Amanda Lester and the Pink Sugar Conspiracy

by Paula Berinstein

  Chapter 33

  Trapped

  The older criminal pulled Amanda into a classroom and shoved her onto a hard wooden chair. He grabbed some duct tape from a drawer—wasn’t it convenient that it just happened to be there—and secured her mouth, wrists, and ankles. Then he threw her bag across the room so hard that it hit a wall.

  “Idiot Lestrades,” he said. “If we were able to defeat Sherlock Holmes, what chance do you people think you have? Your father thought he was so smart. What a fool. I should take you to him and show you how smart you really are, but there isn’t time. It doesn’t matter anyway. Soon this will all be over. Say, do you know that you stink? You should wash once in a while.” He eyed her with an expression so smug that it made her want to hit him, than and left the room.

  She was so furious with Nick that she wanted to scream, but all she could do was make a sort of gurgling sound. On the other hand she kind of admired him, or she would have if she hadn’t been his victim. His ancestors were dashing. Of course he would follow in their footsteps. He must lead such a glamorous life. She wondered how her own might have been different if she’d been a Moriarty. It was obvious, wasn’t it? A life filled with intrigue and challenge, with limitless opportunity for creativity.

  Except he was on the wrong side. No matter how exciting his life was he was still a bad guy. As much as she hated what her parents had done to her, hated the school, hated Lestrade and Holmes, she hated evil even more.

  But that was all moot at the moment. Right now she had to get out of these restraints and away from these people, find her father, and get back home. Home. Surely the school wasn’t that. It never would be, and yet she’d just thought of it that way. How was that possible?

  She had no idea how she was going to get out of this mess. Up to now she’d been lucky, but she couldn’t count on her luck holding. At this point in a movie, now would be the worst time, and then there would be a huge battle and the villain would be defeated and things would get better. But how could she make that happen?

  At this point in a movie. Of course. That was it. Darius Plover had told her to trust the story. What had he said? The way to get to the cause is to determine the perpetrator’s motive and work backward. If you know why, everything else will follow. It was time for the everything else. Now that she knew the truth about Nick, she’d have to figure out his motivation all over again. But if she could do that, she might be able to find a chink in his armor, or the criminals’.

  To say that the criminals’ motive was to make money was to be simplistic. You could make money by getting a job. Amanda couldn’t believe that they were all unqualified to work—Mrs. Moriarty certainly wasn’t—so there had to be another explanation. Of course in Nick’s case he was too young, so unless his family was experiencing financial problems, money probably wasn’t his motivation, or at least his primary one. Of course he might simply have been raised to be greedy. Some people were. But the original Moriarty wasn’t about that. Perhaps his descendants weren’t either.

  No, Professor Moriarty had been prideful, arrogant, and contemptuous of anyone whose intellect wasn’t as well developed as his, which meant most people. Holmes had been an exception, of course. He was every bit as clever and intelligent as Moriarty, which had made them peers, and rivals. If these Moriartys were equally brainy, they might be similarly motivated to show how smart they were at every turn.

  But what if they weren’t that smart? Or more to the point, what if Nick wasn’t . . . and knew it? What if he was insecure? She’d seen flashes of doubt once or twice when he’d stumbled in an academic exercise, but he’d been so quick to cover his gaffes that she wondered if she’d imagined it. But maybe he wasn’t so clever after all. Maybe he was just good at seeming clever.

  She thought back to a day in logic class when he had messed up. He’d fallen into the most basic trap there was, and he’d been mighty embarrassed. He’d come up with a syllogism he swore was valid: “The person who committed the crime wasn’t in the national database. The national database lists people who have committed crimes. Therefore, this was the suspect’s first crime.” His reasoning was obviously fallacious. The suspect could have committed all sorts of crimes and not been caught, not been entered into the database. Nick should have been able to see that.

  Yes! She was onto something, she was sure of it. Good old Nick Muffet might well be insecure about his place in the world and try to compensate for what he feared was a lower than Moriarty IQ. She’d seen it before, in some of the kids back in L.A. It hadn’t been about brains there. At home it was more about athletic prowess and attractiveness and how rich their parents were. But it had to be the same thing. If a kid felt inferior, he’d try to act as superior as possible.

