She watched her feet land on the floor and stopped. His hands touched hers, then the cuffs came off. Seconds later, she heard a door close behind her, then two deadbolts.

A burst of electronic static filled the room, followed by his amplified voice. “Take off the bag and turn around.”

She did. No window in this door, but two large glass cases in the wall filled the room with soft light, one on each side of the door. To the far right, Caitlin saw Branford through an aquarium-thick three-foot-wide window.

He spoke into a wall-mounted microphone. “I’m going to leave now. If you’d like to watch a movie, place the case on the table and I’ll start it when I can. Do you understand?”

She nodded.

He smiled, then pulled a curtain over the window.

She rubbed her wrists and stared at the glass, waiting to see if he returned. Not that he needed to; Caitlin noticed a camera in the corner above the window. She turned around and inspected the room.

The off-white wall to her left had a wooden bookshelf full of paperbacks and DVD cases. Two red beanbag chairs slumped together near the end of the shelf closest to the door. At the opposite end, Caitlin found two laundry baskets, one empty, the other the keeper of four neatly folded white towels, and a pre-fab fiberglass shower and porcelain toilet in the far corner. Both looked clean. She saw no plumbing, but a light gray strip of concrete ran diagonally across the smooth limestone floor from the bathroom corner to the wall on the far right. If her math was correct, that right-hand wall, lined by a long stainless-steel industrial table, was the barrier between this room and her own soundproofed chamber.

Between the two walls and opposite of the entrance, the wavy pattern of galvanized sheet-metal roofing panels covered the remaining wall, except for a dark flat-screen TV sealed behind thick glass. Caitlin padded over to the TV area, found a rust-brown love seat on top of a remnant cut of beige Berber carpet. For the television to work, it would need a power source, and with the right odds and ends, electricity could be weaponized. Caitlin inspected the metal panels and thick glass, but rivets held the sheet metal together, preventing access to the TV cabling.

“Caitlin?”

Branford’s voice returned through a different speaker. Caitlin stepped back, looked up at the TV and saw his self-important smile through the frame. He sat at a table. Caitlin noticed the corner of a toaster oven stacked on top of brown cabinets a few feet behind him. Definitely the farmhouse kitchen.

“You don’t look like you’re relaxing. Can I put a movie on for you?”

She said no.

He shook his head, frustrated. “I’m sorry, I’ve had electrical problems recently. April showers bring May flowers, as they say. I can’t actually hear you.”