17 Can I ask you a question? (2/2)

She had been told that she was free from today's program.

Sam stowed her sanitary products on the shelf under the reflective sheeting. It had a crack extending across the entire surface from the upper right corner. The film hit waves and wrinkles. The tear split her face into two slanted halves and she thought anxiously of Lapuentes words.

God and devil. Like on her face except that both halves now belonged to the director. She braced herself at the edge of the wax basin and silently began to cry. When their tears finally dried up, Sam sank exhausted on the cot and fell asleep. Again she dreamed of Jessica and Jo with the hedge trimmer.

The next morning, Sam was awakened by the shrill, short sounds of a loud siren. She had slept surprisingly well and hoped that she would master the coming months quite well. After all, she had survived the first day without **** or beatings. So it could go on.

Also in Summersby's cellar it went on. Sam cut the last fibers with the blade, slowly rose from her chair and stretched his stiff limbs.

At the thought of her exhilaration on the first morning of her prison stay, Sam laughed bitterly.

How unsuspecting she had been.

Sam shook off the shadows of her past. Her eyes fell on the door. The next hurdle. She stalked forward with stiff steps and put her hand on the doorknob. Maybe her old friend's fate was in a good mood. She pushed the latch down. The door was locked. Sam sighed, would have been too nice. She looked at the castle in more detail. It was a security lock of a German company, called Dom. German quality work, damn.

Sam got the chair and put it in front of the door. She sat down and pulled the black cowboy boot from her right foot. Frowning, she looked at the heel of the boot and pushed the rubber cap aside. In the cavity below was Sam's key-set, two thin metal pins, each with a tiny hinge in the middle, so that they could be folded up and tucked into the heel cavity. One end was flattened like a small spatula, the other ends were in filigree hooks over.

Sam took her tool and put the boot back on. She straddled the chair and began, with a concentrated expression, to explore the internal mechanism of the door lock. How lucky that in Mexico she had met enough specialists whose dubious talents she had acquired in hard-earned instruction lessons. She had been apprenticed to well-known Mexican burglars, contract killers and tricksters.

Sam had been a zealous and inquisitive student. Wistfully, she thought back to that time. Although it had been hard months, it had not been Sam's worst time. After all, she had learned a lot. Sam closed her eyes to focus all her senses on the feel of the locking mechanism.