It was early; the parking lot was deserted. As far as I could see, there was no sign of Jim, Tyler, Norman -or the money O’Hara was waiting for.

“You’d better hope your friend Norman ’s got a watch that isn’t running slow.” O’Hara checked his own watch. “He’s got twelve minutes. No, wait. Eleven. He’s got eleven minutes.” O’Hara hauled himself out of the driver’s seat and went to the door. “And so do you.”

With that, he was gone. And I knew I had eleven minutes… well, less than eleven minutes, to finish freeing myself.

I was on the floor again in a flash and, using my hands to keep me upright, I did a sort of shuffling/ kneeling/scudding along the floor, desperately looking for the oyster knife.

No luck.

But I did find a cheese grater.

“Eighteen/ten stainless steel,” I told Eve, grabbing for the grater and holding it up so she could see it. “Photo-etched blades, easy cleaning, large handle. Ultra coarse, coarse and fine grating surfaces, and-”

“Give it up, girlfriend!” One look at the cheese grater and Eve felt the same wallop of relief I did. I could tell because her words shimmered with hope. “Let’s just get the hell out of here!”

I didn’t need to be told twice. My stiff fingers working as furiously as they were able, I scraped the grater over the tape on my ankles and watched as duct tape shards floated to the floor like shiny snowflakes. Within a couple minutes, I was free.

I controlled a hoot of joy and jumped to my feet.

A second later, I was back down on the floor, rubbing my legs. “They’re asleep,” I moaned. “My legs aren’t working.” I didn’t let that stop me. Ignoring the pain, I made my way over to Eve and got to work on the tape around her ankles and wrists.

We were sore, we were frightened out of our minds, we were barely able to move, but within minutes, we were poised at the door, ready to make a run for it.

I took one last look out the windows of the RV. I would have felt more confident if I could see Matt O’Hara. If I knew where he was and what he was doing. If he was too close to the RV…

I told myself not to go there and told Eve I’d count to three. By the time I got to two, my nervous energy got the best of me. I slammed open the door and, half running, half falling, I made it to the bottom of the steps. I waited there for Eve, who was no more steady on her feet than I was. I wished we could have taken longer to get our circulation moving, but at the first noise of the door opening, Matt O’Hara came running from around the other side of the RV.

One look at him-and the knife in his hand-and I didn’t wait another instant.

“Go. Now.” I yanked Eve down the steps and gave her a push in the direction of the monument. I followed right behind, running as fast as I could.

It wasn’t fast enough.

My legs cramped, and I buckled.

“Don’t stop!” When it looked as if Eve was going to come back to help me, I waved her on. “Go. Get help,” I screamed, but as it turned out, I really didn’t have to. No sooner were we out of the RV than I saw Jim sprinting in our direction. Tyler was right behind him and if I wasn’t so busy running for my life (OK, it wasn’t actually running, it was more like crawling quickly), I actually might have been amused by the look on his face. It was obvious both he and Jim were supposed to be lying low, waiting for the money drop to be completed. And just as obvious (at least to me) that there was no way on earth Jim was going to wait now that he saw me.

I pivoted and pulled myself to my feet so I could race toward him.

I would have made it, too, if Matt O’Hara’s arm didn’t snake around my waist. He jerked me off my feet.

“One step closer and she’s dead.” I couldn’t see O’Hara, he was behind me, but I had no doubt he was flashing his knife. Jim screeched to a stop and I saw his face go pale. I also saw that Eve was safe with a uniformed police officer who’d come out from behind the monument where he’d been concealed. I told myself that was good. I told myself we’d celebrate both our escapes later. I told myself not to panic.

That was before I felt O’Hara’s blade nick the skin of my throat.

“You’re not going to arrest me,” O’Hara growled. “I’m not going back to prison.”

“No one is going to arrest you.” Tyler had caught up to Jim, and he took a careful step forward, his hands out in the universal gesture that said Take it slow, take it easy. “You can leave, O’Hara. I’ll let you leave. But only if Annie stays behind.”

O’Hara dragged me back. “She’s coming with me.”

When he took another slow step toward us, my eyes were on Tyler, and when I slid my gaze to the side toward Jim, I saw that he was gone. Even my pumping adrenaline wasn’t enough to fool me. This was a curious turn of events. So was the look that flashed across Tyler ’s face. One that told me in no uncertain terms that he was pissed.

That was right before I felt something slam into O’Hara.

He loosened his hold and I spun around.

The something in question was Jim, who’d outflanked O’Hara and tackled him from behind. O’Hara’s knife flashed and I stifled a scream. It was all I had time to do before another uniformed cop put an arm around me and Tyler jumped into the fray. A gun beats a knife any day and no sooner had Tyler pointed his at O’Hara than he gave up.

“Drop the knife,” Tyler instructed, and as soon as O’Hara had, Jim raced forward and took me into his arms.

“Ye’re safe. Ye’re all right. I’ve been so worried!”

Over Jim’s shoulder, I watched Tyler slap the cuffs on Matt O’Hara. I saw Norman come around from the back of the RV, looking just as relieved as I felt. Eve was still a little unsteady on her feet, but she was walking over on the arm of a police officer.

Everyone I loved and cared about was safe; the mystery was solved.

Thank goodness! I could go back to where I started.

Today was the first day of the rest of my life.

Nineteen

BY THE NEXT WEEKEND, MOST OF THE EXCITEMENT had died down. Most of it.

There was still the whole issue of Norman paying back Howard Fish’s ill-gotten money.

Not to worry, Norman could afford it and the high-priced attorneys he paid to handle his case were bound and determined to make the process as painless as possible.

As a matter of fact, in spite of the impending loss of a hundred and fifty thousand of his hard-earned dollars, things were actually looking up for Norman.

Remember how he was worried that his past might come back to haunt him, I mean the whole thing about him not being a French chef, but being a convicted criminal instead?

As fate would have it, once the newspapers got ahold of the kidnapping story and the truth was revealed about Norman ’s past, word raced through the D.C. cooking community and beyond. It was only the following Saturday and already Norman had been interviewed by a couple of major newspapers, two weekly magazines, and producers for a segment on Dateline. Big time. And getting bigger. Just that afternoon, a producer had called from the Food Network. There was talk of creating a show called The Cooking Con, and they wanted Norman to star.

Thankfully, all was well that ended well, and keeping that in mind, along with the fact that I could finally get back to work doing what I was supposed to be doing instead of either running a gourmet shop or working on a murder investigation, I flicked on the computer in my office at Bellywasher’s and got down to business. There were plenty of invoices to enter into my QuickBooks program and plenty of financial details to catch up with.

I was already deep into it when my office door opened.

“There you are!” Jim stepped inside and closed the door. But not before he set something down on the floor behind him. I cursed myself for being so caught up in the minutiae of our checking account, I hadn’t been paying more attention. Whatever the something was, it was something big. Like the size of a gallon of milk.