Unsound (A Lei Crime Companion Novel) by Neal Toby

Author:Neal, Toby [Neal, Toby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Toby Neal
Published: 2013-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 13

I wondered if he would conveniently die while I waited and watched—but if he didn’t, he would punish me for not helping. So I moved, but haltingly, as if crippled by pain, pushing myself up in the sleeping bag, unzipping slowly.

He fumbled and gasped, dropping the pill bottle of what I assumed was nitroglycerin, and it landed on the floor and rolled under his bunk.

My eyes on his, I pushed the sleeping bag down and then crawled across the floor toward him, reaching under the bed for the pills. Pressing down hard and twisting the childproof cap, I shook two out into my palm. He opened his mouth like an enormous baby bird, lifting his tongue, and I set the two nitro tablets under it. He closed his mouth and fell back onto the bed, and I crawled away.

It occurred to me that this was my chance to escape, if only I could restrain him, or arm myself, or both. I jumped up and hurried into the kitchen, yanking open one of the drawers for the piece of rope I remembered seeing. I took the big butcher knife out of the dish rack and the piece of rope and ran back to Russell Pruitt.

He was lying on his back, his breath rattling in his lungs, his color still bad. I’d made a loop with the rope, and I slid it over one of his massive hands, an awkward move with the knife in my other hand.

His eyes fluttered open, and I dropped the knife, reaching across him to grab his other hand, pulling them together and wrestling the loop over them. I pulled it tighter, my hands slippery with sweat, and threw the loose end around the tier of the bunk.

He sat up, swinging his tied hands like a baseball bat, and I dodged out of the way, kicking the knife far across the floor, where it skittered under one of the bunks. He surged to his feet, and I danced away around the corner of the bunk, wrapping the rope around the bed support, bracing one foot on the bunk and pulling with all my might to try to drag him down and tie him to the bunk.

He roared like a Bengal tiger and yanked with all his giantness, and the rope ripped through my hands, tearing my palms. In a few blurred and terrible moments, I was back in the sleeping bag with the selfsame rope wrapped around my neck at the top of the bag to seal me in. He’d tied it in a square knot, just loose enough for me to breathe and no more. I thought of the scene in The Hobbit where all the dwarves were trussed in bags beside the fire by the trolls. I wanted to laugh. I must be losing it.

“You’re lucky we aren’t done with our therapy,” he said, sitting back on his haunches, panting, those oversized hands hanging between his knees. “Don’t try that again.”

“Okay,” I said.

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