me hard in its teeth. What if it wasn’t Jeeves? What if they’d sent someone like Bruiser to get me?
I snatched up a vase, dumped out the cut-flower arrangement, and jumped behind the door. It opened without hesitation, and I didn’t hesitate to attack.
The guy who came in was considerably taller than Jeeves. The vase glanced off the back of his skull and smashed on his shoulders. He hit the deck and didn’t get up as a dark wetness soaked his blue dress shirt.
Sweet Saint Gertrude, I’d killed him.
No. It was only the water from the vase. The guy sprawled on the floor was better-looking than Jeeves and considerably younger. Like maybe twenty-one. Twenty-two at the outside limit. They’d sent an intern to collect me.
I hadn’t thought as far as what I’d do next, but running seemed smart. I burst out of the Four Seasons prison cell into a wide hallway with a high ceiling and hardwood floors, polished smooth and dust-free. The walls were painted a warm, sandy color, and there was art. Real art. I thought I recognized a Remington landscape, and at a glance, it didn’t look like a print.
Alexis might be in the building somewhere, but there was no convenient clue where I could find her. Just the endless House Beautiful hallway. The sound of big, heavy somebodies approaching from the left, however, was a pretty big hint I should run the other way, so I did.
That hall dead-ended at another one, and I picked a direction at random, feeling like a rat in a Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous maze. The corridor made another turn, and dude, this place was huge.
A billiard room. A den or library. Then an invitingly dark room, which turned out to be a freaking movie theater. I dove behind a row of cushy chairs, holding my breath until I heard two linebackers go by.
This was not a good plan. The house was too big to randomly search for Alexis. I couldn’t even find the stairs. But if I did, and I managed to get out, I could bring back help.
I crept to the door, and after a quick check of the hall, doubled back the way I’d come, running as quietly as possible. Except when I rounded the maze corner back to that first hall, there was a wet and cranky henchman intern in my way.
He raised his hands in the international gesture for halt right there. He may have actually said “Stop!” but I had escape ringing in my ears, so I accelerated to ramming speed.
He probably had fifty pounds on me, mostly height and shoulders, but I had inertia and surprise on my side. I knocked him out of my way and kept going.
But now I’d pissed him off, and he was fast, with really long legs, even longer than mine. Before I got to the end of the hall with its glimpse (finally!) of stairs, he grabbed me from behind, arms wrapped around mine.
“Calm down,” he said in my ear. “I don’t want to hurt—”
The rest was just a grunt of pain as I slammed my elbow—and I have really pointy elbows—into his ribs. He doubled over with a wheeze but still had a grip on me, so I kicked him in the instep and he let go.
But only for a second. The bastard even limped fast.
He grabbed me again, but our feet tangled up and we tumbled forward. I braced for impact, and for all that guy to come down and snap me like a twig, but at the last instant, he twisted to take the brunt of the crash onto the hardwood floor. It knocked the wind out of him, but he was a tough bastard, so as I squirmed out of his hold I kneed him in the groin just to make sure he stayed down.
I have really pointy knees, too.
Bruised and breathless, I left him in a groaning heap on the floor and ran for the stairs. On my way down I met Jeeves on his way up, my cup of coffee on a tiny tray in his left hand.
“Sorry,” I said, breezing past. “Can’t stay for refreshments.”
The butler didn’t say anything. He just grabbed my hand as I went by, and with some twist of physics, mechanics, or magic, I was suddenly pinned to the wall, my arm twisted up behind me, utterly unable to move.
Jeeves hadn’t even spilled the coffee. “I apologize, Miss Goodnight,” he said with unflappable courtesy. “Hell