He chittered in annoyance, then corrected me. “I am a man, thank you very much.”
“He's a man,” I translated, keeping my affect flat.
Denise gawked at the two of us with wide, unblinking eyes. It looked as though she wanted to say something, but only a raspy croak escaped her throat.
"So anyway,” the master bandit continued. "Some giant, hairy dog showed up at the house, all panting and excited and saying you'd been carried off. I knew right then and there that it would be up to me to save the day."
I nodded my appreciation and would've hugged him if I hadn't still been tied to my seat.
"He led me back through the woods and now here I am. You miss me?" He smiled, showing off his pointy canines.
"More than you'll ever know," I told him, not caring if I was gushing. I would never punish him for stepping foot in the house again. Not only that, but I would keep him well fed with Fancy Feast, or Delectable Delights, or whatever he wanted. I wasn't above groveling, and I would also make sure to pay my debts, no matter how Pringle wanted them paid.
"I'm so glad you came," I told him. "They're planning to kill me."
"Well, that's a bit extreme," the raccoon observed, then turned toward Denise, taking several quick steps forward.
She pushed herself against the wall, still immobilized from fear.
"Were you really going to kill my neighbor?" he asked, squinting his eyes at her. "That's not very nice!"
Not very nice? Since when had Pringle begun to sound like Paisley? Personally, I had lots of words to describe the Thompsons’ plan for me and none of them were anywhere near that mild.
“You think you can untie me?" I couldn't take the chance that Denise would gather her bearings and make a run for the gun. No, I needed to be able to fight for myself when the time came.
And, already, I knew that it would.
"You're really impatient, you know that?" Pringle remarked with a nasally twang as he returned to my side, grabbed one of the larger shards of glass, and began to saw at my binds.
"Don't even give a guy a minute to relax. Do you know how far I had to run to get here? Ungrateful humans..." He let out a huff of air, and as he continued his work, he chattered along, whether to himself or to me, I wasn't quite sure.
"Anyway, I ran, and I ran. Do you know how deep the snow is out there? And that dog kept talking about pee. Dogs, I tell you. What weird creatures."
Just then, Marco got up from his napping spot by the armchair. I was surprised the ruckus hadn't roused him before.
"Oh, great. Here's another one," Pringle spat. "I'm up to my elbows in canines!”
“Speaking of, where's Cujo?" I asked, feeling one of the threads of twine holding me snap.
"Heck if I know," Pringle answered, continuing his work. "We got close enough for me to smell you for myself. Then the two of us parted ways. He said his job was done, informed me that he's a good boy and that he was going now. But me? I figured I might as well come and see. So what's going on, by the way?"
I swallowed back a sigh. I couldn't appear ungrateful. Not now.
"They kidnapped me and are threatening the mayor so that he'll resign. Then they're going to kill me," I summarized, hating the fact that these words were even coming out of my mouth—let alone that they were true.
"So if the mayor doesn't give in, they're gonna off ya?" Pringle asked, tugging on the rope and then resuming his work with the glass shard.
"Actually they plan to kill me either way."
"Wow. I really do not like this lady. Is it okay if I bite her? Give her a little rabies maybe?”
"Pringle, you do not have rabies,” I chastised him. Talk about spreading negative stereotypes. “But yes, you can bite her."
"Lovely," he said, at last delivering the finishing slash to the ropes.
I yanked my hands in front of me and rubbed at my wrists where they’d gone raw.
Free! This felt so good.
Now I just had to… Oh no.
Denise had finally begun to move again, and she was rushing right to the gun. I moved as quick as I could, throwing myself halfway across the room, but I already knew I’d lost.
Chapter Nineteen
I didn’t reach the gun first, but neither did Denise.
Pringle stood on the side table, clutching the gun to his chest as if it were a precious child. Given his size, the simple handgun looked more like a powerful rifle.
“Wheee, look at me! I’m the terminator!” He flipped the semi-automatic around and pointed it toward the fireplace. “I’ll be back, baby! Hasta la pasta!”
My heart thudded behind my ribcage. I didn’t want Denise to have a gun, but it was every bit as dangerous in Pringle’s paws. “Put the gun down,” I pleaded, too afraid to ask him to hand it to me directly.
“What do you mean put it down? I just got it! This is awesome! Seriously, how cool do I look right now?” He squinted one eye shut and brought his furry fingers to the trigger and—
The bullet flew right for the stone fireplace, tore through the flames, and then ricocheted back into the cabin.
“Duck!” I shouted, throwing myself to the floor as the bullet shattered another of the windows and disappeared into the snowy wilderness outside.
Denise gasped for air loudly and repeatedly. If I hadn’t heard the bullet exit through the window, I’d have worried she’d been hit. Instead, she seemed to be having a panic attack.
Unlike my captor, I’d been in dangerous scrapes plenty of times before—never with an armed rodent, but still.
I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the pain in my hands and wrists.
Pringle was staring down the barrel of his gun as if a peek inside would explain how the firing mechanism had just been triggered. If I tried to take it from him, it would probably go off again. I had to talk us out of this one, but first there was something else I needed.
In the rush for the handgun, Denise had forgotten her other asset—a working cell phone. I yanked it off the table and punched in a call to emergency services.
“What are you doing?” Denise cried. “No!”
“What’s your emergency?” the operator on the other end of the line asked, but before I could answer, the gun fired a second time.
Denise screamed, and I spun myself around, expecting to find a dead woman, a dead raccoon, or both.
What I found truly surprised me. The golden retriever had pounced on Pringle, knocking the gun from the raccoon’s furry, little hands. “Guns are for hunting. Not for hurting,” he warned with a growl that bared his teeth.
I’d never seen a retriever look quite so menacing. Apparently it took a lot to send him into attack dog mode—or more precisely a rogue raccoon with a gun.
Marco snarled, the long sandy hair on his back rising at the hackles.
Denise continued to hyperventilate and cry.
Pringle chittered from his place beneath the much larger dog’s paws. “You’re not going to kill me. Are you? Look, I’m one of the good guys. You can tell by my charming smile. See.” He raised his gums and showed his teeth, which the dog took as a threat.
Marco reared back, then lunged for Pringle’s throat. No!
CRASH!
Another furry figure crashed through the window. This time it was Cujo, and he did not look happy.
“So it was your pee I smelled,” he told the golden. “I should have known you were a no-good useless—“
“Quiet!” Marco snapped. “I’m the first dog of Glendale, and I will not be talked to that way!”
“Unhand that raccoon. He’s not a villain. He’s a hero!”
“Then why does he have a gun?”
“It’s true. He was saving me! She’s the one who was going to kill me!” I pointed at Denise, who sat rocking in the corner looking completely unthreatening.
“Her?” Marco whined. “But she gave me treats. Two treats! How can she be bad?”