She was desperate to cry out or try to knock the gun out of his hand and make a run for it, but she knew that was a risky proposition, especially since Timothy was now a self-confessed killer. She was trapped, unsure how she was going to get out of this predicament. She needed to keep Timothy talking until she could figure out a plan to escape.
“And then you targeted Fabian Granger because he somehow found out about you?”
“Yeah, I felt bad about that, but I had no choice. He had been poking around the set, asking questions, and somehow he discovered my true identity, that I was Hal Greenwood’s bastard son. What a scoop, right? Well, I couldn’t let that get out into the public, because it might raise suspicions about Hal and me and the Pillow Talk Killer, and so I needed to silence him. Permanently.”
“How did you get past the hotel’s security cameras?”
“That was a breeze. I pilfered a waiter uniform from a supply closet and grabbed a room service cart so nobody would question seeing me roaming the halls. I told a chambermaid that Mr. Granger had told me to let myself in with his dinner but I had forgotten my master card key, and so she was kind enough to let me in. I found him in the bathtub. He had his eyes closed, listening to a podcast, and so he never saw it coming.”
The real waiter arrived with his dinner later, after Poppy had arrived and discovered the body.
Suddenly the door to the trailer flew open, and an unsuspecting Matt bounded inside. His eyes fell upon the gun in Timothy’s hand and he stopped short. Timothy quickly pressed the gun to his temple.
“Come inside and shut the door,” Timothy ordered.
Matt did as instructed. He looked at Poppy. “Are you all right?”
Poppy nodded, although it was impossible to conceal her cold-sweat terror.
Timothy had come prepared. He had some rope and zip ties in a plastic bag and ordered Poppy at gunpoint to bind Matt. Once she was finished and Matt was secured, Timothy went to work tying up Poppy, forcing them both back down on the couch side by side, his Glock pistol still trained on them.
“How about we go sightseeing in Joshua Tree Park? The views are so stark and dramatic, and there are so many hidden places where no one would ever find a body . . . or two,” he said with a smug smile and a curt laugh.
Poppy and Matt exchanged tense looks as Timothy took the wheel of the mobile trailer and drove them away from base camp and into the vast, empty, foreboding desert.
Chapter 50
As the mobile home trailer barreled deeper into the heart of Joshua Tree National Park, Timothy swerved off the paved road and headed straight into the harsh, unforgiving hot desert farther and farther away from any signs of civilization. Poppy had no illusions as to what his plan was. He was going to take them as far out as possible, shoot them dead, then hide their bodies where they would probably never be found by anyone except a few wild animals that would hungrily feast upon their carcasses. It was a chilling fate, and Poppy was silently kicking herself for allowing herself and Matt to get caught up in this horrifying situation.
As Poppy and Matt sat side by side on the couch, hands and feet bound, shoulders bumping into each other from the sharp hairpin turns of the mobile trailer as it sped along, Poppy leaned in and whispered to Matt, “I’m so sorry about all this, Matt.”
He gave her a puzzled look. “Sorry for what?”
“I feel like this is all my fault. You just wanted to be an actor and I forced you into this pretend role of a detective, and now it’s going to end up getting you killed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Matt scoffed. “I knew what I was signing up for.”
“No matter what happens, Matt, I want you to know how much I care for you, how much you’ve changed my life for the better. . . .”
“You’re not saying that just because you think we’re going to die today, are you?” Matt cracked.
“Of course not,” Poppy said.
“Good, because I’m going to remind you of those words when we get out of this,” Matt said, peering up front where Timothy was in the front cab driving the trailer, eyes glued to the desert in front of him.
Matt began twisting his wrists in a circular motion.
“What are you doing? The zip ties are too tight. You’ll never wriggle free,” Poppy sighed.
“There’s a trick to zip ties,” he said in a hushed tone. “When he had you tie me up, I knew there was a way to clench my fists with my palms facing down, which makes my wrists bigger and creates a little room to slip out. Since we’ve been talking, I unclenched my wrists so they faced inward and started to work my way out, thumbs first.”
Matt checked on Timothy again, whose back was still to them, and then triumphantly held up the warped zip ties that had been locked around his hands. “Voilà.”
“How did you learn that?”
“I used to watch a lot of YouTube videos in between acting auditions. And I do mean a lot.”
Matt got to work freeing Poppy, and within seconds, she was free and rubbing the red marks on her own wrists. Matt put a finger to his lips, signaling her to keep quiet, and then he noiselessly crouched down, and slowly made his way up to the cab in the front of the mobile home. Poppy nervously watched him as he crawled up behind the driver’s seat, steeled himself, then popped up and lunged at Timothy, wrapping an arm around his throat. Timothy croaked in surprise, his foot slamming down on the gas pedal, the mobile home lurching forward, sending Poppy slamming to the floor of the trailer.
Matt struggled with Timothy, choking him,
