Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

“Annie, darlin’. Are you-”

“I’m fine, Jim. Eve is fine. We’re with Matt O’Hara.”

I heard Jim repeat this news to whoever was in the room with him, and I wasn’t surprised to hear Tyler asking for details.

I didn’t have a chance to provide any before O’Hara took the phone away.

“Now you see I’m not playing games,” he said, and I don’t know if Jim was on the phone, or if he was talking to Tyler. “You tell your friend Norman I want my money, and I want it now.”

Whoever he was talking to repeated the message, and replied, and O’Hara scowled. “Tomorrow morning’s too late.” He listened for a moment. “Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s not easy to get your hands on that much cash. OK. Tomorrow. Six a.m. and not a moment later. Put the money in a brown paper sack and put the sack in the trash can nearest to the entrance of the Washington Monument. Oh, and if you’re not there…” I didn’t like the smile that pulled at the corners of O’Hara’s mouth. “If the money’s not there and if the cops are, your two lady friends here are going to be dead.”

MATT O’HARA WAS SMART ENOUGH TO KNOW THAT if he parked at the Metro station all night, either the Metro Transit Police or an officer from the D.C. Metropolitan force would come a-knockin’ to see what the RV was doing there.

Too bad.

I would have welcomed a hero, no matter what the uniform. The way it was, by the time the sun was down and the city was quiet, my wrists ached from being taped and I was pretty sure my feet and ankles weren’t getting nearly enough blood flow. I was thirsty. I was hungry. I was exhausted. Oh, yeah, I was scared to death, too.

We left the Metro station and drove through the city, and though the boxes piled in front of the windows on the sides of the RV made it impossible to see in that direction, if I twisted just enough, I could see out the front windshield. My neck muscles ached and my insides were flopping around as if they were filled with nervous butterflies. Still, I couldn’t pull my gaze away. I watched familiar scenery shoot past: the White House, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument. At night with its monuments bathed in light, Washington, D.C., is especially beautiful, and seeing the sights I’d seen so many times before and always taken for granted, realizing I might not ever seen them again, tears stung my eyes. After a couple hours of driving around in what seemed an aimless pattern, O’Hara pulled into a no-tell motel somewhere near Sterling, jumped out, and left us on our own.

“Now’s our chance,” I hissed at Eve, checking out the window to see what O’Hara was up to. I watched him go inside a door marked Registration and for the first time since our ordeal began, some of the tension drained from my body. Even a couple moments out of O’Hara’s sight-and away from that menacing knife he was always flashing-was a welcome relief. “We’ve got to make a move, Eve. We’ve got to try and escape.”

“And we’re going to do this how?” Eve is not usually this sarcastic, but I suppose I couldn’t blame her. We were under some major stress here. Good thing she didn’t realize that she’d bitten off all her lipstick. If she had any idea how pale she looked without it (or how her hair stuck up at a funny angle over her left ear) she would have been even more upset. She squirmed. “I can’t move my hands. I can’t even feel my feet. Annie, what are we going to do? You don’t suppose he’s-”

She didn’t have a chance to finish. The door snapped open and Matt O’Hara clomped back onto the RV, kicking his way through discarded kitchen gadgets from the door over to where we sat.

“Can’t expect me to stay in his hellhole all night,” he said, though one glance out the window at the motel with its peeling paint and a parking lot that was largely empty and pocked with potholes made me wonder if he was talking about the RV or the motel. “But I’m not stupid, neither.” He yanked at my hands, just to make sure they were bound good and tight, and when he was sure, he checked my legs, then Eve’s legs and hands. “My room is right over there.” He poked his chin toward the window of the nearest room. “And I’m a light sleeper. One peep out of either of you two and…” In what had become a cliché that would have been laughable if it wasn’t so darned terrifying, he pulled out his knife and held it up and into a pool of neon orange light thrown by the motel’s sign. Thanks to the piled boxes and the way he’d parked under a broken light, the rest of the RV was a mishmash of shadows. “You’re going to stay here locked up good and tight.”

“We’re hungry.” I tried to appeal to his humanity. “We’re thirsty and-”

“Shut up.” So much for humanity. “When I have my money, then you’ll eat. And if I don’t get my money…” I didn’t like the way he smiled. He’d already opened the door of the RV and had started down the steps when he turned to us one last time. “By the way, I told the desk clerk inside that I was on my way to a dog show. That I was transportin’ a couple pit bulls that were as ornery as a son of a bitch. You’d like the guy.” There was that smile again, the one that made my skin crawl. “Keeps a pistol behind the counter. You know, just in case. I told him if he hears any noise from this here RV or sees the door open… well, I explained how these dogs of mine can sometimes get a little testy. I told him if he sees anything-anything at all-he should just start shootin’. Paid him fifty bucks to make sure he stays awake all night and watches, too.” O’Hara tipped his head. “Good night, ladies. Enjoy every minute of it, because if your friend Norman don’t have that money for me tomorrow bright and early… well, I wasn’t bullshittin’ when I told that fella on the phone that it just might be your last night on earth.”

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-”