They all three greeted my arrival with glad cries. At least I assumed, from the expressions on their faces, that it was glad cries they were trying to utter through the neckties Sandie had used to gag them.

She had also used neckties to tie them up. I felt a twinge of irritation at her lack of consideration. Totally irrational, but I knew how much Michael’s ties cost, and for that matter, how pricey it was to clean them. I spotted Michael’s tie rack on the floor nearby—apparently she’d wrenched it off the wall and brought it in here. It only had a couple of ties left. Couldn’t she have used something else? Because clearly I was going to have to slice the ties off to free everyone and, assuming we all survived this, replacing Michael’s entire tie wardrobe was going to be expensive and troublesome.

I’d worry about that later, I thought. I realized that I still had the utility knife stuck in my pocket and reached for it.

Timmy seemed to think the hopping was a wonderful game, and was hopping around madly. Bad enough that I was thinking of waylaying a gun-toting criminal when the only weapon I had was a utility knife. Doing it with Timmy in harm’s way—

“Dad!” I said. “Let’s send Timmy down in the dumbwaiter. Rose Noire’s calling for help.”

Dad wriggled out of the way and, to my immense relief, Timmy was charmed with the dumbwaiter and crawled in without even being asked. I quickly sent him down ten or fifteen feet and was pulling out the utility knife to begin slashing ties when—

“Stop that! Hands up!”

We turned to see Sandie standing in the doorway, pointing the gun at us. Well, waving the gun all around in her attempt to cover all four of us.

“Drop the knife!” she snapped at me.

I followed orders.

“Get over there,” she said to Michael, waving him in our direction. “You too,” she added to Dr. Blake.

Michael hopped over to my side. Dr. Blake used more of a slow shuffle.

“Sometime today,” Sandie said.

“He’s over ninety,” I said. “That’s as fast as he goes.”

Dr. Blake gave Sandie a look that ought to have felled her, and growled something through his gag.

“Where’s the kid?” Sandie asked.

We all looked innocent. I shrugged. Sandie looked around. We might have gotten away with it if Timmy hadn’t chosen that moment to giggle.

“What’s that—a secret tunnel? Get away from there!”

We all obediently hopped, walked, or shuffled away from the dumbwaiter door. I tensed to jump her—surely while she examined the dumbwaiter and figured out how to raise the platform Timmy was on, she’d have to take her eyes off us for a few seconds.

“Uppie!” Timmy shouted from the shaft. “Want uppie!”

Sandie began shuffling around the perimeter of the room toward the dumbwaiter door. She didn’t take her eyes off us. Nor did I take mine off her. Sooner or later—