Part 15 (1/2)

And especially not with that anchor still chained to his leg. Which meant that as she'd suspected right from the start of this whole nightmare, she was on her own.

Still taped tightly in the blankets Randy had wrapped her in again, she wiggled to a sitting position and began straining against the tape strips. But it was no use. He'd wrapped them around and around her so no matter how much she twisted and flexed, nothing gave.

”Inch over here if you can,” said Sam. ”Closer to me.” His voice sounded awful, like two pieces of sandpaper being rubbed together. But she had no good plan of her own, so she obeyed.

”Ouch,” she said as her hip bones b.u.mped the deck. After a long, painful slog across the damp, hard boards, finally she got to within an arm's length of him. ”Now what?”

”Get ... your back close to my hands.”

She squinted doubtfully at him, then saw something gleam in his trembling fingers. It was a tiny penknife.

A thrill of hope went through her at the sight of it; maybe she wouldn't die after all. A shaky grin creased Sam's face.

”He was in too big a hurry,” said the young man who held her salvation in his not-very-steady grip. She recalled Randy's rough, almost panicky rush as he'd seized her ... .

You b.a.s.t.a.r.d, you made a mistake, she thought exultantly, and in the back of her mind she could hear the girls in their graves cheering about it, too.

Eagerly she bounced herself closer to Sam, angled her stiff, tape-wrapped torso near enough for him to reach it. Freedom ...

He dropped the knife. It clattered to the deck. In the pale moonlight she could see it was bloodstained.

Sam's blood. ”Ouch,” he whispered softly, and let his head fall back. Or maybe it fell back without him realizing it.

”Sam?” Please, no, not now when she was so close ... ”Sam?”

His eyelids fluttered open. ”Sorry. Maybe you can ...” His head moved slightly.

Get that. Oh, yes. She definitely could get that.

She let herself fall onto her side, then inched like a worm toward the fallen blade, heedless of the pain the movement cost her.

Eyes on the prize, d.a.m.n it. Because this was it, she had a strong feeling that this was her very last chance. She could get out of this tape somehow, get out of it and live, or stay in it and ...

No. She shoved the thought from her head. The knife lay just inches away. Craning her neck, she touched her lips to it, tasted the blood on it, clamped her teeth around it, and pulled back.

It stayed between her teeth, though the blood taste made her gorge rise. Aching and feeling half dead with fatigue and terror, she began wiggling her way back.

”Hurry,” Sam whispered weakly.

Yeah, tell me about it. A little more ... there. She thrust her chin up, poked the knife toward his searching fingers ...

”Okay.” This near, she could hear the harsh hitching of his breath, smell the blood soaking his s.h.i.+rt. ”Sit up, I can't-”

Biting back pain-sounds, she struggled to comply and at last got herself turned around and sitting so he could reach her. The first shaky cut went through the blanket into her arm.

Startled, she cried out. ”Shh!” he warned, and pulled the knife back. But the next cut was no less vigorous. ”I'm sorry,” he gasped. ”But there's no time for-”

”Just get the d.a.m.ned tape off me,” she grated out. ”I don't care if you cut my arms off. It surprised me, is all.”

At last the blankets fell away. Next he slit the tape from her arms, which produced an unpleasant surprise in a night that had already been full of them: She couldn't move.

And the man-Randy, his name was, Randy Dodd-could appear again at any moment.

Suddenly she began sobbing, hating it, hating herself, but unable to stop, because she'd gotten so far, she'd gotten free, and now none of it was going to make any difference.

”I can't move,” she wept. ”They're all ...”

”Hey,” said Sam. ”They're asleep, that's all. Your arms and legs are just ...”

A cough cut his words off as he slid down, tried to sit up again, and gave up the effort, collapsing with a hand pressed to his middle. Creased with pain, his face went even whiter. In the moonlight, his lips looked nearly black.

The sight shut her tears off abruptly. Was it just a few hours ago that she'd written him off because he wouldn't be able to help her? Yet now, suddenly, keeping him alive felt almost as important as surviving herself.

Because they were together against Randy, and an ally in that fight seemed desperately required; she didn't see why that should be, but it was. It just was. That Randy shouldn't win. ”Sam?”

The feeling was coming back to her arms and legs, ferocious p.r.i.c.kling and tingling that was much worse than not being able to feel them at all. But they moved.

Tentatively she lifted one arm and then the other, flexed her fingers as much as she could, tried getting her feet under her. Up, big fella, Chip Hahn used to say whenever he hauled himself out of a chair after a long session at the computer. Chip ... She hadn't thought about him in hours, not since she looked for him outside the bar.

A fine a.s.sistant you turned out to be, she thought at him, with a flash of the old irritation she used to feel when he screwed up. Which, she had to admit now, he almost never did.

But that thought seemed so irrelevant, she dismissed it almost at once. Because wherever he was, he wasn't beat up and captive, held by some guy who would kill you as soon as look at you.

Another burst of resentment made her lips tighten, then all thought of Chip was gone, along with everything else back in her old life, the one she'd been s.n.a.t.c.hed out of.

Because now everything was different. ”Sam?” she said again, then got to her feet and managed to totter a few steps.

The boat moved gently in the water, the wind had gone down, and the sky, fully cleared now, spread overhead thick with stars.

Still no sign of Randy. What he might be doing, she had no idea; digging graves, maybe. The thought sent her to Sam's side again, where she crouched urgently.

”Sam? Listen to me. Do you know how to run the boat? How to start it?”

No reply. She shook his shoulder gently, drew back with a little gasp when even that slight motion produced fresh blood on the front of his s.h.i.+rt. He roused with difficulty.

”Can't go ... now. Tide's too low. Can you ... water?”

She got up. Everything hurt, her wrist most of all, but now she thought maybe it wasn't broken, because she could move it and the swelling at least wasn't getting any worse.

And water was a good, a wonderful, idea; her tongue felt like a dry bone. ”Cabin ...” Sam muttered.

Turning, she confronted the dark hatchway. The notion of going down there at all repelled her; if he returned and shut her in there ...

But of course that's where the water would be. Food, too, although the idea of eating was disgusting. The thought returned that if Randy came back while she was down there, he could trap her there.

The fear of what he might do with her then made her stomach roll lazily and her throat close with fright. On the other hand, there might be more than food and water down there.

Randy might've stashed a weapon, maybe even a gun. Carolyn didn't know how to shoot a gun, had in fact never even held one. She was afraid of them.

But he didn't know that. Swallowing past the cottony-thick terror that was so all-consuming it felt like it might smother her all by itself, she put both hands on the frame pieces around the hatchway opening and started down quickly, before she could lose her nerve.