Miranda Bliss - Dying for Dinner

“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-”