Dreaming Death (Krewe of Hunters #32) - Heather Graham Page 0,103
van. In seconds, he was speeding in the direction the van had gone. He could still see it down the long, straight street. He had to get to it.
Before it reached its destination. A room somewhere with a hearth. A burning fire.
And a killer.
* * *
She woke slowly, feeling a stabbing pain in her head.
She’d been clocked hard from the rear, but she had gotten her shot off. She knew that she hadn’t hit Jean. She just hoped that she had caused Colin Smith to drop the detective.
They may have taken her, but there was a prayer that they’d left her.
She struggled to a sitting position.
She was on a table. A stainless-steel operating table. The room was dark; heavy shades covered the two windows. Through the gloom, she saw the room contained medical equipment. Another table held scalpels and saws. A fridge hummed in the corner. The killer was there. She felt him. Knew that he was coming for her.
“Ready?” Colin Smith asked.
He was standing across the room. His scalpel in his hand, and that hand raised so that the dim light caught the edge of the scalpel.
“Colin, stop messing around!” a woman hissed.
“Leave me alone,” Smith muttered. “Bitch. You’re all bitches.”
“Get on with it!” the woman’s voice said, cutting harshly through the misty smoke that filled the room.
“Just shut the hell up!” Colin Smith said. “This...this...this! Shut up! I have been waiting for this. Hey, it could have been you!” he reminded the woman who stood in the shadows. “Leave me alone. Let me do this.”
He smiled, and he took a step toward Stacey. She tried to leap from the table.
She could not.
She hadn’t realized that her hands and feet were tied, with nylon stockings, she saw.
It was a given that her gun was gone.
She could fight, but tied to the bed?
He came toward her then, smiling—knowing that she was fully aware of her position.
“Special, Special Agent! Here I come!” he told her.
* * *
Keenan had lost sight of the van somewhere around Lafayette Square. He should have been able to see it once he got to the corner, but it was as though it had disappeared. Police cars were already swarming the area, but no one had called in that they’d seen the van.
Desperate, Keenan abandoned his car and was running, seeking anywhere a van might have slipped into a parking garage. It must have got off the streets.
He saw a garage in a derelict old building—one not old enough to be historic, but old enough to be extensively restored, or bulldozed to the ground.
He headed toward the building at a run. He looked up bleakly at the many stories in the building. He had to be fast.
He realized that someone was running next to him.
His great-grandfather, along with Philip Barton Key II.
They flanked him, and he glanced from one to another.
“Fifth floor!” Bram told him.
“We think,” Philip Barton Key II said. “We noticed things like cartons containing heavy curtains, and then there was a work vehicle that arrived with soundproofing materials.”
“And there was a box labeled 507,” Bram told him.
“Thank you!”
He kept moving as fast as he could.
He had to be on time.
Her dreams were warnings, right? They were dreams that warned of what had to be stopped, and he had to stop this, now.
* * *
Stacey lashed out at Smith as he came toward her, landing a hard blow to his jaw that sent him staggering backwards.
And rebounding with a fury, wrenching at the stockings that held her.
Nylon was strong. It jerked her back to the bed.
She saw his face, saw his intention.
And saw the knife.
Then, there was a shuddering sound, a massive explosion, it seemed to Stacey.
The door burst open.
Colin Smith looked in that direction.
Keenan had arrived. Miraculously, he had arrived.
The woman jumped out of the shadows at last. She had a gun; it was aimed at Keenan.
The woman was Cindy Hardy.
She rushed at him. Keenan fired.
Cindy Hardy went down, falling onto Keenan, causing him to stagger back.
Colin Smith let out a roar of fury. He raised the scalpel high, ready to thrust it deep into Stacey’s chest.
She was desperate. She surged up the best she could, headbutting the man with all her strength.
He screamed, thrown backward, just an inch...
But it was enough.
Another shot thundered.
And Smith went down, the scalpel still in his hands, crashing into the bed, barely an inch from Stacey’s side.
She looked at Keenan. He rushed to her, ripping at the ties that bound her.