causing stabs of pain to slice through my brain.
'Maddie?'
I froze at the sound of the familiar voice calling my name. I took a breath and forced my eyes open. They moved as if under water, slowly, blinking a few times before the person who'd spoke came into focus.
'Mom?' I croaked out.
'Oh, thank God, Maddie, you're alive.'
I did some more blinking, trying to get my bearings as the drummer quickened his pace. I was in a hotel room, which looked a lot like mine except for the fact that the color scheme was a dusty rose instead of my sunshine yellow. A pair of matching Vuitton suitcases were lined up by the door, the closets conspicuously empty.
I looked down and saw I was propped up in a bed, my back to a bedpost. Tied to the opposite post, amidst a sea of tiny pillows, sat Mom and Mrs. Rosenblatt, back to back, their limbs taped down with a length of gray duct tape, a bed post between them. Mrs. Rosenblatt had a piece of tape firmly covering her mouth. Mom's was hanging down on one side, exposing a pair of raw looking lips. That I realized were still moving.
'…and then she just dumped you there and I had no idea if you were dead or alive or breathing. I swear, I thought she'd killed you Maddie. Oh, honey, I'm so glad you're okay!'
I wasn't sure that 'okay' accurately described my current condition, but, as I wiggled my fingers and toes, I realized I was alive. Though, as I moved on to moving arms and legs, I realized I also had been given the duct tape treatment. A thick band of it cut through my middle, inhibiting much more movement than a slight wiggle. Someone had also wrapped duct tape around my ankles, securing my one good leg to Wonder Boot.
'I'm okay, Mom,' I said. Only it came out more like. 'Mumph, mum, mmmmm,' considering my lips were taped shut, too.
'Mmmm, mmmm,' Mrs. Rosenblatt replied, shrugging her shoulders.
'Here, Mads, see if you can inch over here, maybe I can get the tape loose.'
I did, wiggling as far as I could, to no avail. I felt pain starting to work its way up my spine as tears clouded behind my eyes.
'Okay, okay, don't panic,' Mom said. Though her freaked expression completely matched mine. 'Look, maybe I can get it loose with my toe.'
My first thought as I looked down at Mom's bright red pedicure was 'Eww!' But the second was that it actually might work. And a little toe in the face was a lot better than whatever Charlene had planned for us when she got back.
I leaned my head forward, jutting my chin out as far as I could. Mom scooched her butt forward, doing a yoga worthy stretch in my direction. Still a good six inches away.
Mrs. Rosenblatt moved closer, giving Mom a little more leeway, and she tried again. This time her toe touched my cheek. A couple more rounds of this and she finally had a corner loose. I moved my mouth across my shoulder, catching the tape in my tank top and rubbing back and forth until it finally came loose enough to speak.
'Oh, Mom, you're a genius. God bless Faux Dad's pedicures.'
'Mmmm, mmm,' Mrs. R said, jutting her chin toward me.
She and Mom rotated places, and I did a repeat performance of Mom's acrobatics, slipping off my red heel and running my toe along the side of Mrs. R's cheek until a tiny corner of tape came loose.
'My God, I think that's the longest time I've ever gone without speaking,' she said, finally wiggling it off on the strap of her muumuu.
I was almost sure of it.
'Mom, what happened? How did you two get in here?'
'It was Charlene,' Mom said, even though I'd suspected as much. 'Maddie, she was the one working with Gisella. And I think she killed her.'
At the moment, I had to agree.
'How did you get here?' I asked. 'How long have you been here?'
'Well, after we saw the printouts you left us on that Corbett Winston theft, we thought we'd go check it out. At first no one there wanted to talk to us,' Mom said.
'And then your mother got this brilliant idea that we'd pretend we was with the FBI. We told 'em that we was looking into a ring of international jewel thieves.'
I rolled my eyes. 'And they bought that?'
Mrs. R shrugged.
'Anyway,' Mom continued, 'finally the manager of Corbett Winston spoke with us and when we asked about Gisella, he said that she'd come in with a companion. A woman Gisella had introduced as her manager.'
'Only we hadn't heard of Gisella having any manager,' Mrs. R said.
'So, we asked the guy to describe the woman and he told us about this blonde British woman.'
'So, we figured that Felix guy was British, maybe he'd have some idea who she was. We came back to the hotel to talk to him.'
'Only Pierre rang his room and he wasn't in,' Mom said.
'But his Auntie was.'
'So we came up to her room and told her what we'd found and that we were hoping Felix could help us figure out who this lady was.'
'She ordered tea from room service and we all sat down to wait it out for Felix,' Mrs. Rosenblatt said.
'Only she must have slipped something into it when we weren't looking because the next thing I knew the room was doing a shimmy in front of me and we woke up like this.'
'When was this?' I asked.
Mom shook her head. 'Yesterday, the day before. It's all a little fuzzy. She keeps giving us tea.'
'I've decided I hate tea,' Mrs. R said.
I didn't blame her.
'We tried to call you a couple of times, Maddie.'
'But that was before your mom got her tape off.'
'You just kept saying, 'hello?''
Mental forehead smack. Well, I guess that tells you not to call me in a crisis.
'How long has she been gone?' I asked, staring at the closed door. The matching luggage next to it made me nervous. Charlene had had two middle aged women hostage for over 48 hours. She wasn't likely to just let them go home to identify her to the police. Charlene had already killed two women. What were a few more?
'I don't know,' Mom said. 'Maybe half an hour.'
I bit my lip. Then, remembering how Angelica had said the walls of the hotel were thin, cried out, 'Help!' as loudly as the metal drummer in my head would allow me.
Mom and Mrs. R followed suit, screaming at the top of their lungs.
Fifteen minutes later we were still alone and our voices were hoarse. It was no use. Everyone was either at the shows or had taken our cries for a bad police drama on the television.
I tried a different tactic, leaning down and biting at the length of tape around my arms. Which didn't do much. It was amazingly strong. There was a reason that lazy dads the world over used this stuff to fix anything and everything. It held. I continued gnawing at it as Mom and Mrs. R did the same.
Apparently Mrs. R's teeth were pointier than mine as I finally heard a rip from her direction and her arms flapped free. She didn't waste any time, quickly ripping at first Mom's bonds, then mine. A few seconds later we were all jumping off the bed, lengths of duct tape stuck to us at comical angles, making for the door.
But of course, nothing is ever that easy.
Just as we reached it, it swung open.
The three of us froze, our eyes ping-ponging between the figure in the doorway and the three of us. On any other day, we might have charged her and probably made it. Unfortunately on this particular day she held a shiny silver gun in her hand.
'Where do you think you're going?'
I opened my mouth to speak, but she shoved the gun in my direction. 'Shut up.'
Apparently it was a rhetorical question.
Charlene edged into the room, letting the door fall shut behind her. 'The maid said she heard the television on in my room. Couldn't have been you loudmouths, could it?' she asked.
