Star Witness - By Mallory Kane Page 0,36
from there, and fast. I need to see how many other entrances there are.”
His words were cut off by a sharp, ricocheting sound. “They’re trying to shoot the lock. They gave up on forcing the metal door open.”
“The lock’s a Schlage,” Dani said. “It’ll take them forever to break it by shooting at it.”
“It’s a what?”
“A Schlage. The strongest and most reliable padlock in the world. Granddad had Schlage locks on every door. When you’ve tried to pick one, you develop a healthy respect for them.”
Several rounds fired within a few seconds. Each one ricocheted just like the first. Then they heard more shouting.
“Maybe one of them caught a ricochet,” she said hopefully.
“Maybe it’s the boss, telling them to surround the building,” Harte replied.
“Surround?” she said in surprise. “How many men do you think are out there? I only saw three.”
“I think there are four, unless there’s another vehicle. I don’t think so, though. I can’t believe these guys can still maneuver that car out there, with all the wind and rain. Come on. We need to find a place to hide.”
“Why can’t we just wait here until they give up and then sneak back out this door?”
“If I were the boss, I’d find the freight door and try to ram it with the car.” He took her hand and started forward, into the blackness.
As soon as she put out her hand, it bumped a solid, rounded surface in front of her. “Oh, wait. I’ve got a flashlight,” Dani said, fishing in her purse. “I forgot about it.”
She felt him shrug. Then he said, “You’ve got a lot of stuff in that purse, don’t you?”
She couldn’t help chuckling. “You have no idea.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
She pulled the flashlight out and turned it on. The narrow beam shone on a massive, gaping red-and-blue mouth lined with dozens of sharp white teeth. It loomed over her, poised to rip her apart. She stared into the gaping maw, a shriek ripping its way past her tight throat.
After a moment of paralyzing fear, she whirled and grasped at Harte’s shirt as she tried to suck air into lungs that felt collapsed with terror. She held on to him with all her might.
Harte pulled her close and took the flashlight from her numb fingers. A noise like laughter rumbled up from his chest. Laughter? Carefully, she turned her head enough to peek back at the thing that had nearly attacked her.
Harte shone the flashlight’s beam over the monster’s dreadful eyes, gleaming white teeth and garish slashes of color. Her knee-jerk reaction was to bury her face in the hollow of his shoulder. But there was something familiar about the garish face. Her cheeks began to warm as she figured out what she was looking at.
Harte laughed out loud. “I’ve heard about these, but I’ve never seen one,” he said, chuckling. “We’re in a warehouse used to store Mardi Gras floats.”
She unclenched her fists from his shirt and turned around. Slowly, with Harte shining the flashlight around, the nightmarish bloody beasts morphed into the familiar fiberglass, crepe paper and feather decorations she’d seen in every Mardi Gras parade.
The awful mouth with its razor-sharp teeth that had threatened to devour her belonged to a colorful Chinese dragon head mounted on the front end of a brightly painted double-decker float dripping with gold, purple and green Mardi Gras beads.
Next to the dragon was a gigantic leprechaun face topped with a kelly-green hat. She remembered seeing both floats in last year’s parade.
Similar garish and vaguely disturbing shapes stretched beyond them until they melted into the darkness. Even though she knew what they were now, the back of her throat still fluttered with fading terror and she couldn’t stop shivering. “This can’t be Mardi Gras World?”
He shook his head, still chuckling. “No. You’ve seen Mardi Gras World, right? It’s a museum. This is just a storage warehouse.”
“Stop laughing,” she snapped. “I was scared.”
“Sorry,” he responded, but the amused tone was still there. “Shh,” he said. “Listen.”
She did. The shooting and banging had stopped. “I don’t hear anything.”
“I think they’ve abandoned that door,” he said.
“You think they’re looking for the freight door?”
“It’s what I would do. If I only had four men, I’d leave one at the door we came in and the rest of us would look for the best way to break in...” As he talked, he fished his phone from his pocket and flipped it open. “I’ve still got nothing.” He pressed a couple of buttons.