"And it seemed like a good idea to Mr. Benedetto, too. He just showed up at the office, I think they're going over the final details now of how to hang you out to dry for all this. And if you kill us, thinking you're doing it in Greenway's interests, well, I wouldn't be looking for him to back you up."
"That's fucking shit!" Rick said, making a fist and bringing it down hard on the model, shattering it into a hundred pieces. Sarah, even tied in the chair, jumped, the chair legs squeaking as they moved an inch across the floor.
Then Rick was very quiet, thinking about it, not sure whether to believe me or not. But it was probably the kind of thing he'd always suspected. Slowly, the rage was boiling up in him. Pretty soon he'd have to get out his baseball bat and smash another car. "Those fuckers," he said. "They can't do that."
"You think they wouldn't? You really think they -"
There was a loud banging on the front door. We all turned our heads in the direction of the noise. Rick sidled over to the counter and took the knife into his hand.
Sarah and I exchanged glances. It couldn't be Angie or Paul. They had keys. And even if they'd forgotten them, they'd never bang the door that way.
The police, we thought. Maybe, finally, the police had figured out I was somehow involved in this mess. Maybe they'd checked the last few calls made to Stefanie Knight's phone, recorded the numbers. Discovered that one of them was my cell, and now they wanted to know what I knew about her murder.
Lots! Ask me anything! I'm ready to talk!
"You stay here," Rick said to both of us, and I thought: Duh. And: "Don't make a sound."
I guess, realizing he might not be able to count on us in this regard, he put the knife back down and ripped off two broad pieces of duct tape. One piece got slapped across my mouth and the other across Sarah's.
There was another loud knock on the door.
Rick grabbed the knife and ran out of the kitchen. I reached up with my one free hand and pulled the tape back off my mouth. Sarah rolled her eyes, as if to say, "Can this guy not get anything right?"
I heard him reach the front hall, and imagined that he had probably peeked through the glass beside the door to see who'd come calling.
I heard him throw the bolt. Whoever it was, it was someone he was willing to admit into the house. I started clawing at the tape that was wound around my body.
"Mr. Benedetto," Rick said. There was no warmth in his voice.
"Rick," Mr. Benedetto said. I heard the door close again. "Mr. Greenway had a feeling you might be over here, tending to a few things."
"Yeah."
There were so many layers of tape, I was having a hard time tearing through them. So I tried reaching around, to free my left hand.
"We've got a bit of a problem, and you being quite the handyman, we thought you might be able to assist us. If you take a look out there, you'll see Mr. Greenway and that Mr. Carpington out by the car there, and they're both in handcuffs."
"What?" said Rick. In his mind, handcuffs meant cops. Clearly, there had been developments he was not aware of. "So it's true."
"What, Rick? What's true?"
"The cops have already picked them up. And they're going to cut a deal. What did the cops say to you? That if you came in here and got me, they'd cut you a deal, too?"
I peeled one layer of tape from around my left wrist. There felt like only one layer left. As I picked at it, I wriggled my left wrist around, trying to stretch the tape enough to slip my hand out.
"I'm afraid I don't know what you're talking about, Rick. But maybe you could tell me what's going on here. Is Mr. Walker here? Did you recover the ledger?"
"Walker told me what's going on. That you guys are going to turn me over for the Spender thing. And for Stefanie. You know I didn't have nothin' to do with that."
"I still don't know what you're talking about, Rick. Maybe you could come out and give us a hand."
My left hand broke free of the tape. But I was still wrapped into the chair, and my ankles were anchored to the legs.
"A hand?" Rick's voice suddenly became more calm. "Sure. I've got some tools out in my trunk. Why don't you come with me, I can show you. I got all kinds of stuff in there."
And the door opened again, and closed. And there were no more voices in the house.
I looked at Sarah. I said, "He's out of the house." She nodded furiously, her eyes wide with hope above the band of tape. "If I can get to the door, I can lock it."
I tipped forward, the chair moving with my body, tried to balance on my tiptoes. I put my hands on the table, balanced on one and leaned across to pull the tape off Sarah's mouth.
"Hurry," she whispered.