“Well, it was a person-to-person call, but I don’t know whom she was calling. All I heard was the New York telephone number. I guess it’s a business place, because she kept asking for an extension number. I remember the number because it’s an easy one and it’s like one I called a lot when I was a secretary at Interstate Insurance. It’s—”
“Wait.” Vicki turned on the bedside lamp, took a slip of paper from her purse, and wrote down the New York number. It was not familiar to her.
“I’m going to keep this number, Lucy.”
“What are you going to do with it?”
“I don’t know at the moment. Don’t worry. I won’t do anything to embarrass you or get you in trouble. I think you’re already in trouble, being here in this isolated house almost as a prisoner. Why, Lucy, you’re being held here incommunicado! Don’t you realize that?”
“But I—Mrs. Heath is so nice to me.”
“Nice! Yes, on the surface, in little things. You’re letting your sympathies blind you to the facts. I’m a great deal more suspicious of this woman and these living arrangements than you are. Listen to me, Lucy! I think you’d better get out of here. Fast. This is an unhealthy situation for you. I wish you’d fly out of here with me tomorrow morning.”
Lucy hesitated. “It’s so sudden. I need time to think, though what you’re saying is true—I need to think about my grandparents, too. I hardly know how I feel about them.”
She was leaving the question open. Vicki was dissatisfied with that. Once she herself had left this hidden house, she might not be able to gain entrance and see Lucy again, and she would not be able to communicate with Lucy by telephone or letter. This was their only chance, tonight, to set up some arrangement to help Lucy leave. To escape, actually—because Mrs. Heath would not want to let the girl go.
Vicki thought hard. If she came back here to get Lucy, she’d better not use a plane and alert Mrs. Heath a second time. She’d better use a car, which she could rent, and which she could park out of sight and sound down the road from the house. Lucy could meet her there. They’d need a signal for the day and hour. If only she could use the telephone! Well, she could, in a way.