Just then we heard the sound of the door opening. Cordelia looked away, no doubt to avoid calling Sherry’s attention to the fact that I was awake.
I decided that was my cue to pretend to be more out of it than I was. I closed my eyes almost all the way, and slumped on the floor again.
“The coast is clear!” Sherry chirped, in the sort of bright, cheerful tone some people use when they have been put in charge of children and neither like nor understand them.
Cordelia didn’t say anything. I decided to continue playing dead.
“You can get up now.” Sherry’s voice had a bit more of an edge to it.
“I’m still tied to the chair, you know,” Cordelia said. “And for all I know you’ve given her a concussion.”
I opened one eye wide enough to watch as Sherry carefully went round to the back of Cordelia’s chair and undid something. Then she grabbed Cordelia by the elbow and hauled her up out of the chair, her hands still tied behind her.
“Ow!” Cordelia protested. “Be careful! Old folks like me have brittle bones.”
Sherry ignored her words and took something off her wrist—I realized she’d been wearing a roll of silver duct tape like a bracelet. She ripped off a strip of it and stepped behind Cordelia to wrap it over her mouth.
Cordelia kicked her in the shins.
“Ow! You’ll pay for that, you old bat.”
She grabbed Cordelia’s arms roughly and forced her to her knees. Then she taped her mouth and hauled her back to her feet.
Cordelia didn’t look cowed. A pity looks really didn’t kill, or our only problem would be getting ourselves untied.
Sherry ignored the glare in Cordelia’s eyes and turned to me.
“Don’t try anything,” she said.
She strode over and planted her foot on my back, making sure I didn’t have a chance to try anything. She tore off another strip of duct tape and applied it to my mouth. Then she jumped back as if worried that I’d try something in spite of being bound and gagged.
“Get up,” she said, kicking me in the ribs by way of emphasis.
I moaned slightly, trying to suggest that I didn’t know if I could get up.
“You can whine on your feet or die on the floor,” Sherry said. “Take your pick.”
It occurred to me that Sherry probably wanted to avoid shooting me—odds were that a gunshot would bring someone over from camp to investigate. But that didn’t mean she’d have any qualms about killing me in some other, quieter way. Hitting me on the head with the gun, for example. Or with whatever blunt instrument she could find. Neither Annabel nor Theo Weaver had been shot.
I struggled to my feet. It wasn’t easy, and I made sure it looked even harder than it was. And that it took as long as possible. I figured delay was on our side.
“Get going,” she said. “Both of you.”
She herded us into the hallway. According to the grandfather clock ticking away there it was nearing 2:00 A.M. Not a time when anyone was likely to be passing by the house, unfortunately. Sherry opened the door and then stood well back as we exited. Then she turned out the lights behind us and closed—but did not lock—the front door.
I had a bad feeling about this. My head still throbbed. My lacerated hand was throbbing in time with it. My shoulders were aching from the awkward way in which Sherry had pulled my hands behind my back. I felt more than slightly queasy. And with every step we took, we drew closer to Weaver’s house, where Sherry was planning to do away with us, and I hadn’t yet figured out a plan for getting us out.
I should try to make a break for it, I decided. And before we left Cordelia’s yard, because her backyard only had the wire fence between it and Camp Emu. Mr. Weaver’s yard also had all that overgrown thorny shrubbery that would make it even harder either to get over the fence or attract any attention from this side of it.
We were getting close to the gate. I needed to make my break soon.
I glanced over at Cordelia. She didn’t look frightened. She looked calm and focused and mad as the proverbial wet hornet. And suddenly I didn’t feel nearly so bad. I wasn’t in this alone. I had Cordelia. My grandmother. I might still be a little mad at her, but I already knew how much she thought like me. If I made a move, she’d figure out what I was up to before Sherry did, and she’d do what she could to help.
I think she smiled at me—it was hard to tell underneath the duct tape. Her eyes flicked to the right slightly. There was a large camellia bush there. Maybe a good place to make my move. Our move. If I could lurch into Sherry and shove her into the bush …
We were about five feet away from the bush and I was tensing to leap when someone stepped out of the shrubbery.