  But there was more to it than brains. Look at the conversation Nick had just had with his father. He hadn’t been such a big man then. Here was someone he couldn’t charm, who had power over him. Maybe he resented his father, a man who questioned his intelligence, abilities, and even his loyalty. That would have to make him hopping mad.

  I’ll bet that’s it. And if that’s the case, I can use his weak points against him. Let’s say this is his internal problem. He’s running from his own inadequacy, so I’ll make him face it. I’ll turn him into such a bundle of neuroses that he’ll be paralyzed. Amanda was so pleased with herself that if she hadn’t had duct tape on her mouth, she’d have let out with a huge bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.

  Of course she couldn’t do anything until she got free. She had seen a gazillion movies in which people had been tied up and managed to escape, and she mentally went through the possibilities. The fact that her mouth was covered made it more difficult because she couldn’t call out and trick one of the criminals into freeing her. But surely there were other options.

  For some bizarre reason, her first inclination was to pull her thumb out of its socket and make her hand smaller so she could extract it from the restraint. This was a most unappealing alternative and she decided to make it a last resort. Maybe there was another way to shrink her hands or feet so she could pull them out.

  One possibility was to make them colder. She couldn’t see a way to do that, though. There was no refrigerator or freezer in the room, not even an electric fan, and certainly no chemicals that would produce a cold effect, so that didn’t seem like the most viable idea.

  The next alternative was to find something to cut the duct tape with. That seemed a much easier approach. The fact that her hands were stuck behind her back was going to complicate any moves she might come up with, but there might be something in the room she could use. If she could just slip her arms around whatever it was and saw through the tape, she might free her hands.

  She looked around. It was a run of the mill classroom, with desks and chairs and a lectern for the teacher, a large flat screen on the front wall, a radiator, and blinds over the windows, which she could swear were underground anyway. There might be something in the back of the lectern, but other than that Amanda couldn’t see anything that looked promising. You can’t saw through duct tape with a chair leg.

  What else could she think of? If all else failed, she’d find a way to get to that lectern and look around the back, but there might be something better. She didn’t have any hairpins or barrettes and she wasn’t wearing any jewelry, not that that would have helped. If only there were a scissors or a knife . . . wait a minute. Her bag! There was a scissors in her evidence kit. If only she could get to where Nick’s father had thrown it.

  Fortunately the man had been in too much of a hurry to bind her to the chair, so she could stand up and kind of shuffle. That strategy didn’t prove very effective, though. Each move took her only half an inch forward and made her unsteady. As she edged forward she lost her balance and started to fall. Fortunately at the last second she was able to twist toward a desk and fall against it with her side rather than splatting on the floor.

  There had to be a better way. Maybe she could lower herself to the floor slowl
y and roll herself to her bag. Or she could jump. She thought jumping would be easier, so she bent her knees and pushed off. That seemed to work nicely so she continued jumping around the room, almost losing her balance again twice, until she was next to her bag.

  Now the task was to grasp the bag and bring it up onto a desk, or alternatively she would have to mess with it on the floor. In either case she’d have to bend down, so she went for the first option to ensure that she wouldn’t have to sit on the floor, which wasn’t that clean. Once again she bent her knees, but this time she did a deep plie and grabbed the bag from behind, then hopped over to a desk and placed it on top.

  Her muscles were starting to ache, and she hoped it wouldn’t take too long to cut the duct tape and stretch them. She rummaged around in the bag until she caught hold of the evidence kit and tugged on the zipper once, twice, three times. It wouldn’t budge. “This is not a great time to stick, zipper,” she said. After about five tries, she started to panic. “Look, zipper, stop playing games. I’ve got to get inside. Please let me in.” Nothing. The zipper would not oblige. “Stupid, stupid zipper. Move, will you?” This kind of talk apparently did not endear her to the zipper and it held firm. “You idiotic thing! Don’t you know how important this is? You’re fired!” She flashed back to all her difficulties with actors and had to smile in spite of herself. “Okay, zipper, if that’s how you want to play it, fine. I’ll hire someone else.”

