Chapter 25
The bottle shattered. The gun went off, and splinters exploded off of some wooden surface. Raine barreled into him, deafened. They hurtled together down to the bottom of the landing.
Ed hit the wall hard, and she was savagely pleased at the thud, his heavy grunt. There was no time to savor it, though— in a split second she bounced off him and half-tumbled, half-slid down the rest of the stairs, bumpity- bump, thud. She bounced up and sprinted through the kitchen, seizing objects at random and hurling them at him.
The toaster bounced off his shoulder, the blender missed him and smashed against the wall. She darted into the office, spun around and almost got him with a stereo speaker. He ducked and dodged her missiles, screaming something, but she couldn't understand what he said, because she was screaming too, as if pure sound could be a weapon. All the rage she'd ever tried to control came rushing out in a shrill, endless, crazy shriek. She felt capable of any violence, any madness or folly.
He thundered after her into the office. Now he was between her and the other exit. She was boxed in, brainless idiot that she was. No chance now of outrunning him outdoors. She grabbed a sports trophy off the bookshelf and flung it. He shielded his face, cursing as it bounced off his elbow, and charged her again, his face purple with trapped blood.
She shimmied behind the big desk with all the computer equipment, shoving it away from the wall to give her more room. The wild, manic energy had begun to ebb. Fear was sinking its claws in again. She threw everything that came to hand: notebooks, software manuals, a modem. A rain of paper clips and tacks, a handful of loose CDs. She yanked a handful of pencils and pair of scissors out of a heavy jar, flung it. He dodged the jar. The pencils bounced and skittered harmlessly off his coat. He dove across the desk, and jerked back with a shout when she stabbed at his hands with the scissors.
Ed seized the desk. It squealed across the floor as he slammed it into her hip painfully hard, squashing her against the wall. He lunged across the desk again, dodging her frantic stabs with the scissors.
'You stupid bitch,” he panted. 'Tm not going to hurt you.”
“No, you're going to kill me” she panted “And I won't let you.”
“Shut up!” he shouted. “I'm not supposed to kill you! If I had wanted to kill you, believe me, you would be dead! I was supposed to take you to Novak.”
“Novak?” She froze, clutching the scissors like a dagger.
He gave her an evil, openmouthed smile, panting and pressing his hand against his belly. She could smell his sour, fetid breath all the way across the wide desk. “Yeah. Novak. He wants you, honey. I don't think he's planning on killing you, either, at least not at first. He's got other things in mind for you. Lucky girl. You know, I was feeling kind of sorry for you before, but it’s funny... I don't feel so sorry any more.”
He wrenched the desk away from me wall. Raine scrambled backwards, tripping over the tangle of dusty electrical
cords and stumbling into the corner. “It was you who attacked me last night at my house, wasn't it, Ed?” she hissed. “I recognize your stink.”
A crazy grin split his distorted face. “Ooh, that cuts me to the quick, honey. What a little charmer.” He wrenched the desk out farther, and the electrical cords attached to the power strip behind the desk began to stretch and pull. “Suffering Christ,” he muttered, his lips curling back in disgust. “You look exactly like your slut of a mother.”
Those words gave her the jolt she needed. She grabbed the monitor just before it toppled onto the tangle of cords, heaved it to chest height, and launched it at him with her last burst of panicked energy.
His eyes widened, and his arms flew up. He winced when it hit his chest and stumbled back, trying to catch the thing before it fell on his feet. She seized her chance and reached out, blindly scrabbling for the first thing she touched, which proved to be the fax machine. He was lunging at her again, and she spun around, swinging the thing up in a sidewise arc. Bashing it against the side of his head.
“I am so
He blinked stupidly. The sudden silence was startling. He toppled slowly, like a tree, and bore her down beneath him. She hit the wall behind her painfully hard with her sore shoulders, and slid down onto her butt with him on top of her, his head lolling heavily against her neck. A rivulet of blood snaked down his cheekbone.
She lay there for a few moments, shaking and crying, but it was way too soon to start sniveling and falling apart, with Connor lying still and quiet outside and Seth racing towards a cliff with doom in his pocket, thanks to her. She heaved and struggled and finally scrambled out from under Ed's dead weight, unwinding herself from the tangle of cords.
She clambered over him, recoiling from the necessity of touching his body. She was shaking so hard, she fell down again, almost onto her face. She noticed, remotely, that her arm was bleeding. Quite a lot, but she couldn't be bothered with it now.
First, Ed's gun. She searched through the rubble on hands and knees, sifting through the clutter with trembling fingers. She found it beneath the desk, a Glock 17. She stuck it into the back of her too-tight jeans. It was cold and hard, and extremely uncomfortable.
She stared down at Ed. He was breathing, and he had a pulse, which meant he could come to and attack her again. Villains always did in thriller movies. She'd better not take any chances.
She grabbed him by the feet and dragged him clear of all the fallen equipment, panting and whimpering with the effort it took to heave him out from behind the desk. She stumbled into the kitchen and rummaged through the drawers for rope, twine, anything.
She found a roll of duct tape, and raced back to the office, strapping his wrists behind his back first, men his ankles. She did his knees for good measure, and then bent his knees back and taped his wrists to his ankles. She ran outside, wondering if she might have overdone it.
Thank God, Connor was already sitting up, touching the side of his head with cautious fingers. She dropped to her knees beside him.
“Are you OK?”
He winced at her loud voice, “What the fuck?”
“Your boss hit you with his gun. Then he attacked me. He was supposed to take me to Novak.”
Connor gave her a dubious sideways look.
“Believe me, I don't have time to make up stories,” Raine snapped. “Come on, I'll help you into the kitchen.”
She retrieved his cane and hooked her arm around his waist, steadying him as he got to his feet. “Ed's in the office
“Ed?” His eyes narrowed.
“We've met,” she explained. “Seventeen years ago, when he killed my dad. And again, in my house last night. He was the first ski mask.”
“Ah,” he murmured, as she pulled the door open for him. “You've been busy while I was napping.”
There was a bag of cotton balls and antiseptic ointment lying on the kitchen table. She grabbed a wad of cotton, dosed it with gel and picked her way into the war-torn office. Connor was staring at Ed.
“You mummified him,” he commented.
Raine parted Connor's shaggy dark blond hair and dabbed at the bloody spot on his skull.
He jerked away. “Ow! I can do that!” He grabbed the wad of cotton. He looked down at Ed, then back at her. “How did you do it?”
She hugged herself, shivering. “I clobbered him with your fax machine,” she admitted.
“I see.”
“He insulted my mother,” she added. As if she needed to justify herself.
“Remind me never to insult your mother,” Connor said.
