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.