  What else did she have in her bag? Money, tissues, gum, sunglasses, and a sticky phone. Not much good there, except wait a minute: the glass on her phone was broken. She could feel it. The elder Moriarty must have thrown her bag so hard that the phone hit the wall and smashed. She could use this.

  She carefully extracted the phone from the bag. The broken glass was as sharp as she’d hoped and a piece had fallen off. If she could find that bit she could use it as a cutting edge. She stuck her hands back in the bag and felt around. There it was, a piece of glass about an inch at the longest part. It was awfully small for the job but it would have to do.

  She grasped the piece of glass and twisted her wrist upward so it would touch the tape. This didn’t work well at all until she realized that if she twisted both wrists and pressed them to the small of her back, she could actually get the glass into the right position. Gradually she was able to make a small cut, then another, and soon her wrists were free. She tore the tape from her mouth (ouch) and then released her feet. Boy, was she stiff. She looked at the clock on the wall. Ten-thirty. She would have to find Nick fast.

  She opened the door and edged out. There he was, still in the hall, or perhaps again, talking to a beautiful dark-skinned girl who was obviously impressed with whatever he was saying, and him. Amanda could barely stand to look.

  Suddenly the girl looked at her and said, “Who’s that?” Nick whirled around and saw her. For about a second he looked surprised, and then his face hardened.

  “What are you doing here, Amanda? Come with me,” he said, grabbing her and pulling her back into the classroom.

  “I have to talk to you,” she said. His grip was as strong as his father’s.

  “There’s nothing to say. This doesn’t concern you. How did you get away anyhow?”

  “Nick, listen to me. Please.”

  “I have no interest in anything you have to say, Lestrade. I’m calling my father right now.” He reached into his pocket.

  “Wait, please. I have something important to say.” She tried not to plead. Don’t show weakness.

  For just an instant, she saw a flicker of the old Nick, the Nick she knew, a tiny spark of interest, and then it was gone. “Shut up,” he said, squeezing harder.

  “What if I said I want to join you?” she said, trying not to wince. “Join your group.”

  “That’s rich, Amanda. How stupid do you think I am?” His handsome face wasn’t looking so handsome now.

  “I don’t think you’re stupid. I’ve always thought you were brilliant.” This she meant. She’d always been impressed with his brain. Now she knew why.

  “Good luck with that one, Amanda. You’re as transparent as the glass on your phone.”

  “That’s not so transparent anymore. And I’m not. I mean, yes, I am. What you see is what you get.”

  “Shut your trap. Too much talking.” He let go of her arm and went to stab something into his phone. She stopped him with a gentle touch. He recoiled.

  “Do you remember what I said about Professor Moriarty? I think he’s awesome. I wasn’t making that up. Remember?” This was the truth as well and Nick knew it. The hand holding the phone relaxed almost imperceptibly.

  “You know how I feel about my parents and Lestrade. I never wanted to be a detective. I told you that from the beginning.”

  “So what?”

  “So this. You and I are alike. Think about it. We believe in the same things. We don’t want to be like everyone else. We’re creative, we’re rebellious, we take pride in what we do. I belong here, with people like that. With you.”

  There was that spark again. Just a nanosecond. “Go on.”

  “You and I have skills your people need. We’re wasted on the detectives. They don’t understand us. They’re locked into old ways of doing things. They’re not going to change. But here we can have influence. Whoever would have thought of making weapons out of sugar? It’s brilliant. Think of all the cool new ideas we can make happen here, with people who will appreciate us. You know I’m right.”

  Nick was quiet for a very long time. Then he put his phone in his pocket and said, “Prove it.”

  “Prove it?”

  “Yes. If this is what you really want, you won’t mind showing us.”

  “Sure. Anything.” It was working.

  “I want you to kill someone.”

  Amanda started but caught herself. Of course there was no way she was going to kill anyone, but she had to play along.

  “I want you to kill your father,” said Nick.