the right track.
    “Mattie, you're safe with me. You will die a horrible death out in that jungle. Trust me, Mattie. I mean you no harm.” Rainbird's magnified voice was fading into the distance.
    Hugh had said it would be virtually impossible to miss the stream. Ocean on the left .
    Were those distant crashing sounds the footsteps of her pursuers?
    She batted at the leaves, crawled over vines, pushed rare orchids out of the way as if they were so much noxious garbage in her path.
    Mattie stumbled over a vine and went down on one knee. She put out her hand to steady herself and her fingers went straight into running water.
    The stream .
    Blindly she turned left. Now all she had to do was follow the rivulet of water to the waterfalls.
    By now Rainbird would have sent his men out into the jungle