Candy Cane Murder (Hannah Swensen #9.5)(79)

“Cross my heart.”

Much to my relief, she got to her feet and started off for the kitchen.

“Don’t even think of crying out for help while I’m gone,”

she warned. “Otherwise I’m going to have to gag you.”

Damn. Plan A just went flying out the window.

As she skipped off to fix my Last Snack, my mind started racing. How the heck was I going to get out of this mess?

I craned my neck, looking for something sharp to cut the twine binding my wrists and ankles, but saw nothing.

Then I thought of another plan. It was a long shot, but it was the only shot I had. My head throbbing with every bump, I manage to roll myself behind the Christmas tree.

Lucky for me, Ethel was not an expert in bondage. She’d bound me only at the wrists and ankles, which meant I could still bend my knees and elbows. And that gave me some degree of mobility. I had just managed to prop myself into a sitting position with my back up against the wall when Ethel returned with my brownie and poisoned tea.

“Oh, Jaine,” she sighed. “Aren’t you silly, trying to hide.

I’m certain to find you.”

She looked around the room and then spotted me behind the tree, as I was hoping she would.

“There you are, you foolish girl!”

She started toward the Christmas tree.

This was it, the moment of truth.

I raised my knees to my chest and sent up a last desperate prayer to the heavens.

Get me through this, and I swear I’ll never have a food fight with a twelve-year-old or wrestle with a nun for as long as I live!

268

Laura Levine

Then, with every ounce of strength in my body, I kicked the tree trunk.

For a terrifying fraction of a second, it looked like it wasn’t going to fall, but then my prayers were answered. Ethel’s eyes widened in shock as the tree toppled over, sending reindeer ornaments flying and pinning her underneath.

Now it was her turn to lie on the floor unconscious.

I scanned the wreckage for something sharp enough to cut twine. Not two feet away, I saw my instrument of escape. A shattered teacup, the one that had just a few seconds ago held my poisoned tea.

I maneuvered myself over to it, and managed to pick up a sharp shard of china. It wasn’t easy with my wrists bound together, but eventually I sawed through the twine on my ankles. Then I sprang to my feet and raced over to Ethel’s phone. Somehow I managed to punch 911 and scream for help.

Five minutes later, just as I was cutting through the twine on my wrists and the cops were banging at the door, Ethel regained consciousness.

She looked up at me, bewildered, from under the tree.

“That’s the police,” I told her.

She moaned softly.

“Don’t get up, sweetheart,” I said. “I’ll let them in.”





Chapter


! Fourteen #

After checking out my story, the cops carted Ethel off to the prison wing of County General Hospital. When I finally limped home, I swallowed a fistful of Tylenol and spent the next heavenly hour or so soaking my aching muscles in a marathon bath. After which I collapsed into bed where I slept for twelve straight hours (near-death experiences tend to tucker me out) until Prozac lovingly clawed me awake for her breakfast.

In spite of a bump on my head the size of a potato puff, I felt fine. And starving. If you don’t count those Tylenol, I hadn’t had a thing to eat for nearly twentyfour hours. So I drove over to Junior’s deli and treated myself to a hearty breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, and an English muffin with strawberry preserves.

I’d come home and was working off my breakfast with a strenuous nap on the sofa, when somebody rang my doorbell.

You’ll never guess who it was.

Angel Cavanaugh.

She stood on my doorstep in a Hello Kitty T-shirt and flipflops, barely big enough to cast a shadow, a bouquet of flowers in her hand.

Her dad stood at her side, holding a shopping bag.

“Don’t you have something to say to Jaine?” he said, nudging her with his elbow.

270

Laura Levine

“I’m really sorry,” Angel said, looking up at me with sheepish eyes. “For lying to you. And for getting you in trouble with Sister Mary Agnes.”

Alert the media. She actually seemed to mean it.

“These are for you.” She held out a bunch of supermarket daisies.

“Why, thank you!” I have to admit, my heart melted just a tad. “Won’t you come in?”

I ushered them inside and hurried to the kitchen to put the daisies in water.

When I came back out, they were sitting on the sofa.

Prozac, the shameless flirt, had wandered in from the bedroom and was shimmying in ecstasy against Kevin’s ankles.

“Wow, you’ve got a cat!” Angel said. “I always wanted a cat.”

“I’m not sure you want this one.”

Prozac glared at me through slitted eyes. I swear, that cat understands English.

Don’t listen to her, kid. I’m adorable.

With that, she leapt into Angel’s lap and began purring like a buzzsaw.

“You have something else for Jaine, don’t you?” Kevin said, once again nudging Angel with his elbow.

Reluctantly she plucked Prozac from her lap, and walked over to me with the shopping bag her dad had been carrying.