It wasn’t until I heard the key turn in the door lock that I dared to breathe again.
“We’ve got to do something, Eve. And we’ve got to do it now.”
“I dunno.” Her eyes were round, and even in the semidarkness I could tell they were bright with unshed tears. “You heard what he said, Annie. If we make any noise, that clerk, he’s going to-”
“Then we’re going to have to make sure we’re really quiet, aren’t we?” Again, I tested the strength of the tape around my wrists. It didn’t give an inch. “O’Hara, when he took my cell phone away, he threw it into a box in the bedroom,” I reminded Eve. “If we can get to it…”
“How?” Eve’s voice was clogged, and I knew it wouldn’t take much for the dam to burst. I tried not to notice. If I did, I’d give in to my fear, too. “Annie, I can’t move an inch. How are we going to-”
“But we can move an inch.” To prove it, I scooted across the bench where I sat trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey. “Our hands are bound and so are our legs, but we can move a little. Maybe if we can just get to-”
I scooted again. Too far. I landed on my butt on the floor and in a heap of kitchen gadgets.
“Shh!” Her eyes wide, Eve darted a look at the door. “What if that clerk thinks we’re pit bulls?”
“I didn’t make that much noise,” I muttered, and rightfully so. I couldn’t have caused too much of a ruckus considering I landed on a pile of strawberry hullers. They were not the most comfortable cushion in the world and I wriggled off them and immediately sat on a corkscrew. I will not report what I said. What I said after I was done saying what I said was, “That’s it! We can get out of here, Eve. I know we can.”
She did not look convinced. “You gonna scoot your way to the door?” she asked. Her accent made her sound every inch the Southern belle. The sarcasm did not. I might have pointed this out if she didn’t breeze right on. “And what are you going to do then? Kick at the door? What if that clerk with the gun-”
“He wouldn’t shoot. Even if he thought there were dogs in here.” This is what I wanted to believe so I made sure I packed enough oomph into the statement to convince us both. “People don’t just go around shooting dogs. People like dogs.”
I knew I’d made a mistake the moment the words were past my lips, but by that time, it was too late. I heard Eve swig her nose in unladylike fashion. “I miss Doc,” she said. Her words were nearly drowned by her tears. “What if I never see him again? What if they don’t find us right away and he’s home for days and days by himself and-”
“No way am I going to let you go there.” I said this with oomph, too. Eve needed oomph (or at least the good impression of it I was trying my darnedest to convey) to keep from being swallowed whole by her worries. “And besides, nothing’s going to happen to Doc. Jim and Norman and Tyler already know we’re missing. You don’t think they’re going to leave Doc alone, do you?” I knew in my heart this was true. For all his issues with Doc, Jim is not mean. He’d never abandon the little guy. “Doc is in good hands.”
“I know.” If only Eve sounded more convinced! “It’s just that-”
“I know.” I cut her off because I didn’t need her to start a laundry list of her fears. My own list was already plenty long, and I couldn’t risk adding to it. With that in mind, I felt around behind me and got poked with the business end of the corkscrew. My fingers were stiff and unresponsive, so it took a while, but I managed to hang on to that corkscrew long enough to prop it against the nearest cardboard box. I scuttled back against it.
“Annie, what in the world-”
I didn’t bother trying to explain. Instead, I concentrated on using the corkscrew to poke holes in the duct tape. When I heard the first hole pop, I congratulated myself, but I didn’t stop trying. If I could make holes all along the tape that bound my wrists…
An hour later-after knocking over and picking up the corkscrew a couple of dozen times-I had made a total of three small holes. My wrists were as confined as ever.
“At this rate, we’re going to be here until next week,” I grumbled, and peered through the dark to see if I could find anything that might be more useful.
I saw a mallet (not so good for slicing tape), an herb mincer (great for cutting, but these small, round gadgets use rollers to cut herbs into tiny pieces, and since I couldn’t hold it and roll it across the tape, it wouldn’t do me a bit of good), a pizza cutter (same problem as with the herb mincer), and-
“An oyster knife!” My fingers closed around the knife and I nearly choked on my tears of joy. “Stainless steal blade,” I told Eve, “Santoprene handle. Santoprene is a thermoplastic compound. It’s processed like any other plastic, but it’s very durable. It can withstand hot and cold and-”
“Annie, this proves it. You have worked at Très Bonne Cuisine too long.”
Eve was right, but I was too jazzed by my discovery to care. As I did with the corkscrew, I fumbled behind my back to wedge the knife between the floor and the nearest packing box. Then I got to work. I stabbed myself a couple of times, I broke two fingernails, and I sliced into my index finger. By the time another hour had passed, my fingers were slick with my own blood, but the tape on my wrists felt looser.
“You’ve got to hurry, Annie.”
I didn’t need the reminder. In the dark, it was hard to say how long we’d been there or what time it might be, but I wasn’t going to take any chances. The sooner I had my hands on my cell phone and called Jim, the happier I’d be.
“Annie!” Eve’s warning stopped me cold. Her harsh whisper sent chills up my spine.
