Midnight Hero - By Diana Duncan Page 0,74

him. She had scissors and a razor in her pack, but he was twice her size. Even if she could reach the weapons, he outweighed her by at least eighty pounds. Even if she knew how to fight, hand-to-hand combat was futile.

Best case scenario: she’d delay the inevitable.

She firmed her chin. But she could, and would fight to the death rather than submit to rape. Heat surged into her frozen limbs. As he dragged her toward him, she reached out, snagged a dangling cord and tugged a monitor off the shelf.

The monitor crashed to the floor and imploded, a seventeen-inch bomb spewing plastic and glass shards.

“Dammit!” Her attacker leapt aside to avoid getting his foot broken, and released her hair.

She ran down the aisle toward the front of the store, yanking cords as she went. Fear and her momentum empowered her. Reach, grab, pull! Monitors, keyboards, printers fell and shattered behind her. Pandemonium strewed in her wake. A tangle of glass, plastic and wires for him to hurdle.

He swore and scrabbled behind her. His hands snatched at her clothing. She swerved and sprinted toward the end of the aisle. Reaching her goal, she whirled and shoved over a big screen TV. The deafening explosion probably jolted the dead in the mortuary down the street. Her notebook tally was gonna go into triple columns.

Disoriented by darkness, terror and the fight-or-flight reflex ricocheting through her, she couldn’t find the exit. Panting, she hurtled around a corner and crouched behind an entertainment armoire. She tried to slow her rasping breaths and pounding heart enough to hear her pursuer. Where was he?

Footsteps, crunching glass sounded twenty feet behind her. Con was right. Sound was a dead giveaway. Con. Crushing pain swamped her, and she fought it. She couldn’t, wouldn’t speculate about Con’s fate now. She had to believe he was still alive. Had to get to him. If he was wounded, she was his only hope.

“I like party games, Fairy.” The robber’s words vibrated with amusement and sick excitement.

Great. A whack job. You didn’t have to be psychotic to rob banks, but it probably helped during the killing part. Cold sweat dampened Bailey’s skin as she weighed her options. Hide. Run. Attack. None seemed particularly feasible. Or likely to succeed.

“Come out, come out,” he cajoled in an eerie singsong, sounding closer.

She crawled along the floor, feeling to make sure she wouldn’t tread on debris and give away her position.

“Wherever you are…” His boots crunched on the broken glass.

Definitely closer!

She glanced up. There! Thirty feet ahead, the gloom lessened. The mall exit! Still crawling, she crept forward.

The robber’s footsteps followed. She heard his ragged breathing. Imagined she smelled onions. Locked in the deadly game of cat and mouse, fear threatened to strangle her. Render her helpless. She’d used humane traps to deport rodents from the bookstore, but after crawling a scary mile in their little pink feet, sympathy for the critters churned inside her.

“I’ll find you, Fairy.” Closer still. “And make you pay.”

Her fingertips brushed a metal strip, then carpet. Yes! The front of the store was carpeted. Hunkered behind another big-screen TV—intact, for now—she eased off the pack. As carefully as if she were disarming a nuclear bomb, she reached inside and lifted out the retractable clothesline from the camping store. One small, revealing noise could get her killed.

“Now I’m bored,” the robber complained.

He was about ten feet behind her, but he’d veered to the right. With any luck, she might have enough time. Though her brain screamed, hurry, she crawled slowly around the TV. Looping the clothesline, she tied a secure knot.

“I hate being bored.” He shoved something and it crashed to the floor.

She flinched. Wonderful. The whacko was now a really ticked off whacko.

Trailing the clothesline behind her, she crawled parallel to the exit until she reached the opposite side of the store.

The robber swore again. “Did you somehow sneak past me?” His rapid boot steps crunched toward her.

She quickly pulled the clothesline tight and looped the other end around a heavy metal filing cabinet. Shin high, the tightly strung plastic rope made a perfect tripwire.

Bailey re-shouldered her pack, shoved to her feet and tore into the mall.

The robber shouted. He’d seen her! His running footsteps followed.

She’d sprinted five yards along the railing edge of the balcony when he yelled, cursed and a thud vibrated the floor. She risked a quick look backward. Her pursuer lay spread-eagled on the faux marble like a sacrificial victim staked out on an anthill.

Ha. Never underestimate