Читать книгу The Silent Witness - Dani Sinclair - Страница 12

“He knows where you are!”

The five words on the other end of the phone caused her stomach muscles to contort violently. She continued peering out the window at the street below straining to see. Was someone lurking in the doorway of the small appliance store across the street? His words made it more than likely. The darkened shop made it impossible to tell for sure.

“He can’t know.”

“I’m telling you, he knows. It’s all coming unraveled. We have to talk, right away!”

Her mind twisted, looking for a way out. A movement caught her attention. Someone was watching from the shadows across the street. She was pretty sure she knew who that someone was. She turned from the window, bumping her already bruised arm and nearly stepping on Nicki’s cat. She ignored the pain and the animal. If he was right, she was no longer safe. Not here. Not anywhere.

“How soon can you meet me behind the craft store on Main Street?”

“Two minutes,” he said, sounding surprised. “I’m at the restaurant.”

“Hurry.”

She disconnected but continued to clutch the phone’s portable handset like a lifeline. Reaching for her purse, she almost knocked the bowl of fresh flowers off the coffee table. The heavy weight of the gun inside the soft leather bag reassured her. She pulled out the weapon, staring at the dull, ugly metal. No matter. Ugly, but deadly. No one would add new bruises to her body with this in her hand.

She blocked the cat when it tried to escape into the night. Shutting the door, she hurried as she descended the back stairs over the shop as quietly as possible. It was nearly nine o’clock. Nicki would be closing the craft store any minute now. She must be gone before Nicki headed upstairs to the apartment for the night.

She reached the darkness of the alley and the parking lot behind the shops and stopped. Her lips formed a curse. She held Nicki’s telephone. Her own cell phone sat on the hall table by the door. She’d have to go back for it.

A car engine shattered the silence of the moonless night. The vehicle swung around the corner and entered the alley. There was no time to go back for her telephone now. Yet, even as she hurried forward, instinct screamed that she wasn’t alone. Someone else shared the darkness of the alley.

The car stopped in front of her only a few feet away. Now or never. It was too late for second thoughts. She really had no options left at all.

She stepped from the deep shadows.

The explosive sound of the barrage of gunshots seemed to echo off the walls of the old brick buildings. She turned to run. Her fingers punched 911 into the phone she still held.

“Emergency operator. Do you need police, fire or medical assistance?”

She reached the stairs. A figure rose from between two parked cars. She fired the gun in her hand at the shape, and knew she had missed. He ducked, but she had seen him—just as he had seen her. She fled up the stairs and back inside the apartment. The handset dropped from her fingers, bouncing across the carpeting. She grabbed her cell phone and plunged through the front door. Her heart hammered in her throat as her fingers pressed the now familiar number.