She craned her neck to see out the windshield. “The door of the office is opening, Annie. Somebody’s coming out. Oh, Annie! It’s a man. He’s coming… he’s coming this way!”
For a second, I thought about screaming and, really, I suppose it might have been the best option. But I thought about Claude Brooking, too, before I thought about that motel desk clerk. I thought about Matt O’Hara in his room, and I thought about that big ol’ knife of his. If the desk clerk heard us and tried to help, he might suffer the same fate as Claude.
That, I couldn’t even bring myself to think about.
“Shh.” I signaled Eve to keep quiet. “What’s he doing?” I whispered.
Leaning forward, Eve grunted. “Lighting a cigarette. Smoking a cigarette. Do you think he has his gun?”
“I think his gun is the least of our worries.” Because I knew I could do it silently, I worked on the duct tape some more. “What time do you suppose it is?”
Through the gloom, I saw Eve shrug. “It must be late. Tyler, he must be real worried.”
Kidnapping or no kidnapping, it was the perfect opening, and, Eve being the best friend a girl could ever have, I was duty bound to take it. It was hardly the time for girl talk, but spilling my guts (figuratively only) beat giving in to the panic that coursed through my veins, pumping my blood and making the cuts and nicks on my hands bleed even more.
“I talked to Tyler,” I said, my voice far more casual than the situation warranted. “I don’t know if you know this, Eve. I mean, I think if you did, you might have mentioned it. Or at least hinted at how you felt about it. Tyler, he told me that his engagement to Kaitlin-”
“It’s been called off. I know that, Annie.”
I turned as much as I was able so that I could watch her carefully without losing my vantage point in regard to the oyster knife. “You don’t sound-”
“Happy?” Eve’s laugh was watery. “It’s kind of hard to be happy when we’ve been kidnapped and there’s a vicious killer right outside our door who’s standing there oh so casually smoking a cigarette and is probably thinking about blowing us away and-”
“He’s a motel clerk.” I couldn’t afford for her to get even more agitated, and honestly, at this point, I wasn’t sure what might send her over the edge. I balanced my tone somewhere between logic and giving Eve the equivalent of a verbal slap. “He’s not a killer, Eve. He’s not
going to hurt us. He doesn’t even know we’re here.”
“He’s-” Eve hiccuped over her words. I saw her shoulders rise and freeze before they fell again. “Oh, thank goodness! He’s going back inside.”
Relieved, I sawed at the tape some more, but like the corkscrew had done so many times, the knife kept falling over. Grappling for it, positioning it, and getting it wedged against the box again took more time than we had. The precious minutes ticking away and my fingers trembling, I prayed the knife would stay in place this time, and got back to work. “I wasn’t talking about you being happy about our situation, Eve. Of course you’re not happy. Who could be happy about this?”
Stress or no stress, when it comes to love, Eve is cool under pressure. At least on the outside. She pretended she didn’t know what I was talking about so I had no choice but to set her straight.
“I was talking about Tyler. I was talking about Tyler and Kaitlin’s engagement. You don’t sound happy about them calling it off. Not as happy as I thought you’d be. I figured you couldn’t wait until-”
“Oh, Annie, have you completely lost your mind?” Eve squealed before she realized her mistake. If she could have used her hands, she would have slapped them over her mouth. Instinctively, she slouched further into her seat and stared at the windshield. When the clerk didn’t come out of his office again and there was no sign of life from O’Hara’s room, her sigh and mine overlapped.
“Have you completely lost your mind?” she hissed. “You can’t really think-”
“Well, what else am I supposed to think? You and Tyler have been talking on the phone, and seeing each other, and who knows what else!”
“We haven’t done that.” I couldn’t tell if Eve was disappointed by this or not. She shook her head. “Are you worried that I’m going to get back together with Tyler? Or are you worried that I won’t?”
Interesting questions, and unusually insightful considering they came from Eve. I paused for a moment, thinking. “I’m worried that you’ll get hurt again,” I said, truthful because at this point there didn’t seem to be any reason not to be. “He broke your heart.”
“And he’s said he’s sorry.”
“He said you weren’t smart.”
“He’s apologized for that.”
“He walked out on you.”
“And he knows it was a mistake.”
“You’re going to get engaged again, aren’t you?”
Even through the gloom, I saw Eve throw back her shoulders. “When I do,” she said, “you will-as always-be the first to know.”
“And if you do-”
“Annie, honey!” Eve’s voice teetered on the brink of laughter as much as anyone’s could, considering the circumstances. “You are getting way ahead of yourself. Right now, I’m just having a good time with the boy. Isn’t that enough?”
“It never has been before. You always get engaged.”
“Well, maybe I’ve learned my lesson.” Even with the cover of darkness, I saw Eve glance away. “Maybe you have, too, recently, right?”
“You mean about Peter?” I would have laughed if it was funny. Nothing about what we were going through was funny. Including this new wrinkle in our conversation. “I told Peter to get lost,” I said, then instantly felt guilty for taking so much poetic license, so I amended it. “Well, not in so many words. I wasn’t mean or anything. But I did tell him that there was no reason for him to be hanging around. I told him I loved Jim.”
I saw the flash of Eve’s whiter-than-white teeth. “It’s about time you realized it,” she said.
