phone. Hagan wondered if anxiousness could travel like a yawn. It sure as hell wasn’t going away.
“Slow, huh.” She moved next to him and locked her hand with his.
Their floor would be the next stop, but she was correct. The phone guy stepped toward the door. Amanda squeezed Hagan’s hand. Something wasn’t right. She felt it too.
“Hey, man,” Hagan said as they approached their stop. “This your floor?”
Because it wasn’t the number he’d pressed.
The elevator stopped. The man held his phone to the doors. It attached like a magnet.
“Shit.” Hagan yanked Amanda behind him. Cornered.
The doors whirred each time they tried to open. The high-pitch squeal of an alarm warned there was a problem.
“We’re leaving with the girl,” the man at the door said. “She won’t be harmed.”
Behind him, Amanda stepped out of her heels like she was ready to run. His fists curled by his sides. “Like hell.”
The second man removed a plastic tube. Hagan took a second glance. Who brought a straw to a fistfight? Then his stomach bottomed out. A pressurized tranquilizer triggered in a dart. He had no choice but to leave Amanda exposed. Hagan lunged for Dart Man.
Speed had always been an asset. But even with that, Hagan didn’t have the upper hand. Everything he knew about tranquilizer darts had come from Sawyer’s obsession with veterinarian docudramas. The Whale Wrestler. King of the Cobras. Whatever else. If those crazy-ass doctors heralded tranq guns as their most dangerous waiting accident, Hagan didn’t like his odds against a camel tranquilizer.
He smashed Dart Man’s arm overhead. Phone Dude attacked from behind, wrapping a chokehold around Hagan’s neck and drilling a fist into his kidney. Blinding pain paralyzed him. His dominant hand weakened on Dart Man’s wrist.
Hagan gasped for air and slammed his skull back. Phone Dude howled and cursed. A broken nose wouldn’t give him too much of a reprieve, but at least he could breathe.
Dart Man struggled to aim. Hagan wrenched the straw arm until the shoulder dislocated. The tranquilizer dropped. Hagan crushed it under his heel.
“Hagan!”
He spun. Phone Dude yanked the cap off a tranquilizer dart with his mouth and spat it—Amanda used her high heel shoe to whack him in the face. The dart whizzed through their cramped quarters and pinged against the ceiling, plummeting toward Hagan and Dart Man.
Hagan dove. Dart Man grabbed his knee. Hagan twisted and caught the man’s head between his knees and squeezed. Oxygen depleting, Dart Man still thrashed. The passing seconds moved too slow as the other man reached for Amanda. She held her arms out to block the attack.
“Amanda!” Hagan released the limp man and rolled over, staggering to his feet.
Her arms collapsed under the man’s weight. He pinned her to the wall—then Hagan understood. Amanda gripped his shirt and pulled, driving her knee into Phone Dude’s groin. Like Hagan, he hadn’t expected the shot. Phone Dude buckled and stumbled. Hagan finished him off with a right uppercut.
“Talk about teamwork.” Hagan tore away the phone that connected the doors.
Amanda stepped over the bodies. “Think you did the heavy lifting.”
The elevator doors slid open, and the alarm turned off. Two janitors with a ladder and tools gaped, slack-jawed as Hagan and Amanda ran by.
“That shoe move, though.”
She laughed. “I can’t believe you’re making jokes.”
“Comes with the job.” They stopped at the newlywed suite. He pulled the keycard out of his wallet and let them in. “Though normally I know who’s trying to kill me.”
“Guess that’s the difference between you and me.”
They shoved the few items that weren’t already packed into their suitcases, erased anything that could identify them and hauled ass for the airport.
***
Amanda and Hagan walked into the airport, hand in hand, like their covers and like lovers. After a hasty pitstop to change, they’d all but obliterated any hint of the ordeal they’d been in. Blood-smeared clothes and disheveled hair were gone. They seemed like everyone else, ready for a trip. But no one’s mind raced like hers.
She had too many questions. Who and why should’ve been on top of the list. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the store with the different name. She had no idea what the connection was, and she wouldn’t be able to discuss it with Hagan until they made it through security.
They stopped in front of the ticket counters. Hagan searched for a way out of Lebanon on his phone, keeping a hand on her as if she might float away until he needed to reach for his wallet.
“I won’t go