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the handle on the cupboard under the sink,” Viv told Amanda.
    Wondering why the cupboard was important, Amanda obeyed. “I don’t feel any current.”
    Viv yanked the doors open and groped under the sink. She pushed aside a long-handled brush, a bottle of dish detergent, and a box of scouring pads. “Yes!” She straightened, holding a pair of long yellow gloves, the kind used for washing dishes.
    Rubber gloves , Amanda realized.
    Viv put them on and went directly to the kitchen door. She hesitated, then tapped the handle with a gloved hand. Nothing happened. “We’re out of here.” But when she pushed on the handle, it wouldn’t move.
    “There’s no key hole,” Bethany said. “It must have an electronic lock.”
    “Which takes us back to the trapdoor and trying to find the electrical panel,” Ray said.
    With her hand protected, Viv lifted the trapdoor. They stared at the darkness below.
    “I don’t see a light switch.” Amanda turned toward the counter next to the sink and put the strand of hair against the drawer handles. When she didn’t feel a tingle, she yanked at the drawers.
    One contained a hammer, a screwdriver, wrenches, and a flashlight.
    Derrick aimed the light through the open trapdoor, revealing a short, wooden ladder and a dirt floor. “Not deep enough to be a basement.”
    “To move around down there, you need to be on your hands and knees,” Bethany added.
    “Any volunteers?”
    No one answered.
    “Hell, I’ll do it.” Ray crouched. “Anything to get out of here. Give me the flashlight.”
    “Wait,” Amanda said.
    “What’s the matter?”
    Amanda studied the ladder. “Shine the light over there.”
    It revealed an electrical wire attached to a rung in the steps.
    “Change of plan,” Viv said. “Back to the door. With the gloves protecting me, I can use the hammer and a screwdriver to take the hinge pins off.”
    “Excellent.”
    But none of them had said that word.
    “Who . . .” Derrick peered up.
    From the ceiling, the voice continued, “Really, I’m impressed.”
    4
    Amanda’s heart lurched.
    “Jesus,” Ray said.
    Everyone jerked toward the side of the kitchen and gaped above them.
    “I never expected you to demonstrate your problem-solving talents so quickly.” The voice belonged to a man. It was deep, sonorous, like a TV announcer’s. Amanda recognized it from the recording that had wakened her.
    “A speaker hidden in the ceiling,” Bethany said.
    “But how did he know what we ...” Ray studied the upper corners of the room. His eyes narrowed. “Cameras. They’re small, but once you know what you’re seeing . . . ”
    Amanda concentrated and saw tiny apertures in each corner, near the ceiling. She went through the archway into the dining room and frowned upward. “Cameras here also.” Something seemed to turn over in her stomach. “The house must be lousy with them.”
    “Welcome to Scavenger,” the voice announced.
    “Scavenger?” Derrick asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “Please, go into the dining room and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll explain.”
    “To hell with that .” Viv grabbed the hammer and screwdriver from the drawer. Still protected by the gloves, she rammed the screwdriver under a hinge pin in the kitchen door and whacked the hammer against it. As metal rang, she knocked the pin free.
    “Please, go into the dining room,” the voice repeated.
    Viv knocked another pin free. She started on the third.
    “This isn’t productive. You have only forty hours,” the voice said. “Don’t waste time, Vivian.”
    “I’m Viv! Nobody calls me ‘Vivian’! I hate it!”
    “Step away from the door.”
    Amanda felt cold. “I think we’d better do what he wants.”
    “Listen to her, Vivian,” the voice suggested.
    “Stop calling me ‘Vivian’!”
    “Leave the door alone,” Amanda said. “I’ve got a bad feeling.”
    “If you knock that third pin free and attempt to pry the door open, ...” the voice