“It’s also about time for us to get out of here.” I sawed at the tape some more. “Now that we know who’s after Norman, we can help Tyler capture Matt O’Hara. We can give him a description and tell him about the RV he’s driving. And we can tell him about Claude, too. Poor Claude.” I shook off the thought. It was that or dissolve into a puddle of terrified mush. “ Tyler will have everything he needs to find and arrest O’Hara. Then Norman will be safe.”
Even as I said it, the last of the duct tape snapped. I can’t begin to describe how good it felt, or how grateful I was to finally stretch my arms after so many hours. I shook out my hands, getting rid of the pins and needles, and I was just about to grab the oyster knife to get to work on the tape around my ankles, when I heard a sound outside the door.
“Annie!” Because she didn’t know if I heard it, Eve whispered a desperate warning. I was way ahead of her. Moving awkwardly thanks to the tape around my ankles, I pushed myself up, scrambling (well, it was more like waddling) to get back onto the bench across from Eve.
I made it just in time. When Matt O’Hara opened the door and a thin stream of anemic morning light made its way into the RV, I was right back where he’d last seen me, my now-free hands firmly behind my back.
“Thought you two would be sleeping.” He made his way toward the driver’s seat, kicking through the gadgets and debris. It was all I could do not to gasp when one kick sent a rolling pin wheeling across the floor. It knocked against the cardboard box where I’d just been sitting and I watched my oyster knife fall and carom off into the darkness.
“Then again, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.” I’d been so busy watching my knife-and my hope of freedom-disappear, I reminded myself I couldn’t afford to give the man cause for suspicion. I gulped and turned my attention back to O’Hara, who continued, “If I were you, I’d want to be awake for what just could be the last couple hours of my life, too.”
Chuckling, he slid into the driver’s seat. I closed my eyes, whispered a prayer of thanksgiving that he hadn’t thought to check our hands again, and sat stiff and un-moving as we made our way to the Washington Monument.
It was early; the parking lot was deserted. As far as I could see, there was no sign of Jim, Tyler, Norman -or the money O’Hara was waiting for.
“You’d better hope your friend Norman ’s got a watch that isn’t running slow.” O’Hara checked his own watch. “He’s got twelve minutes. No, wait. Eleven. He’s got eleven minutes.” O’Hara hauled himself out of the driver’s seat and went to the door. “And so do you.”
With that, he was gone. And I knew I had eleven minutes… well, less than eleven minutes, to finish freeing myself.
I was on the floor again in a flash and, using my hands to keep me upright, I did a sort of shuffling/ kneeling/scudding along the floor, desperately looking for the oyster knife.
No luck.
But I did find a cheese grater.
“Eighteen/ten stainless steel,” I told Eve, grabbing for the grater and holding it up so she could see it. “Photo-etched blades, easy cleaning, large handle. Ultra coarse, coarse and fine grating surfaces, and-”
“Give it up, girlfriend!” One look at the cheese grater and Eve felt the same wallop of relief I did. I could tell because her words shimmered with hope. “Let’s just get the hell out of here!”
I didn’t need to be told twice. My stiff fingers working as furiously as they were able, I scraped the grater over the tape on my ankles and watched as duct tape shards floated to the floor like shiny snowflakes. Within a couple minutes, I was free.
I controlled a hoot of joy and jumped to my feet.
A second later, I was back down on the floor, rubbing my legs. “They’re asleep,” I moaned. “My legs aren’t working.” I didn’t let that stop me. Ignoring the pain, I made my way over to Eve and got to work on the tape around her ankles and wrists.
We were sore, we were frightened out of our minds, we were barely able to move, but within minutes, we were poised at the door, ready to make a run for it.
I took one last look out the windows of the RV. I would have felt more confident if I could see Matt O’Hara. If I knew where he was and what he was doing. If he was too close to the RV…
I told myself not to go there and told Eve I’d count to three. By the time I got to two, my nervous energy got the best of me. I slammed open the door and, half running, half falling, I made
it to the bottom of the steps. I waited there for Eve, who was no more steady on her feet than I was. I wished we could have taken longer to get our circulation moving, but at the first noise of the door opening, Matt O’Hara came running from around the other side of the RV.
One look at him-and the knife in his hand-and I didn’t wait another instant.
“Go. Now.” I yanked Eve down the steps and gave her a push in the direction of the monument. I followed right behind, running as fast as I could.
It wasn’t fast enough.
My legs cramped, and I buckled.
“Don’t stop!” When it looked as if Eve was going to come back to help me, I waved her on. “Go. Get help,” I screamed, but as it turned out, I really didn’t have to. No sooner were we out of the RV than I saw Jim sprinting in our direction. Tyler was right behind him and if I wasn’t so busy running for my life (OK, it wasn’t actually running, it was more like crawling quickly), I actually might have been amused by the look on his face. It was obvious both he and Jim were supposed to be lying low, waiting for the money drop to be completed. And just as obvious (at least to me) that there was no way on earth Jim was going to wait now that he saw me.
I pivoted and pulled myself to my feet so I could race toward him.
Dying for Dinner Page 22