Mother was eyeing her little nail file, but since it was only about five inches long and already warped from hacking through box tape, I didn’t think it would do us much good. I was a lot more interested in the tacky bronze nymph, which had a lot of nice sharp edges. But I’d have to get much closer to Riddick to be able to use it.
“What’s taking so long?” Riddick asked.
“There is no duct tape here,” Mother said.
“There has to be,” Riddick snapped.
“What, did you leave it down here when you killed Mr. Vess?” I asked.
“Keep looking,” Riddick said.
Fine with me. The longer we could stall Riddick, the better. Surely sooner or later Michael would start worrying that I hadn’t shown up at the cast party. Or Dad would wonder what was taking Mother so long. Or one of the deputies would swing by the parking lot, spot our cars, and come to check things out. I wasn’t sure why Riddick was so intent on binding us—if I were a cold-blooded killer, I’d have just shot my prisoners and have done with it. Maybe he was a little squeamish about actually shooting us. Or maybe he didn’t want to risk the noise. For whatever reason, he obviously preferred to tie us up and let the fire do his dirty work. Well, that was good for us. We needed time. Time, and a distraction.
“Did Vess actually figure out what you were up to?” I asked aloud. “Or were you just afraid he might if he kept poking?”
“Vess was a meddling busybody,” Riddick said. “Don’t try to pretend you’re sad about his death.”
“Any man’s death diminishes me,” Mother quoted. “Oh, look! I found the roll of tape.”
She sounded so pleased that I couldn’t help shooting her an exasperated look. Did she really not get what was going to happen once Riddick had the tape?
“But I don’t think it’s going to be very useful,” Mother went on. She held up the roll and pulled at the end of the tape. About four inches of tape came away, followed by the brown paper strip that marked the end of the roll.
“That can’t be my roll.” Riddick sounded cross. “Keep looking.”
He followed his own advice, dropping the flashlight beam to scan the floor, starting at his own feet and gradually moving outward.
And I realized that if he was pointing the flashlight at the floor, he couldn’t see what we were doing. I reached out, very slowly, and grabbed the ugly china lamp. I wasn’t close enough to him to whack him, and it was such an odd shape that I didn’t like my odds of throwing it at him accurately but maybe—
I tossed the lamp as far to my right as I could. It landed with a crash near the furnace.
“Who’s there?”
As I hoped, Riddick whirled and pointed gun and flashlight in the direction of the crash. I launched myself toward him, taking a few steps and then bringing him down with a flying tackle. I realized too late that I should have taken my arm out of the sling before attacking. We landed hard on the concrete floor, and unfortunately most of my weight landed on my bad arm. I managed not to scream—I kept it down to a loud yelp. I heard something metal skitter across the floor. I hoped it was the gun. Yes, it must be the gun, because I could see the flashlight beam darting about wildly as Riddick started whacking me with it. I raised my good right arm to keep him from hitting my head, and was trying to get my left arm into play so I could hit him back when—
Thunk! Riddick suddenly went limp, and I heard a small metallic tinkling noise on the floor near me.
“Take that, you rude man!” Mother exclaimed.
I grabbed the flashlight from Riddick’s now limp hand, scooted out of reach, and turned the beam on him. Mother had hit him with the bronze nymph. The tinkling noise had been one of the statue’s slender, graceful arms breaking off on contact with Riddick’s skull.
His eyes were closed and I saw a small trickle of blood making its way down his forehead.
I scrambled over to the gun, shifted the flashlight into my left hand, and took firm hold of the weapon.
My left arm wasn’t liking this at all, so I walked back and handed the flashlight to Mother.
“Thank you, dear,” she said. “If you want to tie him up, I have a full roll of packing tape in my purse.”
She kept the flashlight trained on Riddick and the gun at the ready—pointed at the ceiling, thank goodness, not at Riddick and me. I fetched the tape and tied him up. It took rather longer than usual, working with only one good arm. I was relieved that he didn’t wake up while I was doing it, but equally relieved to hear him groan slightly as I was finishing off his ankles. I checked his pulse. It was steady, and I saw his eyelids flutter.